Uncover The Bottom Line How Much Does Five Below Pay Per Hour In Florida

Working at a Discount Retailer in Florida: The Pay Reality

I spent three years working floor and then as an assistant manager at a Five Below in Tampa before moving to operations. What follows isn't corporate policy. It's what actually happens when you punch in.

Uncover The Bottom Line How Much Does Five Below Pay Per Hour In Florida

Five Below doesn't publish hourly wages on their careers page the way some companies do. You'll find salary ranges for management, sure, but frontline pay gets buried under job descriptions that say "competitive compensation" and list benefits like a 40% employee discount. When I started interviewing candidates, I'd ask them what they expected to make. Half the time they had no idea. The other half thought they were getting $15/hour straight out of the gate. That's just not how it works most places in Florida unless you're in a high-cost metro area with strong local ordinances pushing wages up.

The Florida state minimum wage hit $12/hour in September 2023 and is scheduled to climb to $15 by 2026. Five Below has to comply with that. But compliance is the floor, not the ceiling, and in practice the floor is where most starting positions live. New team members typically start between $10.50 and $13.50/hour depending on location, experience, and whether the store is in a market where Five Below has been forced to adjust for cost of living. Stores in Orlando or Miami tend to pay toward the higher end because of competitive pressure from other retailers and the higher local cost structure. A store in rural North Florida might offer closer to the minimum while still calling it competitive relative to nearby employers. Shift leads and key holders generally see a bump to the $13-15 range. This isn't guaranteed. Some stores don't even have key holder positions filled consistently because turnover is high and the role carries real responsibility without proportionate pay. I watched two key holders quit in four months at my old store because the pay difference between team member and key holder was about $1.25/hour while the job demands nearly doubled. The math didn't work for them. Department leads and assistant managers jump into the $15-20/hour range, which translates roughly to $31,000-41,000 annually if you're working full time. Store managers make between $45,000 and $65,000 depending on store size and market. These numbers are estimates based on self-reported data from Glassdoor, Indeed, and employee forums compiled over the past few years. Individual stores can deviate. Corporate rarely adjusts for small market differences unless pressured by local labor conditions.

How Pay Actually Works on the Floor

Here's what nobody tells you during orientation: your hourly rate is only part of the story. Five Below uses a tiered advancement system called the Team Member Growth Path. You start at Level 1, which is basically whatever the store offers for new hires. After six to twelve months of consistent scheduling availability and meeting performance markers, you can move to Level 2. That's usually a $0.50 to $1.00 increase. Level 3 comes after another six months and gets you another incremental bump. The whole system is designed to retain people just long enough for them to become competent, not to reward them handsomely for staying. I've seen employees stay at Level 1 for two years because their manager wasn't submitting the advancement paperwork. That happens more often than you'd think. The process requires a store-level review, a district confirmation, and HR system updates. Mid-level managers who are already stretched thin across three stores rarely prioritize this. If you want the raise, you have to ask. I learned this the hard way when I waited eight months for an automatic promotion that never came. My replacement got hers in three because she emailed her district manager directly.

Overtime is another thing worth understanding. Five Below follows standard FLSA rules. Non-exempt employees get time-and-a-half after 40 hours in a workweek. Exempt positions like assistant managers and above don't get overtime regardless of hours worked. This distinction matters a lot during peak seasons. October through December, assistant managers routinely work 50 to 60 hour weeks without additional pay. I did it for two holiday seasons straight. My back hurts thinking about it.

The Hidden Variables That Change Your Paycheck

Several factors can push your actual take-home pay higher or lower than the posted range. Seniority matters less than you'd expect at Five Below. Unlike some retail chains that have clear tenure-based raises, Five Below ties most increases to role changes, not years served. A person who's been there three years as a team member makes essentially the same base pay as someone who's been there six months, unless they've picked up a new title in between.

Location adjustments are real but inconsistent. I worked at a store near Disney that paid significantly more than our corporate office suggested it should, apparently because the local labor market made it impossible to hire at lower rates. Meanwhile a store twenty miles away in a cheaper area operated at the lower end of the band with no adjustment. Both were in the same district. Both reported to the same region vice president. The disparity annoyed people, and there's nothing you can do about it except apply to the store that pays better. Benefits have their own quirks. Five Below offers a 401k with company match, but the match structure is designed so that you need to stay at least a year before it becomes meaningful. Health insurance is available for full-time employees, but the premiums can eat into your raise if you're not careful. A $1/hour increase sounds nice until your health insurance deduction goes up $80 a paycheck. I calculated this for a coworker who was considering a promotion. She stayed put. The math was clear. The employee discount is the benefit most people talk about. Twenty percent off for team members, forty percent off for managers. That's genuine value if you shop there regularly, but it's not a raise. It's a perk that disappears the moment you quit. Don't budget around it.

What to Do If You Think You're Underpaid

First, check your actual pay stub. Sometimes the confusion comes from gross versus net, or from the difference between base hourly and your effective hourly when tips, bonuses, or shift differentials are factored in. Five Below doesn't offer tips, but some locations run incentive programs during peak periods that add temporary premium pay to certain shifts. These usually expire and aren't reflected in your base rate discussions. If your pay genuinely seems below the ranges I mentioned, talk to your store manager first. Bring specifics. Not "I feel like I'm underpaid" but "I've been here nine months, I've hit my performance goals, and I'm making $11.50 while the posting for this location lists $12.50 to $14." That gives your manager something to work with. If that doesn't go anywhere, you can request a review through your district manager. I've seen this work, but it takes patience and documentation. Emails, scheduled reviews, any written records of your responsibilities beyond your job description all help build the case.

The hard truth is that retail pay in Florida stays relatively flat compared to other industries. Even with the minimum wage increases coming through 2026, Five Below's starting range won't move dramatically faster than the legal floor. The real money at this company is in advancement, not in staying at the entry level. If you're okay with that, the environment is manageable. If you need a wage that grows substantially without a promotion, you'll likely be frustrated. I was frustrated, which is why I left after three years. Another thing that surprises people: the pay transparency laws in Florida don't require employers to post wage ranges in job postings the way some states do. You might apply to a Five Below in Jacksonville and a Five Below in Fort Lauderdale and get two completely different offers for the same position. Neither posting is wrong. They're just responding to local market conditions. This isn't manipulation. It's just how retail operates when you have thousands of stores spread across different labor markets. I'll mention one edge case that I've encountered personally and that I wish someone had warned me about. When a Five Below store reopies after being closed for renovation or ownership change, the new management team sometimes resets starting wages for existing employees who transfer over. I knew someone who moved from a store paying $13.25/hour to a newly remodeled location and found herself making $11.75/hour because the new manager classified her as a "new hire" for the reopened store despite her continuous employment history. She fought it with HR and got it corrected after six weeks, but the process cost her two months of reduced income. The lesson is straightforward: always verify your pay rate on your first day at a new location, even if you're an internal transfer. Don't assume it carries over automatically.