Explore jobs
Find specific jobs
Explore careers
Explore professions
Best companies
Explore companies
The differences between account planners and product specialists can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. It typically takes 4-6 years to become both an account planner and a product specialist. Additionally, a product specialist has an average salary of $85,932, which is higher than the $71,823 average annual salary of an account planner.
The top three skills for an account planner include digital marketing, media sales and nielsen. The most important skills for a product specialist are customer service, product knowledge, and sales floor.
| Account Planner | Product Specialist | |
| Yearly salary | $71,823 | $85,932 |
| Hourly rate | $34.53 | $41.31 |
| Growth rate | 19% | 19% |
| Number of jobs | 82,798 | 103,863 |
| Job satisfaction | - | 5 |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 82% | Bachelor's Degree, 64% |
| Average age | 37 | 37 |
| Years of experience | 6 | 6 |
An account planner is someone who works primarily with clients on how to improve their accounts, sales strategy, and marketing. The account planner creates, develops, and maintains clients' accounts to increase sales and make them profitable. Included in an account planner's task is to monitor competition, determine problems in the actual marketing campaign, provide insight into the market's status, and offer suggestions on how to improve. The account planner also communicates directly with the client and actively works with them to achieve success.
A product specialist is required to have excellent knowledge about a product and work with a business unit to ensure excellent product delivery. Product specialists perform product demonstrations to customers and other stakeholders and assist in their promotions and product releases. To gain increased revenue, product specialists must be able to identify new market opportunities. They are required to conduct product and sales training for the marketing team. They must also provide reports about their product-related activities to the management.
Account planners and product specialists have different pay scales, as shown below.
| Account Planner | Product Specialist | |
| Average salary | $71,823 | $85,932 |
| Salary range | Between $48,000 And $107,000 | Between $56,000 And $130,000 |
| Highest paying City | Harrison, NY | San Bruno, CA |
| Highest paying state | Delaware | California |
| Best paying company | ByteDance | |
| Best paying industry | Professional | Technology |
There are a few differences between an account planner and a product specialist in terms of educational background:
| Account Planner | Product Specialist | |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 82% | Bachelor's Degree, 64% |
| Most common major | Business | Business |
| Most common college | University of Georgia | University of Georgia |
Here are the differences between account planners' and product specialists' demographics:
| Account Planner | Product Specialist | |
| Average age | 37 | 37 |
| Gender ratio | Male, 38.6% Female, 61.4% | Male, 59.8% Female, 40.2% |
| Race ratio | Black or African American, 5.0% Unknown, 5.0% Hispanic or Latino, 12.0% Asian, 13.2% White, 64.7% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.1% | Black or African American, 5.2% Unknown, 5.0% Hispanic or Latino, 12.5% Asian, 10.6% White, 66.6% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.1% |
| LGBT Percentage | 10% | 10% |