Do cantrips get any kind of damage progression?

[Firellius]

They're starting off having less than half the damage potential (And slightly shorter range) of a simple ranged weapon which doesn't use ammo, so I don't really see the point to them.

[Kyun]

No, only via sneak attack if you go arcane trickster or multiclass into sneak classes. But even if you dont add any sneak attack damage, they might be your only way to finish of some monsters and do some riddles in the game.
Also they are touch attacks, touch attacks are much easier to hit since they ignore any armor saves.

[Spectre]

5e has cantrips scaling, sadly pathfinder does not. Comparing them to ranged weapons is a little besides the point, though, since they are touch attacks.

[Maitrepof]

You can also boost the damage if you take a wizard with the evocation school it get +1/2 dmg per caster level. Though it work only on ray of frost, jolt seem bugged.

Another advantage on cantrip dmg it bypass DR wich can be usefull in some fight.

But overall cantrip damage are much lower than ranged weapon

[corisai]

Originally posted by Maitrepof:

But overall cantrip damage are much lower than ranged weapon

In case of wizards/sorc - no, cantrips are supreme to ranged weapons.

Wizards don't have enough BAB to hit reliably any target in this game. While cantrips are vs touch AC so we have much better chances to hit.

Plus wizards don't have enough feats to boost their ranged attacks with things like Rapid Shot / Multishot and so on (and because of low BAB it's bad idea to even consider picking them).

Reliable source of low damage is far better then rare lucky hits with moderate damage.

P.S. Also I love give them dagger with +Initiative and enable cantrip auto-cast (so they avoid melee).

[Shadenuat]

Sense Vitals. There are also some items like that Amulet that extends/empowers/maximises all Cantrips.