Price Index · 2026-05-22
May 2026 — The State of $100/hour
Where freelance rates sit, where they're moving, and what the data says about crossing the $100/hour line — for the freelancers actually doing it.
The headline
- 20 skills tracked. Median top-10% rate across the cohort: $131/hr.
- Widest human-vs-agent gap: Translation (~20×). Narrowest: Senior Dev & ML Engineering (~1.5×). The gap shrinks as AI-resistance rises — which is the whole story.
- 6 skills rising, 3 declining. The split isn't random — it tracks AI-substitution risk.
- $100 Club median rate this month: $145/hr. 5 stories in the archive so far.
Read the full report
The full report adds: the human-vs-agent index for all 20 skills, the per-skill rate table, the rising / declining map, and the five $100 Club entry points. One email. We send the next issue automatically; unsubscribe anytime.