Pulse · Q4 2026 · Market report

The State of the AI Build Market

The typical AI build costs $2,500, but that median hides the market. 69% of the $272M posted sits in projects of $5,000 to $50,000, buyers have started naming the model rather than the workflow tool, and the systems a build connects to say more about its budget than the AI inside it.

Updated November 4, 2026 · 57,187 public job posts, December 2025 to November 2026 · How we measure

Posted value$272Macross 38,750 priced posts

Median build$2,500middle half $500 to $7,200

“Agent” in titles13.1%July, from 9.2% in January

Claude in titles9.1%July, from 1.6% in January

n8n in titles6.4%July, from 10.3% in January

Median hourly rate$28/hrexpert level $36/hr

Money

69% of value in one band

Projects of $5,000 to $50,000 are 32% of priced posts. Everything under $500 is a quarter of posts and under 1% of the money.

Models

Buyers now name the model

Claude went from 1.6% of titles in January to 9.9% in April, passing OpenAI in February.

Scope

The system sets the budget

Posts naming Google Sheets have a median of $1,000. Posts naming Salesforce have $5,760.

Talent

Advice is the scarce skill

Advisory posts have the highest median, $4,320, and the fewest applicants, 8.

Ten things worth knowing

Posts of $5,000 to $50,000 are 32% of priced posts and 69% of posted value. Posts under $500 are 25% of posts and 0.6% of value.
The largest 10% of posts hold 53% of posted value, and the largest 1% hold 13%.
Hourly work is 57% of priced posts and about 90% of posted value, on our estimate of hourly posts.
Claude rose from 1.6% of post titles in January to 9.9% in April, passing OpenAI and ChatGPT in February. It held 9.1% in July, against 3.2% for OpenAI.
Workflow tools lost share of titles from January to July: n8n from 10.3% to 6.4%, Zapier from 3.8% to 2.1%. “Agent” rose from 9.2% to 13.1%.
The system a build connects to tracks its budget: a median of $1,000 for posts naming Google Sheets and $5,760 for posts naming Salesforce.
Posts that ask for evaluation or guardrails have a median of $5,000, twice the market's $2,500.
Advisory and training posts have the highest median of the five kinds of work we track, $4,320, and the fewest applicants, 8.
Inside a category, the AI label rarely changes the hourly rate. It changes the rest: 42% of AI posts ask for expert level against 32% of others, and they draw 13 applicants against 9.
Buyers with $100,000 to $1M of past spend have a median of $5,600, about 4.5 times the $1,250 of buyers with under $1,000.

Where the money sits

Count posts and this looks like a market of small jobs. Count dollars and it looks like a market of serious projects.

There are two markets in one feed. Fixed-price posts peak at $100 to $250, usually a small task. Hourly posts peak at $2,500 to $5,000 and describe sustained work.
The value is concentrated. 53% of it sits in the largest tenth of posts, so the median tells you what is typical, not where budgets go.
Read the hourly share with care. Hourly totals are our estimate from rate, length and workload, while fixed budgets are what buyers wrote down.

Two markets share one price range

Priced posts by budget. Fixed work clusters at the bottom; hourly work builds to a second peak.

Fixed priceHourly, estimated

<$100
$100
$250
$500
$1k
$2.5k
$5k
$10k
$25k
$50k+

See the numbers

Priced posts by budget, fixed and hourly
From	Fixed	Hourly
<$100	2,211	0
$100	4,371	73
$250	2,599	326
$500	2,605	1,088
$1k	2,664	3,307
$2.5k	1,051	5,521
$5k	645	4,730
$10k	377	4,385
$25k	71	2,110
$50k+	55	562

The largest tenth holds half the value

Each square is 1% of the $272M posted. Pink is what the largest 10% of posts hold.

53%in the largest 10% of posts

13%in the largest 1% alone

Volume is at the bottom, value in the middle

Each budget band's share of posts against its share of posted value.

Share of priced postsShare of posted value

Under $50025%0.6%
$500 to $2k21%3%
$2k to $5k21%10%
$5k to $15k20%25%
$15k to $50k12%44%
$50k and up2%17%

See the numbers

Priced posts and posted value by budget band
Band	Priced posts	Share of posts	Posted value	Share of value	Median applicants
Under $500	9,580	24.7%	$2M	0.6%	9
$500 to $2k	8,071	20.8%	$8M	2.9%	13
$2k to $5k	8,164	21.1%	$28M	10.4%	15
$5k to $15k	7,802	20.1%	$67M	24.7%	17
$15k to $50k	4,516	11.7%	$120M	44.0%	21
$50k and up	617	1.6%	$47M	17.3%	21

Fixed budgets are the small end

Fixed-price and hourly posts, by count and by estimated value.

Priced postsFixed 43%Hourly 57%

Posted valueFixed 10%Hourly 90%

$350median fixed budget

$5,600median hourly estimate

What is being built

Most demand attaches AI to something that already exists: a product, a process or a customer conversation.

Products take the most value. AI SaaS and MVPs and custom agents carry more value than their post counts suggest, and over 60% of their posts are hourly.
Packaged tasks sit lower. n8n workflows, WhatsApp bots and AI receptionists are frequent and small, which is what a commodity looks like.
The named pages below give the full cost breakdown for each build.

Where posted value goes

Tile size is posted value. Deeper pink means a higher median build. Each tile links to its cost page.

AI SaaS and MVPs$65.1M · median $4,000Not classified$47.7MBack-office automation$31.6M · median $2,400Custom agents$24.9M · median $3,850Other named builds$14.6MAPI integrations$12.3M · median $2,500n8n workflows$11.8M · median $1,200CRM automation$10.3M · median $2,400RAG and document search$7.4M · median $2,150Support chatbots$6.5M · median $2,000Voice agents$6.3M · median $1,600Make and Zapier$5.8M · median $1,100AI mobile apps$5.8M · median $2,000Vibe-code rescue$3.9M · median $2,900SEO content$3.8M · median $1,500Computer vision$3.5M · median $3,200Social media$3.2M · median $1,800

See the numbers

Use cases by posted value
Build	Priced posts	Posted value	Median applicants	Expert requests
AI SaaS and MVPs	7,126	$65.1M	17	45%
Back-office automation	5,056	$31.6M	12	36%
Custom agents	2,831	$24.9M	14	45%
API integrations	1,994	$12.3M	15	41%
n8n workflows	2,396	$11.8M	14	41%
CRM automation	1,715	$10.3M	11	42%
RAG and document search	919	$7.4M	19	51%
Support chatbots	1,344	$6.5M	13	32%
Voice agents	1,116	$6.3M	13	45%
Make and Zapier	1,614	$5.8M	11	35%
AI mobile apps	1,010	$5.8M	16	45%
Vibe-code rescue	552	$3.9M	13	39%
SEO content	597	$3.8M	9	47%
Computer vision	460	$3.5M	11	51%
Social media	619	$3.2M	5	34%
Email automation	569	$2.7M	10	34%
Trading bots	413	$2.7M	6	44%
Text to SQL	439	$2.3M	14.5	39%
MCP	291	$2.3M	14	57%
Document extraction	423	$1.9M	15	42%
WhatsApp bots	411	$1.1M	10	34%
AI scraping	276	$0.9M	13	31%
AI receptionists	222	$0.7M	13	33%

The market map

Volume against price by build. Pink dots are builds with a median of $3,000 or more.

Median cost

$500$1k$2k$4k2005001k2k5k10kAI SaaS and MVPsBack-office automationCustom agentsn8n workflowsRAG and document searchVoice agentsVibe-code rescueComputer visionMCPWhatsApp botsAI receptionists

Posts in the window

What earns more than its share

Share of posted value minus share of priced posts, in points. Above zero, a build carries more money than its volume suggests.

By industry

Median build in sectors named in post titles. Most posts name none.

Crypto and Web3$8,160 Construction$4,720 Aerospace and defense$4,720 Insurance$4,320 SaaS$4,000 Healthcare$4,000 Science and biotech$4,000 Logistics$3,680 Manufacturing$3,600 Recruiting and HR$3,100 Financial services$3,000 Legal$3,000

The stack is changing hands

Titles show how buyers think. In 2026 they moved from naming a workflow tool to naming a model and asking for an agent.

Claude's rise was fast: under 2% of titles in January, near 10% by April. About a third of those posts ask for Claude Code specifically, at a median of $4,000.
Workflow tools fell at the same time. That may mean less demand, or that automation has become assumed and no longer needs naming. Titles alone cannot separate the two.
Chatbot is fading as a word while agent grows. Some of this is relabelling: a chatbot in January may be an agent in July.

The model race

Share of titles naming each model.

0%4%8%12%Wider collection

ClaudeOpenAIGemini

JanAprJulOct

See the numbers

Share of post titles naming each term, by month. August onwards is on wider collection.
Month	Claude	OpenAI	Gemini	n8n	Zapier	GoHighLevel	Agent	Chatbot	Automation
Jan	1.6%	3.1%	0.8%	10.3%	3.8%	2.6%	9.2%	4.3%	38.6%
Feb	3.7%	3.4%	0.6%	8.8%	3.3%	2.7%	10.9%	3.9%	36.9%
Mar	6.8%	3.2%	0.6%	7.6%	3.4%	2.7%	12.3%	3.9%	36.6%
Apr	9.9%	3.4%	0.4%	7.1%	3.2%	2.8%	11.2%	4.0%	34.5%
May	9.3%	2.8%	0.5%	6.3%	2.4%	3.3%	11.1%	3.4%	34.1%
Jun	8.4%	3.2%	0.6%	6.2%	2.6%	3.7%	12.0%	3.4%	33.7%
Jul	9.1%	3.2%	0.7%	6.4%	2.1%	4.1%	13.1%	2.7%	33.3%
Aug	6.7%	2.9%	0.4%	5.8%	1.9%	5.3%	13.6%	2.9%	33.6%
Sep	5.1%	2.2%	0.3%	5.1%	1.4%	6.3%	15.5%	2.1%	32.3%
Oct	5.7%	2.6%	0.3%	4.7%	1.0%	5.5%	17.8%	2.4%	29.0%

The workflow tools

Share of titles naming each tool. GoHighLevel is the exception.

0%4%8%12%Wider collection

GoHighLeveln8nZapier

JanAprJulOct

The words buyers use

Share of titles using each word.

0%10%20%30%40%Wider collection

AutomationAgentChatbot

JanAprJulOct

What each name is worth

Median cost of posts naming a tool in the title.

Market median

Claude$3,500
AI agents$3,200
LangChain$3,000
Lovable and vibe coding$2,900
MCP$2,600
RAG$2,100
GoHighLevel$1,600
Gemini$1,500
n8n$1,200
OpenAI and ChatGPT$1,200
Zapier$1,200
Vapi and Retell$1,050
Make$900

See the numbers

Tools and terms named in titles
Tool or term	Share of posts	Median cost
AI agents	13.0%	$3,200
n8n	6.9%	$1,200
Claude	6.1%	$3,500
GoHighLevel	4.0%	$1,600
OpenAI and ChatGPT	3.0%	$1,200
Zapier	2.5%	$1,200
Make	2.4%	$900
RAG	2.4%	$2,100
Lovable and vibe coding	1.3%	$2,900
Vapi and Retell	1.1%	$1,050
MCP	0.7%	$2,600
LangChain	0.6%	$3,000
Gemini	0.5%	$1,500

Scope is the real price signal

What a buyer asks for in the description separates a demo from a system. The words track the budget closely.

Connecting to a system of record costs more than connecting to a spreadsheet. The AI may be the same; the permissions, data and failure costs are not.
Only 8% of posts mention evaluation or guardrails and 6% mention compliance. These are the posts closest to production, and they sit well above the market median.
These are associations, not causes. Longer, better-scoped posts mention more of everything, and a buyer cannot raise a project's worth by adding a word.

What you connect it to

Median cost of posts naming each system. Spreadsheets and messaging sit low; systems of record sit high.

Market median

Google Sheets$1,000
WhatsApp$1,165
Airtable$2,000
Twilio$2,000
GoHighLevel$2,400
Gmail$2,440
Shopify$3,000
Stripe$3,200
Notion$3,600
Supabase$3,600
HubSpot$4,310
Slack$4,400
QuickBooks or Xero$4,800
AWS$5,760
Salesforce$5,760

See the numbers

Median cost by system named in the post
System	Posts	Median cost
Google Sheets	3,324	$1,000
WhatsApp	2,542	$1,165
Airtable	2,179	$2,000
Twilio	2,103	$2,000
GoHighLevel	3,572	$2,400
Gmail	1,412	$2,440
Shopify	2,118	$3,000
Stripe	2,324	$3,200
Notion	1,067	$3,600
Supabase	3,086	$3,600
HubSpot	1,812	$4,310
Slack	2,056	$4,400
QuickBooks or Xero	783	$4,800
AWS	3,196	$5,760
Salesforce	665	$5,760

What you ask for

Median cost of posts whose description mentions each.

Market median

Evaluation or guardrails$5,000
Production$4,720
Security$4,400
Compliance$4,080
Ongoing work$4,000
Past work or portfolio$3,000
Documentation or handover$2,500
Self-hosted or private$2,000

See the numbers

Median cost by what the description asks for
Asks for	Posts	Share of posts	Median cost
Evaluation or guardrails	4,406	7.7%	$5,000
Production	10,620	18.6%	$4,720
Security	4,457	7.8%	$4,400
Compliance	3,315	5.8%	$4,080
Ongoing work	19,658	34.4%	$4,000
Past work or portfolio	12,554	22.0%	$3,000
Documentation or handover	10,851	19.0%	$2,500
Self-hosted or private	1,301	2.3%	$2,000

How the work is framed

Titles sort into five kinds of request, shown by median cost. Hover for posts and applicants.

Market median

Advise or train$4,320
Hire a person$3,600
Prove it works$2,180
Build a thing$1,400
Fix or extend$880

See the numbers

How titles frame the work
Framing	Posts	Share	Median cost	Median applicants
Hire a person	29,864	52.2%	$3,600	14
Build a thing	19,516	34.1%	$1,400	11
Fix or extend	3,170	5.5%	$880	11
Advise or train	2,955	5.2%	$4,320	8
Prove it works	1,710	3.0%	$2,180	19

When buyers say Claude

What posts naming Claude ask for.

$4,000Claude Code1,148 posts
$3,000Claude API, skills or agents803 posts
$3,160Claude, unspecified1,608 posts

Talent: rates flat, competition uneven

AI work does not command a higher rate inside its category. It commands more seniority and draws a bigger crowd.

The premium is in scope, not rate. Compared within a category, posted rates rarely move, while fixed budgets and expert requests do.
A bigger budget does not buy a proportionally bigger field: a median $150 post draws 9 applicants and a median $24,000 post draws 21.
RAG and document search is the most crowded large category, with 19 applicants a post. Crowding says little about quality, so shortlisting is where the work is.

Seniority sets the rate

Median hourly rate by level requested.

$17Entry level
$25Intermediate
$36Expert

Budget barely moves the crowd

Median applicants by budget band.

9<$500
13$500–$2k
15$2k–$5k
17$5k–$15k
21$15k–$50k
21$50k+

Most and least contested

Median applicants a post, larger categories only.

AI lifts seniority

Share of posts asking for expert level, AI against others in the same category.

AI posts against other posts in the same category
Category	Fixed: other	Fixed: AI	Top rate: other	Top rate: AI	Expert: other	Expert: AI	Applicants: other	Applicants: AI
All categories	$250	$350	$35	$40	32%	42%	9	13
Web development	$300	$500	$35	$35	36%	46%	12	16
Mobile development	$250	$500	$30	$30	26%	37%	12	16
Scripts and utilities	$200	$250	$40	$40	27%	35%	7	11
Ecommerce development	$250	$300	$27	$27	30%	42%	10	9
Data analysis	$200	$275	$45	$50	33%	34%	8	9
Digital marketing	$250	$215	$25	$30	32%	41%	3	5

AI barely moves the rate

Top of the posted hourly rate, same comparison.

Who is buying

New accounts make up much of the demand, but experienced buyers bring the larger budgets.

46% of posts with a known account date come from accounts opened in 2025 or 2026. Recent accounts may simply be more active, so this is not a growth figure.
Experience raises budgets. Median cost climbs with every step of past spend, from $1,250 to $6,240.
Small teams dominate what we can see: 94% of posts that state a size come from teams of up to 10. Large companies rarely buy through public posts.

Experience raises the budget

Median cost by what the buyer has spent before.

$1,250Under $1k
$1,800$1k to $10k
$3,120$10k to $100k
$5,600$100k to $1M
$6,240$1M and up

See the numbers

Budgets by the buyer's past spend
Past spend	Posts	Median cost	Median applicants
Under $1k	9,028	$1,250	11
$1k to $10k	12,411	$1,800	14
$10k to $100k	9,987	$3,120	18
$100k to $1M	3,492	$5,600	19
$1M and up	479	$6,240	21

Much of the demand is new

Posts by the year the buyer's account opened.

4.8kTo 2015
5.6k2016–19
2.3k2020
2.7k2021
2.9k2022
3.3k2023
4.4k2024
9.2k2025
12.6k2026

When posts land

All posts by day and time, US Eastern. Weekday afternoons lead.

12am3am6am9am12pm3pm6pm9pm

Mon

Tue

Wed

Thu

Fri

Sat

Sun

Who states a size

20,698 posts state a company size.

94%Up to 10 people
6%11 to 500 people
<1%Over 500 people

Where the demand is

One country carries half the money. Elsewhere, budgets and competition vary more than rates do.

The United States is 45% of posts and 50% of posted value, at a median of $3,360.
Rates barely move by buyer country, mostly staying between $25 and $30 an hour, which fits a global talent pool. Budgets move far more.
Posts from India, Pakistan and Nigeria draw about 5 or 6 applicants against 15 for the United States.

Buyer countries

Bar length is share of posts. See every country on the world map in the Countries section.

CountryShare of postsMedian costRateApplicants

United States44.8%$3,360$29.515

United Kingdom7.7%$1,800$27.514

India6.5%$1,200$255

Australia4.9%$2,160$26.515

Canada4.4%$2,160$25.514

Pakistan2.6%$1,100$27.56

United Arab Emirates2.1%$1,800$29.515

Germany1.9%$2,600$29.515

Nigeria1.6%$1,000$22.55

Netherlands1.5%$3,200$2513

France1.2%$2,000$26.511

Israel0.9%$3,600$28.510

See the numbers

Buyer countries
Country	Posts	Median cost	Median rate	Median applicants	Posted value
United States	25,638	$3,360	$29.5/hr	15	$136.3M
United Kingdom	4,401	$1,800	$27.5/hr	14	$17.3M
India	3,716	$1,200	$25/hr	5	$14.1M
Australia	2,777	$2,160	$26.5/hr	15	$12.0M
Canada	2,544	$2,160	$25.5/hr	14	$11.6M
Pakistan	1,490	$1,100	$27.5/hr	6	$5.3M
United Arab Emirates	1,174	$1,800	$29.5/hr	15	$4.8M
Germany	1,106	$2,600	$29.5/hr	15	$5.7M
Nigeria	912	$1,000	$22.5/hr	5	$1.6M
Netherlands	845	$3,200	$25/hr	13	$4.5M
France	682	$2,000	$26.5/hr	11	$3.1M
Israel	519	$3,600	$28.5/hr	10	$2.6M

What it means for buyers

Six decisions to make before you post a brief or sign a quote, each based on the data above.

Budget from the system, not the feature

The same idea costs more against a system of record. Ask what it must read, write and never break, then price from there. Medians run from $1,000 to $5,760.

Decide if you want a person or a result

52% of posts ask for a person, at a median of $3,600. 34% ask for a thing, at $1,400. The first is a capacity decision and the second is a scope decision.

Write the test before the brief

Posts asking for evaluation have a median of $5,000. If you cannot say how you will know it works, the price you get is for a demo.

Do not buy production at prototype prices

A quarter of posts are under $500, and they hold 0.6% of the value. That money buys a task. A system that runs your business sits in a different band.

Plan for shortlisting

A larger budget brings a slightly larger field, not a much better-sorted one. Ask for evidence of similar work, as 22% of buyers do.

Do not judge by hourly rate

Inside a category, AI work pays about the same rate as other work. Length and seniority explain more of the bill. Small jobs stay small too: the median to fix or extend something is $880.

What we are watching

Does Claude's lead hold?

Its title share eased from 9.9% in April to 9.1% in July, still well above OpenAI. We will know more once there are six months of like-for-like data.

How much of “agent” is real?

The word now appears in 13.1% of titles, and it also catches human roles. A proper classifier is the next step for this measure.

Does advice become a market?

Advisory titles were 3.9% of posts in January and 4.2% in July, then 6.1% in October on wider collection.

Price your own build

See the median, range and scope for your use case and industry. Ready to price your own? Send a brief.

Browse all costs

Questions

How much does an AI build cost in 2026?

The median across 38,732 priced job posts is $2,500. Half fall between $500 and $7,200, and one in ten reaches $19,200 or more. Most of the money sits in projects of $5,000 to $50,000.

Which AI model do businesses ask for most?

Among models named in post titles, Claude has led since February 2026, with 9.1% of titles in July against 3.2% for OpenAI and ChatGPT and 0.7% for Gemini. This measures what buyers name in public posts, not what is deployed.

What do AI developers charge per hour?

Posted rates mostly run from $20 to $40 an hour, with a median of $28. Expert-level posts have a median of $36. These are open-market rates; agencies usually charge more.

Does AI work pay more than other software work?

Not by the hour, once you compare within a category. The difference shows up in scope: 42% of AI posts ask for expert level against 32% of others, and median fixed budgets are $350 against $250.

What makes an AI project cost more?

Length first, then what it connects to and how close it is to production. Posts naming evaluation or guardrails have a median of $5,000 and posts naming production $4,720, against $2,500 for the market.

Is demand for AI builds growing?

We do not publish a growth rate yet. Our collection widened in August 2026, so comparing volumes across that date would mostly measure the change in collection. Within January to July, AI posts rose from about 20% to over 24% of posts in the same categories.

How to read this

Pulse reads public job posts from December 2025 to November 2026. Posted value is what posts offered, not what was paid: fixed budgets as written, plus our estimate for hourly posts from rate, length and workload. Collection widened in August 2026, so trend claims stop at July and later months are shown as a marked band. Terms are matched in post titles and descriptions by keyword, so they measure what buyers wrote, not what was built. Public posts lean towards smaller, open-market work and do not measure enterprise spending. Read the method

Cite this report. The AI Build Index. "The State of the AI Build Market, Q4 2026." Published by VIZIO AI. Updated 2026-11-04. https://aibuildindex.com/pulse

Get the data as JSON or the report as Markdown.

We also build these systems, so we have a stake in this market.

Every month, as a table

Share of post titles naming each term, by month. August onwards is on wider collection.
Month	Claude	OpenAI	Gemini	n8n	Zapier	GoHighLevel	Agent	Chatbot	Automation
Jan	1.6%	3.1%	0.8%	10.3%	3.8%	2.6%	9.2%	4.3%	38.6%
Feb	3.7%	3.4%	0.6%	8.8%	3.3%	2.7%	10.9%	3.9%	36.9%
Mar	6.8%	3.2%	0.6%	7.6%	3.4%	2.7%	12.3%	3.9%	36.6%
Apr	9.9%	3.4%	0.4%	7.1%	3.2%	2.8%	11.2%	4.0%	34.5%
May	9.3%	2.8%	0.5%	6.3%	2.4%	3.3%	11.1%	3.4%	34.1%
Jun	8.4%	3.2%	0.6%	6.2%	2.6%	3.7%	12.0%	3.4%	33.7%
Jul	9.1%	3.2%	0.7%	6.4%	2.1%	4.1%	13.1%	2.7%	33.3%
Aug	6.7%	2.9%	0.4%	5.8%	1.9%	5.3%	13.6%	2.9%	33.6%
Sep	5.1%	2.2%	0.3%	5.1%	1.4%	6.3%	15.5%	2.1%	32.3%
Oct	5.7%	2.6%	0.3%	4.7%	1.0%	5.5%	17.8%	2.4%	29.0%