The median advertised hourly rate of an Upwork agency is $20/hr, taken from the low end of the rate range each of the 25,139 indexed agencies publishes, as of Oct 30, 2026.
Upwork agencies publish a rate range on their public page, for example "$25–$75/hr". This figure takes the floor of that range for every agency in the index and reports the median, because the floor is the price an agency is actually willing to start at. The spread is wide: 42% of agencies start under $20/hr while 4% start at $100/hr or more. The chart shows the full band mix.
Rates differ more by category than the single median suggests. Among categories with at least 100 indexed agencies, the median floor runs from $34/hr in Digital Design down to $7/hr in BPO. In between sit Virtual Reality at $30/hr, Data Analytics at $30/hr, UX at $30/hr.
Country matters as much. In the countries with the most agencies the median floor is $15/hr in India, $45/hr in United States, $18/hr in Pakistan and $30/hr in Ukraine. Every country page shows its own median next to the ranking.
An advertised rate is not a realised one. Across the whole index, lifetime earnings divided by billed hours comes to $24/hr, but fixed-price contracts add earnings without adding hours, so that figure overstates what hourly work pays. Both numbers, and their limits, are explained in the methodology.