The most common agency rate band flips: $100 to $149 an hour now holds 55.7% of disclosed rates
At launch, $150 to $199 was the most common hourly band among US growth vendors. The August 9 snapshot flips the order: $100 to $149 now leads by more than two to one, pulled by 986 new listings in that band.
The Wall's launch-day rate briefing reported $150 to $199 an hour as the most common band, held by 531 of 1,440 disclosing firms. The August 9 index snapshot reverses that finding. Among the 2,614 listings that now disclose an hourly band, $100 to $149 leads with 1,456 firms, 55.7% of disclosed rates, more than double the $150 to $199 band's 692. The shift comes almost entirely from new listings: the $100 to $149 band added 986 firms since launch while $150 to $199 added 161.
Disclosed hourly-rate bands, August 9 snapshot
| Hourly-rate band | Firms | Share of disclosed |
|---|---|---|
| $100 – $149 / hr | 1,456 | 55.7% |
| $150 – $199 / hr | 692 | 26.5% |
| $200 – $300 / hr | 189 | 7.2% |
| $50 – $99 / hr | 160 | 6.1% |
| $25 – $49 / hr | 70 | 2.7% |
| < $25 / hr | 25 | 1.0% |
| $300+ / hr | 22 | 0.8% |
The compression documented at launch got tighter. 2,148 of 2,614 disclosed rates, 82.2%, now sit between $100 and $199 an hour, up from 69.5% in the launch index. The tails barely moved in absolute terms: the sub-$50 bands hold 95 firms and the $300+ band still holds 22.
For buyers, the market-norm quote moved down a notch. A US growth vendor quoting inside $100 to $149 is now quoting the single most common answer in the market, and at that band a 20-hour monthly retainer prices at roughly $2,000 to $3,000. Coverage note: 2,912 of the 3,460 snapshot listings carry a rate record, of which 298 are marked undisclosed; the remaining 548 listings carry no rate record. Disclosure patterns by pillar are covered in the transparency-map briefing, and the full expansion behind the shift is in the first-week growth briefing.
How this was computed. Figures are computed from The Wall's index of approved, US-based, machine-verified-live listings, using the index snapshot current when each briefing was published: 2,286 listings at launch (August 3, 2026) and 3,460 in the latest snapshot (captured August 9, 2026). Engagement data (rates, minimum project sizes, team sizes, founding years, ratings) are provider-declared figures published on public Clutch profiles; they were present for 1,738 of the 2,286 launch listings, and coverage counts for later snapshots are stated inside each briefing that uses them. Percentages of "disclosed" values exclude listings that publish no figure. Nothing in this briefing is estimated or modeled. Sourcing standards: editorial policy.