The SuperGig blog
Numbers-forward guides for anyone who wants to hire freelancers without gambling: what developers actually charge in 2026, how the big marketplaces really compare, and how escrow keeps your budget safe. New here? Start with how hiring works on SuperGig, then dig into the guides below.
Designjoy charges $4,995 a month for one active request at a time, about $59,940 a year. Sent at its 48-hour pace that is roughly $462 a request; at four requests a month it is $1,249 each.
SuperGig Editorial · Oct 8, 2026
A.Team quotes every engagement, and reported all-in rates run $100 to $180 an hour for senior engineers and up to $200 for product managers. One full-time engineer is about $26,000 a month, and a four-person mission team about $75,800.
SuperGig Editorial · Oct 7, 2026
Turing quotes each role, and 2026 reviews report $100 to $200 an hour for mid to senior developers, about $17,300 to $34,700 a month, with 50% to 55% kept as margin. Above about $93 an hour it costs more than a US employee.
SuperGig Editorial · Oct 6, 2026
Codementor mentors charge $8 to $30 per 15 minutes, which is $32 to $120 an hour, and freelance jobs run about $60 to $100 an hour, plus a service fee reported at 2.85% and $1 to $3. Cheap for an hour of help, expensive for ongoing feature work.
SuperGig Editorial · Oct 5, 2026
Catalant keeps 20% to 30% of the total project fees, a 25% to 43% markup on what the consultant earns, invoiced when the project agreement is signed. On a $25,000 project that is $6,250 to $10,714, and employing the consultant within 12 months costs 33% of their pay.
SuperGig Editorial · Oct 2, 2026
Kimp lists Graphics at $1,397 a month and Graphics + Video at $1,697, with 50% off the first four months. Year one averages $1,164.17 a month on Graphics; below about nine finished pieces a month a freelancer by the hour costs less.
SuperGig Editorial · Oct 1, 2026
ManyPixels runs four plans from $699 a month (or $559 billed yearly) for one daily output to $2,599 for two part-time designers. At full use Advanced costs $26.62 to $33.29 per output; at a handful of finished designs a month a freelancer by the hour costs less.
SuperGig Editorial · Sep 30, 2026
Penji now starts at $995 a month, twice the $499 many reviews still quote. Essentials runs two active workstreams with one-business-day turnaround, and it costs $199 per design at five designs a month and $49.75 at twenty. Against a $60 freelance designer and a $349 flat plan, the money crosses at 10.8 hours a month. What reviewers praise, what they complain about, a coffee roaster priced both ways, and the alternatives by need.
SuperGig Editorial · Sep 29, 2026
Superside now publishes a floor: a $15,000 monthly creative budget plus a $1,000 software fee on a 12-month term, $192,000 a year with no free trial. For a startup that is 98.7% of the loaded cost of one median US software developer, spent on design. Below about 260 design hours a month the floor costs $92 to $800 per hour actually used. A seed-stage example priced both ways, the four places small teams overpay, and the cases where Superside is the right buy.
SuperGig Editorial · Sep 28, 2026
Intuit no longer prints a QuickBooks Live price. Reported 2026 figures are $59 a month for Assisted and from $300 for Full Service, plus a QuickBooks Online plan now $38 to $340, so most small businesses pay about $385 a month. What the service excludes (bill pay, AR, payroll, inventory, taxes), the tier cliff at $25,000 of expenses, and the hours test against a freelance bookkeeper.
SuperGig Editorial · Sep 27, 2026
Design Pickle no longer publishes a price. Reported figures put two creative hours a day at about $2,098 a month, which is $48.42 an hour if you use every hour and $96.83 if you use half. Against a $60 freelance designer the subscription only wins above roughly 29 to 35 hours of real work a month. The reported price table, the effective-rate math, the alternatives and the questions to ask on the call.
SuperGig Editorial · Sep 26, 2026
An AI-assisted post averages $131 and a human one $611, but the gap mostly disappears once someone fixes the draft. Two and a half hours of a loaded US marketing manager is $286.68, inside the $250 to $399 a freelance writer charges for a finished article. On an eight-article month, editing AI yourself and paying an editor land 0.6% apart, and the editor gives you back 16 hours. What Google actually says about AI content, and which articles still need a writer.
SuperGig Editorial · Sep 25, 2026
One in-house SDR costs $142,500 a year fully loaded, which is $11,875 a month and $68.51 for every paid hour. An agency charges $3,000 to $8,000 for the same capacity. The route nobody prices is a contract rep at the $46 US average, $7,973.18 full time, 67.1% of the loaded cost. The itemized build and where it is understated, the $68.51 crossover where a contractor costs exactly an employee, why an $8,000 retainer buys exactly 40.1 hours a week, and the hours test that picks the route.
SuperGig Editorial · Sep 22, 2026
An agency retainer is $2,500 to $5,000 a month; one in-house specialist is $9,385.57 at the BLS median loaded for benefits, a manager $19,875.81. The agency wins the invoice, in-house wins the hour: $62.57 per productive hour against a $150 to $250 blended agency hour. The hours test at 10 to 150 hours a month, the side-by-side table, the crossover where a $115 freelancer costs exactly a loaded manager, and the third route agency comparisons leave out.
SuperGig Editorial · Sep 21, 2026
Essential is free while you order $1,000 a year; Advanced is $129 a month on top of the 5.5% service fee. That is 18.4% of a $1,000 month and 6.3% of a $16,000 one. Both plans side by side, when the premium rates pay off, what not to buy, and where a flat plan wins.
SuperGig Editorial · Sep 18, 2026
Toptal publishes no rate card, so every price in circulation is a reconstruction: a $500 refundable deposit, a $79 monthly subscription and a blended $60 to $150 an hour. The layer nobody divides is the subscription. Spread over the hours you actually buy it costs a five-hour month $15.80 an hour and a full-time month $0.49, the same fee 32x apart, which makes it a tax on exactly the buyers with the least budget. A real seed-stage engagement priced line by line, the reported 30 to 50 percent markup reconstructed, and the $93.49 loaded BLS hourly where flexible and permanent cost the same.
SuperGig Editorial · Sep 15, 2026
The reported logo contest tiers are $299, $499, $899 and $1,299 against roughly 30, 60, 90 and 60 concepts, which is $9.97, $8.32, $9.99 and $21.65 each. Bronze and Gold sit $600 apart yet price a concept within 0.22% of each other, so that stretch of the ladder is pure volume. Silver is the only genuinely discounted tier. Platinum charges 44.5% more than Gold for 33.3% fewer concepts. Why a rushed Bronze at $548.50 costs more than a plain Silver, why the 60 day guarantee really closes around day four, and how far the same budget goes in hours of one vetted designer.
SuperGig Editorial · Sep 9, 2026
MarketerHire publishes no rate card at all, so every price you have read for it is a third-party reconstruction, and the reconstructions disagree. Divide the reported bands by their committed hours and the platform sits between $51.92 and $138.46 an hour, with the volume discount landing on exact fractions: three quarters off the floor rate, five sixths off the ceiling. The reported entry price spans $1,500 to $5,000 a month, a factor of 3.3. Why the widely repeated 30% to 50% saving only holds at the bottom of a band, why a 50% saving is impossible in the two smaller tiers, and the 33 to 40 hour week where hiring wins.
SuperGig Editorial · Sep 8, 2026
A fractional CFO costs a small business $2,500 to $12,000 a month, and most owners pay $5,000 to $7,000. The category almost never prints hours, so one benchmark that states both, $9,000 to $21,000 a month for 35 to 80 hours, does the work: both ends divide out to about $260 an hour, a spread of 2.08%. Apply it and a $5,000 retainer is 19 hours a month, 4.4 hours a week. The retainer as a share of revenue by company size, why the CFO premium over a controller is a stable 1.6x whichever way it is billed, and the $2M revenue floor below which the honest answer is no.
SuperGig Editorial · Sep 6, 2026
A fractional CMO costs $4,000 to $25,000 a month, or $200 to $500 an hour on a project. Convert every retainer into an implied hourly and the market opens up: the most common engagement, $10,000 for 20 hours a week, is $115.38 an hour against a project floor of $200. Half a median marketing manager loaded with benefits is $9,937.90 a month for those same hours, which puts the two within 0.62% of each other. The 30-hour crossover where a full-time hire gets cheaper, and the two quotes that cannot both be true.
SuperGig Editorial · Sep 5, 2026
A foundation proposal costs $1,500 to $5,000 and takes 10 to 20 hours, so 20 hours at the $75 mid-level rate lands exactly on the published flat-fee floor. Federal work does not reconcile the same way: 100 to 150 hours against a $5,000 floor implies $33 to $50 an hour. Why the ethics codes bar percentage fees, the award size where a 10% commission starts costing more than a flat fee, what 2 CFR 200.460 means for paying the fee out of the grant, and the $7,900 a month crossover where hiring beats retaining.
SuperGig Editorial · Sep 3, 2026
Executive resume packages run $699 to $1,899, but the premium is not a better writer. Divide the $1,899 concierge package by the five documents it contains and you get $379.80 each, the floor of the ordinary mid-career band. Why one company sells an executive package for $299 while another sells entry level at $479, what each document is worth standalone, the implied hourly at 12 to 25 hours, and the break-even at $150k, $200k and $300k salaries.
SuperGig Editorial · Sep 2, 2026
An ambient AI scribe costs $200 to $400 per provider per month; human transcription costs $0.09 to $0.18 a line, $1.10 to $3.25 a minute or $0.25 to $3.00 a report. Because one is flat and the other variable there is a crossover, and it swings by a factor of eight: 100 reports a month at the complex end, 800 at the structured-lab end. The accuracy tables converted into wrong words per note, why a hallucination is worse than a typo, and the three cases where human transcription still clearly wins.
SuperGig Editorial · Sep 1, 2026
Medical interpreting runs $2 to $4 a minute on video and $100 to $140 an hour on-site against a three-hour minimum, which makes a twenty-minute visit cost nine times the hourly rate. Why minimum billing rather than the rate decides a clinic budget, what the agency layer costs against a $39.29 practitioner wage, and the volume at which a staff interpreter becomes cheaper than paying by the minute.
SuperGig Editorial · Aug 31, 2026
LinkedIn ghostwriting runs $500 to $15,000 a month: $500 to $1,500 for 8 to 12 posts at the entry tier, $2,000 to $4,000 for 12 to 16 mid-tier, and $5,000 and up for executive positioning. Why the retainers divide neatly into the published per-post prices at the first two tiers but imply 50 posts a month at the third, where the in-house break-even sits, and the six questions that separate a fair rate from an expensive one.
SuperGig Editorial · Aug 30, 2026
Transcribing a recording you already hold costs $1.50 to $3.00 an audio minute; a court reporter capturing the record live is $3 to $6 a page plus an appearance fee and $700 to $1,200 for a two-hour deposition. The federal maximum page rates in full, how to convert a per-page quote into a per-minute one, the six confidentiality checks before you send privileged audio, and where automated transcription genuinely belongs.
SuperGig Editorial · Aug 29, 2026
Common language pairs run $0.10 to $0.22 a word, so a 5,000 word website is about $800 per language. The four buying routes priced against one 50,000 word project, why the agency premium of $2,400 to $4,000 is worth it on a multi-market launch and wasted on a steady content calendar, the six vetting steps that work when you cannot read the output, and when a certified translation is actually required.
SuperGig Editorial · Aug 24, 2026
Fiverr takes 20% from the seller, so a $50 gig pays the editor $40.00, which is 37 minutes at the $65 US mid-market rate, or roughly 25 seconds of finished video. The full checkout arithmetic gig by gig, the tier table against hiring directly, where the platform honestly wins, and the three things to confirm in writing before you order.
SuperGig Editorial · Aug 23, 2026
Fiverr takes 20% from the seller, so a $35 logo gig pays the designer $28.00, which is 26 minutes of work at the $65 US market average. The full fee arithmetic tier by tier, what each package really contains, where the platform genuinely wins, and the three terms to confirm in writing before you order on either route.
SuperGig Editorial · Aug 22, 2026
Seven ways to buy a logo compared on real 2026 US price, ownership and turnaround, why the ownership column tracks paperwork rather than price, the three questions that pick your route in five minutes, why the $5,000 agency tier is the weakest point on the curve, and the deliverables checklist that separates a usable logo from a picture.
SuperGig Editorial · Aug 21, 2026
What US freelancers and agencies actually charge to run a Meta account, the four fee models side by side, why paid social percentages run higher than paid search, the spend floor below which a retainer cannot pay for itself, and what a quote almost never includes.
SuperGig Editorial · Jul 31, 2026
What US freelancers and agencies actually charge to run a Google Ads account, the four fee models side by side, why management cost is separate from ad spend, the spend floor below which a retainer cannot pay for itself, and five red flags in a quote.
SuperGig Editorial · Jul 25, 2026
Real US ranges for a landing page, a marketing site and a complex CMS build, freelance hourly rates by seniority, and the Webflow hosting plans to budget for after launch.
SuperGig Editorial · Jul 19, 2026
Three MVP tiers and three very different budgets, the five choices that set your number, how to build for less without shipping junk, and whether to hire a freelancer or an agency.
SuperGig Editorial · Jul 19, 2026
Real US ranges for themed, customized and fully custom stores, what a Shopify build actually costs, the line items that drive the price up, and the monthly costs to budget before you spend a dollar on ads.
SuperGig Editorial · Jul 19, 2026
The true loaded cost of an employee versus pay-for-what-you-use freelancers, where each model wins, the risks to manage, and why most teams end up hybrid.
SuperGig Editorial · Jul 19, 2026
Lead with the outcome, name the deliverables, state the budget, and add the one filtering detail that screens out copy-paste applicants. With a worked example.
SuperGig Editorial · Jul 19, 2026
US hourly bands for every role, hourly vs fixed price vs retainer, the marketplace fees that quietly inflate your real cost, and how to size a first milestone.
SuperGig Editorial · Jul 19, 2026
Read a portfolio for evidence of ownership, run a 20-minute screening call that actually filters, and pay for the test project. The red flags worth walking away from.
SuperGig Editorial · Jul 19, 2026
Agencies bundle account management and overhead into rates 2 to 3x higher for the same seniority. We break down when that premium pays for itself, and when a vetted senior freelancer is the better ROI.
SuperGig Editorial · Jun 26, 2026
Full 2026 rate tables by seniority, stack and engagement model, plus the rework math that makes cheap hires the most expensive line in your budget.
SuperGig Editorial · Jun 19, 2026
Deep vetting behind a sales call, or instant access to a quality lottery. How the two biggest names in freelance hiring compare on fees, speed and payment protection.
SuperGig Editorial · Jun 12, 2026
Tell us what you need. A hand-picked shortlist of vetted freelancers lands in 48 hours, and escrow means you only pay for work you approve.
Business is $349 per month, or $174 per month billed yearly (50% off), for a project post on the SuperGig project board, with no project fee.