What an advertising sales agent costs in the US
The wage BLS measured across 91,700 jobs, what an employer pays on top of it, the pay in every state, and which of the job's core tasks already show up in AI use.
Medians for the whole US. Your own cost depends on where you hire, the benefits you offer and the hours worked.
- Median wage
- $64,820
- Hourly wage
- $31.16
- Loaded per hour
- $38.81
- Middle half earns
- $47,020 to $99,990
- Jobs in the US
- 91,700
Wage × 1.2455 for benefits and payroll taxes, from BLS.
An advertising sales agent in the US is paid a median $64,820 a year, $31.16 an hour, across 91,700 jobs. With benefits, a small employer pays about $80,730. Of its 10 core tasks, 4 showed up in Claude.ai conversations in May 2026, and in 2 of those Claude mostly did the task rather than assisting.
The work, task by task
The 10 core tasks O*NET lists for advertising sales agents, most important first, and how each showed up in Claude.ai conversations in May 2026. The bar splits those conversations between Claude doing the task and Claude helping a person do it.
- 01Explain to customers how specific types of advertising will help promote their products or services in the most effective way possible.Claude.ai: 23% did the task, 77% helped
- 02Prepare and deliver sales presentations to new and existing customers to sell new advertising programs and to protect and increase existing advertising.Claude.ai: 56% did the task, 44% helped · API: 97% did the task
- 03Obtain and study information about clients' products, needs, problems, advertising history, and business practices to offer effective sales presentations and appropriate product assistance.Claude.ai: 58% did the task, 42% helped · API: 99% did the task
- 04Provide clients with estimates of the costs of advertising products or services.
- 05Maintain assigned account bases while developing new accounts.
- 06Recommend appropriate sizes and formats for advertising, depending on medium used.Claude.ai: 42% did the task, 58% helped
- 07Locate and contact potential clients to offer advertising services.
- 08Draw up contracts for advertising work, and collect payments due.
- 09Deliver advertising or illustration proofs to customers for approval.
- 10Process all correspondence and paperwork related to accounts.
4 of 10 tasks appear in the Claude.ai sample of the Anthropic Economic Index for May 2026. A task without a row had too few conversations for Anthropic to publish, which is not the same as none. Shares are of all sampled Claude.ai conversations, so small figures are normal: 0.13% of every conversation that month was about this occupation.
Pay by state
The median annual wage in each state and DC, and the same wage fully loaded. Washington pays the most, $101,320; Tennessee the least, $40,910. BLS publishes no figure where its sample is too small, which leaves 3 gaps here.
| State | Median wage | Fully loaded | Middle half | Jobs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alabama | $50,870 | $63,360 | $29,320 to $67,700 | 910 |
| Alaska | $43,840 | $54,600 | $33,830 to $78,280 | 230 |
| Arizona | $62,050 | $77,280 | $49,090 to $78,960 | 1,160 |
| Arkansas | $49,120 | $61,180 | $37,920 to $66,610 | 900 |
| California | $80,360 | $100,090 | $56,010 to $104,660 | 9,620 |
| Colorado | $73,420 | $91,440 | $52,070 to $124,830 | 1,110 |
| Connecticut | $61,820 | $77,000 | $40,600 to $97,640 | 740 |
| Delaware | $52,480 | $65,360 | $41,000 to $63,140 | 140 |
| District of Columbia | $75,030 | $93,450 | $66,740 to $107,810 | 320 |
| Florida | $58,420 | $72,760 | $45,190 to $78,080 | 6,420 |
| Georgia | $58,140 | $72,410 | $44,130 to $79,740 | 3,150 |
| Hawaii | $61,290 | $76,340 | $46,910 to $71,940 | 310 |
| Idaho | $53,460 | $66,580 | $40,050 to $77,200 | 220 |
| Illinois | $66,290 | $82,560 | $47,620 to $99,010 | 3,790 |
| Indiana | $57,030 | $71,030 | $38,720 to $76,640 | 1,410 |
| Iowa | $58,480 | $72,840 | $46,860 to $79,190 | 900 |
| Kansas | $48,660 | $60,610 | $36,880 to $66,250 | 920 |
| Kentucky | $51,580 | $64,240 | $39,150 to $62,960 | 620 |
| Louisiana | $48,810 | $60,790 | $33,910 to $72,050 | 860 |
| Maine | $48,780 | $60,760 | $42,240 to $78,880 | 400 |
| Maryland | $59,830 | $74,520 | $50,500 to $82,370 | 880 |
| Massachusetts | $80,500 | $100,260 | $61,770 to $126,390 | 1,480 |
| Michigan | $64,800 | $80,710 | $50,180 to $105,950 | 2,040 |
| Minnesota | $62,660 | $78,040 | $49,560 to $97,230 | 1,750 |
| Mississippi | $46,810 | $58,300 | $32,610 to $74,970 | 490 |
| Missouri | $61,440 | $76,520 | $46,750 to $98,500 | 1,640 |
| Montana | $46,040 | $57,340 | $36,750 to $67,990 | 240 |
| Nebraska | $62,890 | $78,330 | $40,940 to $108,180 | 1,190 |
| Nevada | Not published | · | · | 580 |
| New Hampshire | $54,870 | $68,340 | $41,660 to $75,590 | 290 |
| New Jersey | $69,620 | $86,710 | $48,930 to $95,020 | 2,110 |
| New Mexico | $45,620 | $56,820 | $34,990 to $71,230 | 300 |
| New York | $98,360 | $122,510 | $67,300 to $134,140 | 13,570 |
| North Carolina | Not published | · | · | 2,220 |
| North Dakota | $50,110 | $62,410 | $38,010 to $75,160 | 260 |
| Ohio | $50,410 | $62,790 | $36,760 to $77,320 | 3,220 |
| Oklahoma | $57,670 | $71,830 | $35,840 to $95,210 | 700 |
| Oregon | $62,810 | $78,230 | $44,200 to $92,830 | 960 |
| Pennsylvania | $58,350 | $72,670 | $44,170 to $80,340 | 4,260 |
| Rhode Island | $48,040 | $59,830 | $43,680 to $80,080 | 340 |
| South Carolina | $68,200 | $84,940 | $42,430 to $102,570 | 1,770 |
| South Dakota | $60,190 | $74,970 | $46,820 to $78,740 | 390 |
| Tennessee | $40,910 | $50,950 | $31,290 to $59,130 | 1,820 |
| Texas | $60,280 | $75,080 | $43,430 to $75,790 | 6,230 |
| Utah | $74,260 | $92,490 | $43,820 to $116,750 | 1,110 |
| Vermont | $58,750 | $73,170 | $41,600 to $73,930 | 160 |
| Virginia | Not published | · | · | · |
| Washington | $101,320 | $126,190 | $74,820 to $134,240 | 3,510 |
| West Virginia | $44,700 | $55,670 | $29,450 to $63,390 | 290 |
| Wisconsin | $63,270 | $78,800 | $48,660 to $83,510 | 1,290 |
| Wyoming | $47,290 | $58,900 | $35,970 to $74,850 | 150 |
The same benefits ratio applies in every state, because BLS does not publish benefit costs by business size for each state. The middle half is the 25th to 75th percentile wage.
Where the numbers come from
Every figure is copied from a public file. The only arithmetic is the loaded cost: the wage times 1.2455.
- Wages
- BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, occupation 41-3011 (Advertising Sales Agents). Annual figures are the hourly wage times 2,080 hours, as BLS computes them, so they already include pay for paid leave.
- Fully loaded
- BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, June 2026 (2026 Q2), private businesses with 1 to 49 workers: $37.64 an hour in total compensation over $27.88 in wages plus $2.34 in paid leave gives 1.2455. Paid leave sits in the denominator because the annual wage already pays it.
- Tasks
- O*NET 31.0 core tasks for 41-3011.00, the ten most important by their importance rating. A few occupations list fewer core tasks.
- AI use
- Anthropic Economic Index, release of June 2026, conversations from May 2026. "Did the task" is Anthropic's automation share, where the user directs Claude to do the work; "helped" is augmentation, where the user works with Claude to learn, check or iterate.
- Not measured
- What a particular business pays, and whether an AI system can do a task well. The AI figures count conversations about a task, not jobs replaced.
This page includes information from the O*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. AI use data from the Anthropic Economic Index by Anthropic, under CC BY. Wage and benefit data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
What would an AI system cost for this work?
Put $80,730 beside the running cost of a system doing the tasks above, with the build counted in year one.
BLS wages May 2025 · O*NET 31.0 · Anthropic Economic Index