What a collections agent costs in the US
The wage BLS measured across 158,830 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
- $47,030
- Hourly wage
- $22.61
- Loaded per hour
- $28.16
- Middle half earns
- $39,010 to $56,740
- Jobs in the US
- 158,830
Wage × 1.2455 for benefits and payroll taxes, from BLS.
A collections agent in the US is paid a median $47,030 a year, $22.61 an hour, across 158,830 jobs. With benefits, a small employer pays about $58,580. Of its 10 core tasks, 2 showed up in Claude.ai conversations in May 2026, and in every one Claude mostly did the task rather than assisting.
The work, task by task
The 10 core tasks O*NET lists for bill and account collectors, 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.
- 01Record information about financial status of customers and status of collection efforts.
- 02Locate and notify customers of delinquent accounts by mail, telephone, or personal visits to solicit payment.Claude.ai: 82% did the task, 18% helped · API: 97% did the task
- 03Locate and monitor overdue accounts, using computers and a variety of automated systems.API: 100% did the task, 0% helped
- 04Arrange for debt repayment or establish repayment schedules, based on customers' financial situations.API: 95% did the task, 5% helped
- 05Advise customers of necessary actions and strategies for debt repayment.
- 06Answer customer questions regarding problems with their accounts.Claude.ai: 86% did the task, 14% helped · API: 99% did the task
- 07Persuade customers to pay amounts due on credit accounts, damage claims, or nonpayable checks, or to return merchandise.
- 08Confer with customers by telephone or in person to determine reasons for overdue payments and to review the terms of sales, service, or credit contracts.
- 09Receive payments and post amounts paid to customer accounts.
- 10Trace delinquent customers to new addresses by inquiring at post offices, telephone companies, credit bureaus, or through the questioning of neighbors.
2 of 10 tasks appear in the Claude.ai sample of the Anthropic Economic Index for May 2026, and 2 more only in its sample of API traffic, where businesses run Claude inside their own software. 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: under 0.01% 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. District of Columbia pays the most, $62,230; Mississippi the least, $37,680.
| State | Median wage | Fully loaded | Middle half | Jobs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alabama | $40,330 | $50,230 | $36,740 to $46,970 | 2,090 |
| Alaska | $60,810 | $75,740 | $48,630 to $63,450 | 310 |
| Arizona | $47,740 | $59,460 | $42,890 to $55,560 | 6,300 |
| Arkansas | $39,110 | $48,710 | $34,930 to $46,020 | 850 |
| California | $57,930 | $72,150 | $47,130 to $69,840 | 13,880 |
| Colorado | $50,090 | $62,390 | $42,630 to $60,620 | 1,670 |
| Connecticut | $57,930 | $72,150 | $48,010 to $64,840 | 900 |
| Delaware | $46,680 | $58,140 | $40,720 to $56,520 | 990 |
| District of Columbia | $62,230 | $77,510 | $58,160 to $84,990 | 240 |
| Florida | $46,410 | $57,800 | $39,280 to $52,380 | 13,180 |
| Georgia | $46,300 | $57,670 | $38,370 to $53,890 | 5,280 |
| Hawaii | $53,570 | $66,720 | $47,910 to $61,630 | 180 |
| Idaho | $41,880 | $52,160 | $37,990 to $49,340 | 510 |
| Illinois | $48,140 | $59,960 | $42,880 to $57,400 | 5,080 |
| Indiana | $45,240 | $56,350 | $39,060 to $50,180 | 2,690 |
| Iowa | $46,000 | $57,290 | $37,950 to $59,530 | 830 |
| Kansas | $45,760 | $56,990 | $37,110 to $53,700 | 1,350 |
| Kentucky | $48,330 | $60,200 | $42,060 to $55,950 | 1,740 |
| Louisiana | $39,130 | $48,740 | $35,730 to $47,100 | 1,690 |
| Maine | $48,890 | $60,890 | $46,290 to $56,860 | 410 |
| Maryland | $50,010 | $62,290 | $46,180 to $61,500 | 2,090 |
| Massachusetts | $59,800 | $74,480 | $50,780 to $63,720 | 2,510 |
| Michigan | $47,130 | $58,700 | $39,220 to $55,050 | 2,990 |
| Minnesota | $49,580 | $61,750 | $38,300 to $62,590 | 2,860 |
| Mississippi | $37,680 | $46,930 | $32,290 to $45,900 | 1,150 |
| Missouri | $41,760 | $52,010 | $34,230 to $51,100 | 3,770 |
| Montana | $45,420 | $56,570 | $40,610 to $49,930 | 640 |
| Nebraska | $43,210 | $53,820 | $37,000 to $48,210 | 730 |
| Nevada | $48,750 | $60,720 | $42,590 to $49,960 | 2,350 |
| New Hampshire | $44,450 | $55,360 | $40,430 to $54,390 | 1,120 |
| New Jersey | $52,510 | $65,400 | $45,210 to $62,130 | 3,310 |
| New Mexico | $46,560 | $57,990 | $41,020 to $54,840 | 440 |
| New York | $47,170 | $58,750 | $39,290 to $59,530 | 8,800 |
| North Carolina | $42,910 | $53,440 | $32,370 to $48,980 | 5,460 |
| North Dakota | $46,660 | $58,120 | $37,910 to $51,490 | 270 |
| Ohio | $46,230 | $57,580 | $37,590 to $54,610 | 6,620 |
| Oklahoma | $44,820 | $55,820 | $34,750 to $52,880 | 1,740 |
| Oregon | $50,880 | $63,370 | $47,220 to $59,480 | 830 |
| Pennsylvania | $46,660 | $58,120 | $39,440 to $56,150 | 6,680 |
| Rhode Island | $52,000 | $64,770 | $47,180 to $59,630 | 370 |
| South Carolina | $43,140 | $53,730 | $37,450 to $48,730 | 4,430 |
| South Dakota | $46,620 | $58,070 | $39,370 to $48,720 | 1,120 |
| Tennessee | $40,920 | $50,970 | $36,490 to $48,220 | 3,890 |
| Texas | $45,710 | $56,930 | $37,520 to $52,580 | 21,720 |
| Utah | $45,240 | $56,350 | $37,660 to $50,990 | 2,430 |
| Vermont | $57,630 | $71,780 | $50,510 to $61,980 | 80 |
| Virginia | $43,770 | $54,520 | $35,900 to $54,610 | 4,590 |
| Washington | $48,460 | $60,360 | $44,160 to $58,680 | 2,260 |
| West Virginia | $43,960 | $54,750 | $39,590 to $46,020 | 670 |
| Wisconsin | $49,090 | $61,140 | $43,680 to $59,940 | 2,570 |
| Wyoming | $42,110 | $52,450 | $38,950 to $44,160 | 180 |
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 43-3011 (Bill and Account Collectors). 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 43-3011.00, 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 $58,580 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