$400/Hour With No Employees
The one thing you need to know in AI today | AI Ready CMO
We’re wrapping up 2025, and over the next few days, we’ll be sharing key insights from our year-end report: AI in Marketing 2025 Annual Report.
The report will be available for all subscribers to download in full for free from the 22nd of December.
This is Prediction #5 from our State of AI in Marketing report:
Marketing collectives of 10-30 specialists offer rapid assembly, flexible engagement, cross-pollination, and elite talent concentration. They charge $200-$400/hour but deliver value through no overhead, no management burden, superior talent, and flexible scaling.
By late 2026, this model will have gained legitimacy as an alternative to agencies and in-house teams.
If you’re an elite freelancer, this is your path to 2X-3X income without building an agency.
Why Collectives Beat Solo Practice
You’ve hit the ceiling as a solo consultant:
Can’t take projects requiring 3+ specialists simultaneously
Can’t offer integrated services (strategy + execution + analytics)
Can’t compete against agencies for enterprise contracts
Limited to your hourly capacity = income ceiling
But you don’t want to build an agency:
Don’t want employees and overhead
Don’t want management responsibilities
Don’t want to dilute your rate with junior talent
Want to stay hands-on with client work
Collectives solve this.
How Collectives Work
10-30 elite specialists. Each maintains independent practice. All collaborate on projects that need multiple disciplines.
Structure:
No employees. No office. No traditional overhead.
Loose governance. Shared brand. Collective reputation.
Project-based assembly. Bring in who you need when you need them.
Transparent billing. Clients see exactly who works on what.
Example collective:
3 strategists ($300-400/hour)
4 creative directors ($250-350/hour)
5 AI/MarTech specialists ($200-300/hour)
6 execution specialists ($150-250/hour)
4 analysts/researchers ($200-300/hour)
3 vertical specialists (fintech, healthcare, B2B SaaS) ($300-400/hour)
Client needs brand strategy + AI content workflow? You assemble a strategist, an AI specialist + creative director. Three weeks. $60K project. Everyone bills their rate. No agency markup. No junior padding.
Client needs ongoing execution? You assemble an AI specialist + execution team. $8K monthly retainer split among 2-3 people, billing partial capacity.
Your Revenue Model Changes
Solo consultant:
Billing capacity: 20-25 hours/week consistently
Rate: $150/hour
Annual revenue: $150K-195K
Ceiling: Your personal capacity
Collective member:
Primary projects: 15-20 hours/week at $250-300/hour solo work
Collaborative projects: 5-10 hours/week at $200-250/hour collective work
Annual revenue: $260K-390K
Ceiling: Much higher because collective handles larger projects you participate in
You make more per hour. You work on bigger projects. You stay independent.
What Makes You Collective-Ready
Not every freelancer fits the collective model. You need:
Elite skill level: Top 10% in your specialty. Clients pay premium rates because you’re exceptional, not because you’re available.
Collaborative mindset: Willing to share credit, refer business, and work integrated with other specialists.
Domain credibility: 7+ years of experience. Portfolio of recognizable clients or results. Established personal brand.
Business maturity: Consistent pipeline. Professional operations. Reliable delivery. Not figuring out the basics of consulting.
Complementary not competitive: Your specialty adds to collective capabilities without directly competing with existing members.
If you’re a “pretty good” generalist freelancer, collectives aren’t your path. If you’re elite in a specialty, they multiply your leverage.
Early Collectives Forming Now
First-mover collectives are forming around domains:
B2B SaaS Collective: 12 specialists focused exclusively on B2B SaaS marketing. Strategists who understand product-led growth. AI specialists who know how to scale content for technical audiences. Demand gen experts with enterprise pipeline experience.
Charging $200-350/hour. Winning contracts against agencies because the depth of SaaS expertise beats the generalist agency breadth.
DTC Brand Collective: 15 specialists focused on consumer brands. Creative directors from major agencies. Performance marketers who scaled 8-figure brands. Retention specialists who understand lifecycle economics.
Charging $250-400/hour. Flexible team assembly means they can serve a $2M DTC brand or a $50M brand with the right talent configuration.
Healthcare Marketing Collective: 8 specialists with deep healthcare/pharma expertise. Regulatory compliance knowledge agencies can’t match. Clinical understanding freelancers typically lack.
Charging $300-500/hour. Domain expertise creates premium pricing power.
If you’re an elite marketing consultant earning $120K-180K solo, the collective model offers a path to $250K-400K without building an agency.
By late 2026, collectives become a legitimate alternative to agencies for sophisticated clients. Early members of successful collectives capture disproportionate benefit.
Three actions:
Evaluate if you’re collective-ready. Elite specialty? Collaborative? Domain credibility? Business maturity?
Research existing collectives in your domain. Are any recruiting? Do you fit their model?
Identify 3-5 elite specialists you trust. Could you form a collective together? Run a pilot project to test the model?
The agencies charging $15K-30K monthly retainers are collapsing. The solo consultants hitting $180K ceilings are stuck. The collectives of elite specialists charging $200-400/hour are winning.
Which one are you building toward?
3 AI Marketing Tools To Try Today
Eleven Labs
Transform your brand voice with AI-generated, human-like speech—Eleven Labs makes your messaging more engaging and authentic.
Reply
Automate your entire outbound sales sequence—Reply.io handles cold emails, follow-ups, and multi-channel outreach so you focus on closing, not chasing.
Motion
Let AI manage your calendar and priorities automatically—Motion schedules tasks, blocks focus time, and adapts to changes so you never miss deadlines.