Hardware price points we can source, wage histories for the matching jobs in eight countries, and where the two lines cross.
Prices are nominal list prices from the sources shown. Like-for-like series are rare: where a point is a different model, we say so.
Hardware prices, all on one chart
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Batteries and sensors bought at automotive volumes fell fastest. Finished robots fell slowly or not at all: vendors spend the savings on better robots rather than cheaper ones, and integration, support and margins do not ride the learning curve. Interact Analysis expected mobile robot prices to fall 10-15% per doubling of shipments (Robotics 24/7); lithium-ion cells have fallen about 20% per doubling (Energy & Environmental Science).
Batteries power every mobile robot and drone. -90% in 15 years, the cleanest learning curve on this page. Implied change: −14.3% a year (2010-2025, nominal, Whirrwork calculation).
The 2025 point is an automotive sensor bought by the million, not a robotics puck: it shows where volume takes prices, not what a robot maker pays. Implied change: −28.5% a year (2014-2025, nominal, Whirrwork calculation).
H1 and G1 are different robots (G1 is smaller). Same maker, so it shows the price points on offer, not a learning rate. Implied change: −46.9% a year (2023-2026, nominal, Whirrwork calculation).
Price per litre of tank is our derived like-for-like measure (Whirrwork calculation from the two list prices and tank sizes). Implied change: −9.5% a year (2015-2026, nominal, Whirrwork calculation).
A 38% drop in one year, mostly competition among new operators. Service prices can fall much faster than hardware learning curves imply, and can bounce back. Implied change: −38.1% a year (2024-2025, nominal, Whirrwork calculation).
Prices went up, because the product did: mapping, docks, mopping. Cheap robots got better rather than cheaper. iRobot itself went through Chapter 11 in 2025. Implied change: +3.4% a year (2002-2026, nominal, Whirrwork calculation).
Nominal price up 12% in 11 years; US consumer prices rose about 32% from 2015 to 2024 alone (World Bank CPI), so the real price fell. Slowly. Implied change: +1.0% a year (2015-2026, nominal, Whirrwork calculation).
Wages for the matching jobs
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Country
Wage basis
Nominal growth
Real growth
Years
Employer on-costs
United States
BLS OEWS May 2025 national medians by SOC occupation
+4.4%
+1.2%
2015-2025
×1.43
Germany
Destatis Structure of Earnings Survey 2022 (via ILOSTAT), uprated to 2025 with Eurostat average hourly wages (lc_lci_lev, D11)
+6.0%
+4.0%
2014-2022
×1.30
United Kingdom
ONS Labour Force Survey 2025 mean hourly earnings by ISCO-08 major group (via ILOSTAT)
+4.7%
+1.4%
2015-2025
×1.18 Derived
Japan
MHLW Basic Survey on Wage Structure 2024, table 1 by occupation (general workers, firms with 10+ employees): (monthly cash earnings x 12 + annual bonus) / (actual hours x 12)
+0.4%
−0.2%
2011-2021
×1.16 Assumption
China
NBS average annual wages 2024 by position (enterprises above designated size), divided by 48.6 hours x 52 weeks (NBS average weekly hours of enterprise employees, 2025)
+8.5%
+6.4%
2012-2022
×1.30 Assumption
India
MoSPI Periodic Labour Force Survey 2025 mean hourly earnings of employees by ISCO-08 major group (via ILOSTAT)
+7.8%
+3.3%
2022-2025
×1.10 Assumption
Brazil
IBGE PNAD Contínua 2025 mean hourly earnings by ISCO-08 major group (via ILOSTAT)
+6.8%
+1.3%
2015-2025
×1.60 Assumption
Mexico
INEGI ENOE 2025 mean hourly earnings by ISCO-08 major group (via ILOSTAT)
+7.6%
+2.6%
2015-2025
×1.30 Assumption
Real growth deflates nominal earnings by the World Bank consumer price index. India's series starts in 2022, so treat its growth rate as noisy.
Robot vs human hourly cost
The cost of an hour of human work and the robot cost of doing the same work, in US dollars at today's exchange rates, from 2026 to 2035 in the base scenario. Solid lines are people, dashed lines robots. Where a dashed line sits below the solid line of the same colour, the robot is cheaper in that country.
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