Vendor dashboard
The companies
What each vendor sells, who they sell it to, and the public numbers on revenue, valuation, and worker pay. Bracket labels stay on the figure they qualify. Research as of Oct 7, 2026.
- [reported] named source, not audited here
- [unverified] not tied to a filing or the company
- [est.] an estimate
- [company] the company's own figure
- Not public — no public figure in this pass
18 companies
Scroll the table sideways for revenue, pay, and sources.
| What they sell | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mercor Data vendor | Expert marketplace (doctors, lawyers, bankers, engineers). OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta (paused after breach) | >$2B gross run-rate (Jun 2026); H1 2026 gross ~$614M; net est. $600–800M | $10B Series C (Oct 2025); talks at $20B/$500M (Jul 2026), not confirmed closed | $20–200/hr, reported avg $95, top specialty $375; Meta project cut from $21 to $16/hr | |
| Surge AI (DataAnnotation.tech) Data vendor | Premium RLHF and expert data. Google, OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, Microsoft | 2024: $1.2B [reported]; 2025: $1.4B [unverified, aggregator] | Bootstrapped, profitable. Talks at >$15B (Reuters) and ≥$25B (Bloomberg) in Jul 2025; Forbes est. ~$24B; no closed round reported | Generalist $25–50/hr; experts $40–125+; coding/ML $40–150+; languages $25–40 | |
| Handshake AI Data vendor | Expert/PhD data via student and alumni network, to frontier labs | ~$1B gross AI-training run-rate (Apr 2026), ~$300M net; $550M in Jan 2026 | Last priced $3.5B (2022); ~$435M raised | PhD fellows $30–125/hr, avg ~$62 | |
| Scale AI (Outlier, Remotasks) Data vendor | RLHF and expert data, evals, government/enterprise AI apps. Meta (committed to ≥$450M/yr for 5 yrs [reported]); Google resumed; DoD contracts | 2025: just shy of $1B [company via Forbes, May 2026]; 2024: $870M. Sacra est. $2B for 2025 (conflicts) | ~$29B (Meta's $14.3B for 49%, Jun 2025); $13.8B in May 2024 | Outlier generalist up to $15/hr; coding $27.50–50; law $35–75; voice work $7.50–31 depending on language | |
| micro1 Data vendor | Expert data, RL environments, robotics data. Microsoft, Amazon, 1X | $500M gross run-rate (Aug 2026), net $150–200M; $100M ARR in Dec 2025 | $4B reported (>$100M, Sep 2026, unconfirmed); $500M Series A (Sep 2025) | Not published by company; third-party median top of band ~$90/hr | |
| Prolific Data vendor | Self-serve vetted participants, AI evals, RLHF | ~$350M annualized (Apr 2026) [est., Sacra] | ~$33M raised | Minimum $8/£6 per hr, recommended $12/£9; participants get ~70% of spend | |
| Turing Data vendor | Coding, reasoning, STEM and agentic data; enterprise AI. OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, Meta | $300M+ ARR (end 2024, profitable) [company]; 2025–26 not public | $2.2B (Series E $111M, Mar 2025); ~$225M raised in total | Rates not published (358/359 listings); one listing $25–55/hr | |
| Appen (ASX: APX) Data vendor | Crowd data and LLM data. Lost Google (Mar 2024); Chinese LLM customers growing | FY25: US$230.8M, net loss US$21.8M; FY26 guidance $270–300M [company] | Public | CrowdGen example: $8.40–9.60/hr (Chinese LLM projects, TW/HK); Fair Pay = above local minimum wage | |
| Shutterstock (data licensing) Data licensing · pay not public | Licenses image/video and metadata for model training | FY25 Data, Distribution & Services: $203.3M (+16%, includes non-AI lines) [company] | Public; Getty merger pending | Contributor payouts for AI licensing not checked | |
| Snorkel AI Data vendor · pay not public | Data-development platform, Evaluate, Expert Data-as-a-Service | 2025: $148M [unverified, aggregator] | $1.3B (Series D $100M, May 2025) | Not public | |
| Reddit (data licensing) Data licensing · pay not public | Licenses user content to Google, OpenAI | FY25 other revenue (mostly licensing): $140.0M (+22%) [company] | Public | n/a. Users are not paid | |
| Invisible Technologies Data vendor | RLHF and fine-tuning, enterprise AI. Microsoft, AWS, Cohere; OpenAI historically | 2024: $134M (2023: $60M) [company] | >$2B ($100M raise, Sep 2025); $144M raised in total | Not published; third-party est. ~$15–25 entry level, Glassdoor $34–59 [est.] | |
| Labelbox / Alignerr Data vendor | Labeling software plus Alignerr expert network | 2024: $50M [unverified, aggregator] | ~$1B (Series D $110M, Jan 2022); Oct 2025 Series E [unverified] | $30–40 generalist writing; $40–120 experts; claims $80/hr avg and $1M paid per week | |
| iMerit Data vendor · pay not public | Expert annotation (Scholars), Ango Hub | FY24-25: ₹278.4 crore (~US$33M), profitable | No raise since 2020; valuation not public | Not public | |
| GlobalLogic (Hitachi) Data vendor | Google Gemini / AI Overviews raters | Not broken out | Hitachi subsidiary | Generalist ~$16, super-rater ~$21 [Guardian]; super raters $28–32 direct vs $18–22 through subcontractors [WIRED] | |
| Sama Data vendor | Computer-vision annotation; formerly Meta moderation and OpenAI labeling | Not public (aggregator estimates $35M–$470M disagree) | ~$85M raised ($70M Series B, 2021) | Kenya $1.32–2/hr on OpenAI work (2023); current pay not public | |
| TELUS Digital Data vendor | CX plus AI Data Solutions (ex-Lionbridge AI), Google search/AI raters | Total 2024: US$2.658B (AI not broken out) | Taken private by TELUS, Oct 2025 (~US$539M for the minority stake) | US raters $11–40/hr [unverified listing]; UK £17.40/hr | |
| Toloka (Mindrift) Data vendor | Expert data, evals, red-teaming | Not public | $72M raise led by Bezos Expeditions (May 2025); valuation not public | All-access tasks <$20/hr; specialists $30–90/hr (coding/STEM up to $90, legal $75); paid per accepted task |
Sort uses one comparable number taken from the cell, and only when the wording supports it. TELUS Digital is not sorted on revenue because the public total does not break out AI. Unconfirmed valuation talks, raises, and “Public” without a market cap sort last. The cell text is the record — the sort number is not shown and is not a new estimate.