AI expert rates
What platforms that hire people to train AI advertise, next to what workers report actually earning. The gap is often large: Alignerr advertises an $80/hr average, while the median role on its own job board was about $22.50.
Platforms
Advertised range Median reported by workers US federal minimum wage
| Platform | Pay per hour (log scale) | What we know | Paid | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Mercor | $10–$250/hr advertised | Advertised average ~$81–108/hr, pulled up by specialists: lawyers ~$110–150, physicians ~$130–170, senior engineers $70–200. Projects can end abruptly. | Weekly | PublicSource ↗ |
Handshake AI Handshake | $17–$125/hr advertised | Not published | PublicSource ↗ | |
Alignerr Labelbox | $20–$200/hr advertised | Advertises an $80/hr average; the median role on its own job board was ~$22.50/hr. On some projects, rejected or never-reviewed work is unpaid. | Weekly | PublicSource ↗ |
micro1 | $30–$200/hr advertised | Job-board median ~$70/hr across 336 hourly roles. Single source for the advertised band. | Twice monthly | ClaimedSource ↗ |
Turing | $50–$100/hr advertised | Median ~$50/hr in the US vs ~$10/hr in India. | Not published | PublicSource ↗ |
DataAnnotation Surge AI | $25–$100/hr advertised | Job-board median ~$82.50/hr across 100 roles; language roles ~$32.50/hr. Some workers report $14–20/hr for general tasks. | On request | ClaimedSource ↗ |
Outlier Scale AI | $18–$60/hr advertised | Reported $18–28/hr general, $35–60/hr expert. $12.5M wage settlement; reports of unpaid platform time. | Weekly | PublicSource ↗ |
OpenTrain AI | $7–$90/hr advertised | On approval | ClaimedSource ↗ | |
Meridial Invisible Technologies | $6–$65/hr advertised | Not published | ClaimedSource ↗ | |
Snorkel AI | Not paid hourly | Pays $50 per accepted question rather than hourly. | — | ClaimedSource ↗ |
Appen | $10–$20/hr advertised | Monthly | PublicSource ↗ | |
TELUS Digital AI TELUS | $10–$20/hr advertised | Monthly | PublicSource ↗ | |
Prolific | $8–$15/hr advertised | On completion | PublicSource ↗ | |
Amazon Mechanical Turk Amazon | $3–$10/hr advertised | On request | PublicSource ↗ | |
Toloka | <–$3/hr advertised | Single source. | On withdrawal | ClaimedSource ↗ |
$1$10$100$1K | ||||
By field
Median hourly pay reported by workers, by field and platform. A cell appears once 5 or more people have reported.
| Field | Reports |
|---|---|
| Software engineering | 0 |
| Law | 0 |
| Medicine | 0 |
| Finance | 0 |
| Math & science | 0 |
| Writing | 0 |
| Languages | 0 |
| Generalist | 0 |
| Other | 0 |
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