What AI workforce companies actually pay.
Entry, mid, and expert hourly ranges across all 22 platforms — with contract type, payment cadence, and live work availability.
Expert ceiling vs. entry rate
Top 12 platforms by expert-tier ceiling. All values are USD per hour estimates.
All 22 platforms
Live salary intelligence cards.
Mercor
1099 Contractor
Junior domain contributors
Mid-career specialists
PhD / senior engineers, top tier up to $200
Selective: paid calibration required. Surge work during model launches.
Turing
Global Contractor
Junior engineers
Mid-level full-stack / ML
Senior / staff engineers
Vetted long-term engineering placements with US clients.
Alignerr
1099 Contractor
Generalist annotators
Subject experts
Frontier reasoning specialists
Tied to Labelbox. Project supply is bursty.
Mindrift
1099 Contractor
Domain contributors
Specialists
Senior experts
Selective expert network for advanced reasoning.
Scale AI
1099 Contractor
Generalist Outlier tasks
SWE & STEM contributors
Specialized reasoning / advanced code
Pay varies by project tier. High-volume coding tasks dominate.
Surge AI
1099 Contractor
RLHF reviewers
Domain experts
Senior specialists
Application-only. Selective tasking once approved.
Outlier
1099 Contractor
General writing / reading tasks
Advanced math / coding tracks
PhD STEM, niche languages
Pay surfaced per-project in the dashboard. Rates rise with rubric streaks.
Invisible Technologies
Global Contractor
Advanced AI trainers
Specialists & team leads
Senior operators / engineers
Structured cohorts. Promotion path to ops leadership.
DataAnnotation
1099 Contractor
Standard annotation projects
Code & writing projects
Specialized math / advanced reasoning
US-only for many projects. Onboarding requires writing screen.
RWS
Freelance Project
Linguistic QA
Translators & reviewers
Senior linguists, post-editors
Per-word pricing common. Long-running enterprise localization.
Welocalize
1099 Contractor
Search/ads raters
Linguists, AI trainers
Senior reviewers
Steady part-time roles. Locale-specific demand.
TaskUs
W2 / Employee
Content moderation, support
Team leads / QA
Ops managers / trainers
Full BPO benefits. Site-based and remote.
Lionbridge
1099 Contractor
Internet assessors
Language specialists
Senior linguists
Now part of TELUS Digital. Stable part-time.
Toloka
Freelance Project
Crowd tasks
Expert tracks
AI Tutor / coding experts
Global crowd + premium expert program. Wide rate spread.
TELUS Digital
W2 / Employee
Search/social media evaluation
Language & locale specialists
Linguists, AI trainers
Part-time long-term roles. Rate set by country of residence.
Remotasks
1099 Contractor
Image/text micro-tasks
Categorized projects
Bootcamp graduates / advanced tracks
Entry-level gateway. Scale AI subsidiary.
OneForma
Freelance Project
Micro-projects
Specialist annotators
Voice & linguistics SMEs
Pactera EDGE brand. Project supply varies weekly.
Appen
1099 Contractor
Search evaluation, micro-tasks
Linguists, transcribers
Project leads & QA
Rates strictly country-based. Slow payment cycle.
Clickworker
Freelance Project
Micro-tasks, UHRS gateway
Writing & translation
AI training projects
Per-task pricing dominates. Hourly equivalent varies wildly.
Sama
W2 / Employee
Annotation associates
Senior annotators
Project leads
Ethical-AI focus. Hubs in Kenya, Uganda, India.
CloudFactory
W2 / Employee
Cloud workers
Team leaders
Senior reviewers
Hubs in Kenya, Nepal. Structured progression.
Hive
Freelance Project
Hive Micro tasks
Advanced tasks
Specialized review
Pure micro-task model. Pay per item completed.
Estimates synthesized from public listings, contributor reports, and platform documentation. Rates vary by country, project, and rubric performance.