AI training pay report
What remote AI training work advertises, measured across 2,535 live listings with a published hourly rate from 19 platforms. Updated October 1, 2026.
Among platforms with enough priced listings to compare, Babel Audio has the highest median at $110/hr and Welo Data the lowest at $10/hr, a gap of 11.0×. The spread is mostly a question of specialism rather than generosity: platforms that post law, medicine, finance and research roles advertise far more per hour than those built around transcription and language tasks.
Pay by platform
Platforms with at least 5 priced listings, highest median first. “Median minimum” appears only where at least 5 listings state a minimum.
| Platform | Priced listings | Median top rate | Middle half | Median minimum | Highest |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Babel Audio | 43 | $110/hr | $110–$150 | $60/hr | $150/hr |
| micro1 | 336 | $91/hr | $60–$140 | $50/hr | $400/hr |
| Mercor | 314 | $90/hr | $55–$119 | $60/hr | $250/hr |
| Braintrust | 23 | $85/hr | $26–$95 | $50/hr | $150/hr |
| AfterQuery | 209 | $75/hr | $45–$103 | $75/hr | $175/hr |
| Meridial Expert Network | 826 | $65/hr | $65–$65 | $8/hr | $200/hr |
| Terac | 15 | $60/hr | $22–$97 | $60/hr | $260/hr |
| SME Careers | 260 | $50/hr | $25–$70 | — | $150/hr |
| xAI | 33 | $45/hr | $45–$45 | $35/hr | $100/hr |
| Prolific | 389 | $26/hr | $26–$40 | $20/hr | $120/hr |
| Turing | 20 | $15/hr | $15–$25 | $15/hr | $200/hr |
| Welo Data | 61 | $10/hr | $7–$20 | $10/hr | $55/hr |
Pay by profession
Each listing is classified by the background it asks for. Professions with at least 5 priced listings, highest median first, with no single platform weighted above 15%. Each links to the matching roles.
| Profession | Priced listings | Median top rate | Middle half | Highest |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Law | 100 | $101/hr | $79–$130 | $400/hr |
| Finance & accounting | 112 | $100/hr | $65–$113 | $350/hr |
| Cybersecurity | 40 | $100/hr | $68–$101 | $250/hr |
| Engineering | 179 | $95/hr | $65–$120 | $175/hr |
| Medicine & healthcare | 116 | $90/hr | $65–$150 | $285/hr |
| Science & research | 194 | $81/hr | $65–$105 | $250/hr |
| Design & creative | 164 | $75/hr | $45–$106 | $250/hr |
| Mathematics | 38 | $73/hr | $65–$84 | $110/hr |
| Software engineering | 271 | $70/hr | $50–$100 | $350/hr |
| Business & consulting | 77 | $70/hr | $50–$100 | $350/hr |
| Data science | 65 | $70/hr | $39–$120 | $350/hr |
| Humanities | 15 | $66/hr | $65–$75 | $75/hr |
| Education | 22 | $65/hr | $51–$77 | $140/hr |
| Writing & editing | 22 | $65/hr | $37–$72 | $140/hr |
| Customer support & admin | 41 | $55/hr | $23–$69 | $92/hr |
| Miscellaneous | 77 | $50/hr | $20–$70 | $200/hr |
| Languages & translation | 973 | $30/hr | $25–$55 | $110/hr |
| General (no specialty) | 29 | $20/hr | $18–$52 | $200/hr |
Flat-fee listings
114 listings are priced per project rather than per hour, mostly paid research studies, interviews and short tasks. Their median fee is $33 per project. They are kept out of the hourly figures above because a $400 study that takes an hour and a $400 project that takes a week are not the same rate.
Highest-paying roles right now
Featured $140–400/hrmicro1 · job posted 2026-08-21 · job updated 2026-10-01ApplyFeatured $140–400/hrmicro1 · job posted 2026-08-21 · job updated 2026-10-01ApplyFeatured terac · job posted 2026-09-10 · job updated 2026-09-30ApplyFeatured $150–250/hr20h/wkmercor · job posted 2026-09-21 · job updated 2026-09-30ApplyFeatured $150–250/hr20h/wkmercor · job posted 2026-09-14 · job updated 2026-09-30ApplyMergers & Acquisitions Attorney - Freelance Project
Meridial Expert Network
$200/hrmeridial · job posted 2026-09-10 · job updated 2026-09-30ApplyMergers & Acquisitions Attorney - Freelance Project
Meridial Expert Network
$200/hrmeridial · job posted 2026-09-10 · job updated 2026-09-30ApplyFeatured turing · job updated 2026-10-01ApplyFeatured Finance Expert
AfterQuery
$175/hr10h/wkafterquery · job posted 2026-09-17 · job updated 2026-09-30ApplyFeatured Quantitative Analyst Expert
AfterQuery
$175/hr10h/wkafterquery · job posted 2026-08-28 · job updated 2026-09-30Apply
How we calculate this
Every active listing in our feed is read each day. Of the 3,821 listings live when this page was built, 2,535 publish a usable hourly rate and make up every table above.
- Advertised, not earned. A figure is what a listing says it pays.
- USD hourly only. Rates above $1 and up to $500/hr. Low rates are kept: some platforms advertise a few dollars an hour for regional language tasks, and hiding them would overstate what the market pays. Only figures of $1 or less, which sources use to mean “not stated”, are dropped.
- Top rate. The upper end of a stated range, or the single stated figure. It is the only number every priced listing provides.
- Aggregate figures are platform-balanced. No platform counts for more than 15% of an overall, profession or country figure. Without this, Meridial Expert Network alone would be 33% of priced listings, with 654 of them sharing a single top rate, and would set the market median by itself. The platform table is not weighted: each row is that platform on its own.
- Minimums of $0 or $1 are ignored. Some sources send a minimum of zero to mean “not stated”; counting it would drag every minimum to nothing.
- Small groups are hidden. A platform or profession needs at least 5 priced listings before we publish a figure for it.
- Not counted: 114 flat-fee listings (shown separately), 930 that state no pay, and 242 priced in other currencies, per year, or outside the range above.
Medians are rounded to whole dollars. A listing that appears under several locations counts once per posting, since each is a separate open role.
Pay report: common questions
Answers use the live figures above.
- How much do AI trainers make per hour?
- Across 2,535 live listings that publish an hourly rate, the median top-of-range rate is $65/hr. The middle half of listings top out between $27 and $100/hr, and 60% advertise at least $50/hr. Pay depends heavily on the specialism: language and transcription work sits at the low end, while law, medicine, finance and research roles reach the highest rates.
- Which AI training platform pays the most?
- By median top-of-range rate among platforms with at least 5 priced listings, Babel Audio is highest at $110/hr, and Welo Data is lowest at $10/hr. The ranking measures advertised rates, so a platform that posts many expert roles will rank above one that mostly posts generalist tasks, even if both pay fairly for their kind of work.
- Are these advertised rates or what people actually earn?
- Advertised rates. Each figure comes from the rate a listing publishes, not from anyone's payslip. Actual earnings also depend on how many hours a platform gives you, which varies project to project, and some platforms set individual pay only after you apply. Treat these numbers as a guide to what the market is offering, not a promise.
- What does the 'top rate' mean?
- Listings usually state a range, such as $40–$80 per hour. The top rate is the upper end of that range, or the single figure if only one is given. We use it because every priced listing states one, which makes platforms comparable; some sources publish only a ceiling, so a midpoint can't be calculated for them without guessing. Where a listing does state a minimum, we report the median minimum separately.
- How often is the pay report updated?
- The listings are refreshed daily and this page is regenerated every six hours, so the figures track the live market. The date at the top of the page shows when it was last built.