Questions, answered

Yes. By 2026 there was real money moving. micro1 set aside $1B for 12 months of company data purchases, Mercor and Polyshares license chat, inbox, CRM and support ticket archives, and labs now pick up the records of startups that have closed.

It is a license. You keep the originals, and the buyer receives a scrubbed copy (people's names and personal details taken out) that it may use only as the signed terms allow: the purpose, the time period, and whether you can license the same records to others.

Most published ranges sit between $100K and $2M. micro1 and Polyshares both say $100K to $2M+, Ventra $100K to $2M, Mode $100K to $5M and Nyne $100K or more. These are the buyers' own claims. Mercor publishes no range. Try our calculator for a rough figure.

The usual bar is a headcount of roughly 20, either today or at your busiest point, and several years of mainly English email, chat and files. Some accept smaller teams, and businesses that are winding down or have shut can still be eligible.

Records of real work: email, Slack or Teams, shared docs and SOPs, CRM notes, support tickets, project boards, code and call recordings. The more people and years they cover, and the more they link to each other, the more they tend to be worth.

That turns on your customer contracts, your sector and the countries your clients and staff live in. A buyer will explain what it can take and how it scrubs personal data, yet the license should still go past your own lawyer first. We are not able to advise you legally.

Usually a few weeks after signing, sometimes longer. Before you sign, get the payment date in writing, and check whether the buyer pays on signing or only once it accepts the data.

Often, as long as you still hold the exports. SimpleClosure counted more than 150 of these deals by 2026, mostly worth $10K to $100K apiece, and in October 2026 MIT Technology Review described labs buying closed-company archives.

No. There is no charge, and no buyer sees your details unless you pick that buyer. What follows is a conversation, then possibly a written offer, and you are free to say no.

Yes. On 31 March 2026 Mercor confirmed it had been attacked, with the breach traced to a compromised open-source project, LiteLLM. Class actions in the Northern District of California followed within weeks.

Meta took a 49% stake in Scale AI in June 2025, for a reported $14.3B to $15B. Scale's founder, Alexandr Wang, then joined Meta. Reporting says Meta's shares are non-voting.

Both sit under Scale AI. Outlier names Scale AI as its operator, and Remotasks describes Scale AI as its backer.

That has been reported, including by TIME in 2024, but DataAnnotation's own site doesn't name Surge. We treat it as reported, not confirmed.

The big names are genuine businesses that earn real revenue. Sign up on the platform's own website only, and look up any past breaches before you hand over ID or bank details. Start with our platform rankings.

Its referrals page says you get 20% of your referral's earnings, capped at $250 to $15,000 per person according to role. Mercor funds the bonus, so your referral keeps their full pay.

Public evidence can't settle it yet. Neither publishes standard rates. Mercor is larger by reported run rate. Compare the posted rate for your specific role on each.

No. One public scoring method applies to every company we cover, and money can't move a score or edit a review.

From some buyers, yes. The buyer pays it, not you, and it never changes your offer or a score. Every program is listed on how we make money.

Never. We don't need files or logins to match you, and we never buy, store or resell anyone's records.