Buyer review
cognorlabs.comCognor Labs: a referral partner with conflicting numbers
Cognor Labs' ads say businesses are being paid for data that is licensed rather than sold. Yet its FAQ says Cognor buys nothing. It passes owners along and collects a fee from an anonymous data partner.
Some buyers pay us a referral fee. It never changes your price or our score. How we make money.
- Pays companies
- $100K to $2M (homepage); other pages have said $200K to $2M
- Minimum size
- 20+ US W-2 staff, 3+ years; closed firms 50+ at peak
- Time to payment
- Offer in 48 to 72 hours; paid after signing and delivery
- Our score
- 2.8 / 10
In this guide
Our score
2.8 / 10
- Pays companies
- $100K to $2M (homepage); other pages have said $200K to $2M
- Minimum size
- 20+ US W-2 staff, 3+ years; closed firms 50+ at peak
- Regions
- US
- Time to payment
- Offer in 48 to 72 hours; paid after signing and delivery
- Exclusivity
- Typically 24 months on licensed records (its FAQ)
- Referral program
- Paid by an unnamed data partner
What we like
- Says personal data is stripped inside your own environment
- No fee to companies, stated in its terms
Watch for
- Payout, timing and size figures have conflicted across its pages
- No legal entity or address named
- Shares wording and examples with another site
01
Cognor Labs at a glance
Role
Refers owners on; paid by a data partner it keeps anonymous
Payout range
$100K to $2M on the homepage; $200K to $2M on other pages
Minimums
US company, 20+ W-2 staff, 3+ years, its own email, CRM, drives and chat; closed companies need 50+ staff at peak
Speed
Offer usually 48 to 72 hours after a 10 to 15 minute data manifest; paid after signing and delivery
Exclusivity
Most agreements carry an exclusivity period, typically 24 months, per its FAQ
Activity claims
Homepage shows $11.8M placed in 2026 and a feed of recent signings, with no company or buyer named
Domain
cognorlabs.com registered 2026-09-16
| What we checked | What we found |
|---|---|
| Role | Refers owners on; paid by a data partner it keeps anonymous |
| Payout range | $100K to $2M on the homepage; $200K to $2M on other pages |
| Minimums | US company, 20+ W-2 staff, 3+ years, its own email, CRM, drives and chat; closed companies need 50+ staff at peak |
| Speed | Offer usually 48 to 72 hours after a 10 to 15 minute data manifest; paid after signing and delivery |
| Exclusivity | Most agreements carry an exclusivity period, typically 24 months, per its FAQ |
| Activity claims | Homepage shows $11.8M placed in 2026 and a feed of recent signings, with no company or buyer named |
| Domain | cognorlabs.com registered 2026-09-16 |
02
Who Cognor Labs buys from
It targets US manufacturers and other operating companies with 20+ W-2 staff and three years of history. A separate page takes closed US companies that had 50+ staff at peak and used Slack or Teams.
03
What Cognor Labs pays
Its own pages have disagreed. Example cards show a Midwest freight brokerage paid $1.6M in 72 hours, while the FAQ says payment follows signing and delivery. The homepage claims $11.8M placed in 2026 across 14 industries. None of these figures names a company or buyer, so none can be checked.
04
The contract terms
Its FAQ says most agreements carry about 24 months of exclusivity on the licensed records. That would stop you licensing the same records elsewhere for two years.
The terms page now loads (dated 23 October 2026) and applies Wyoming law, but it names no company or address, only a support email.
05
Cognor Labs's referral program
Earlier versions of its pages offered $10,000 to people who refer companies. We could not find that offer on its live site in late October 2026, so ask whether it still stands.
06
The same pages under another name
VMS, run by an ad agency in Dallas, has near-identical copy and the same sample cards, $1.6M freight brokerage included. Each says it refers owners for a data partner it does not identify.
07
Is Cognor Labs a fit for your company?
Ask for the data partner's name and contract before a first call ends. Without that, you cannot check who would hold your data.
08
Six checks before you send Cognor Labs anything
We run the same checks on every buyer we rank. They take an afternoon and they protect the one thing you cannot take back: the copy of your records.
- Find the legal entity. A registered company name, an address and at least one named person. A Facebook form alone is not enough.
- Get the offer and the contract in writing before any export. A sample agreement tells you more than a sales call.
- Ask who strips personal data, how, and when. You should approve the method and see a sample before anything leaves your systems.
- Ask where the data goes. Which AI companies receive it, whether you are told, and whether it can be resold.
- Ask how everyone is paid. By you, by the buyer, or out of your deal. Referral fees are normal; hidden ones are not.
- Get a second quote. Terms from at least one other buyer is the fastest way to know if an offer is fair.
FAQ
Questions, answered
Does Cognor Labs buy data?
No, by its own FAQ. It passes owners to a data partner, unnamed, that pays Cognor for each referral.
Get offers from buyers that fit
Tell us about your company once. We introduce you to the buyers most likely to pay, and you choose who to talk to.
Keep reading
Sources
Every number on this page links back to one of these.
- 1Cognor Labs homepagecognorlabs.com
- 2Cognor Labs: closed companiescognorlabs.com
- 3Cognor Labs termscognorlabs.com
- 4RDAP record for cognorlabs.comrdap.org
- 5VMS data licensingvmediasolutions.com
Spot something wrong? See our corrections policy. Some buyers pay us a referral fee. How we make money.