The AI Work Rate Index
Every hourly rate that the 46 platforms in our directory publish on their own recruiting pages, in one sortable table — with what each platform actually asks of you before the first paid task. Companies quote rates to attract applicants; this index keeps those quotes side by side so you can see the whole distribution instead of one screenshot from one platform.
Read this before the table. These are advertised maxima — the highest figure a
platform puts on its own site, usually attached to its scarcest skill set (clinical, legal, senior software).
They are not averages, not guarantees and not what a new contributor typically earns. Nobody outside the company
can publish what people are actually paid, so we do not try to. Where a platform publishes no rate at all, the
row says not published rather than guessing.
Platforms tracked
46
each one links to its own official page
Publish a rate
20
26 state "varies" or publish nothing
Middle half of quotes
$41–$182
per hour, advertised maxima only
Range published
$20–$1,000
median of the quotes: $95/hr
| Platform ↕ | Work type ↕ | Advertised max $/hr ↕ | What you need to start ↕ | Who it suits |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Surge AI surgehq.ai · Freelance AI Trainer — Surge AI | Freelance / contract | $1,000 as advertised: $1K /hr | Send your background to the recruiting contact listed on surgehq.ai (no standard application form — profiles are reviewed directly) | Credentialed elite professionals — think board-certified doctors, Supreme Court clerks, Ivy League… |
| Pareto AI pareto.ai · Expert Network Roles, All Domains — Pareto AI | Freelance / contract | $230 as advertised: $230 /hr | A completed profile, a paid screening task, and proof of your professional background | Licensed or credentialed specialists — doctors, lawyers, engineers, quants — not just general annotation… |
| Mercor mercor.com · Premium AI Jobs — All Skills | Freelance / contract | $200 as advertised: $200 /hr | A strong resume or portfolio — screening is more competitive at this pay tier | Experienced professionals — engineering, research, or specialized domains |
| Terac terac.com · $24–$200/hr — Expert Network Now in ChatGPT | Freelance / contract | $200 as advertised: $200 /hr | A profile plus a short conversational AI assessment — no prior AI experience required, but Terac says undergraduate-level expertise is the minimum,… | Credentialed professionals — CPAs and accountants, FP&A, treasury, tax and audit specialists, healthcare… |
| xAI — Elon Musk's AI Company x.ai · 219 Remote Roles (incl. GROK Training) — xAI | Freelance / contract | $200 as advertised: $200 /hr | Varies a lot by specific role — check each listing individually | A wide range of backgrounds, given how many different roles are open |
| SME Careers by SuperAnnotate superannotate.com · Subject Matter Expert — AI Training | Freelance / contract | $130 as advertised: $130 /hr | Proof of subject expertise — degree, certification, or relevant work history | Specialists in a technical or academic field, not generalists |
| DataAnnotation.tech dataannotation.tech · AI Data Annotator | Freelance / contract | $100 as advertised: $100 /hr | Passing an initial qualification test before you get access to paid tasks | People willing to start with simpler tasks and build up from there |
| Handshake AI Fellowship joinhandshake.com · Earn Up to $100/hr — PhDs & Masters | Freelance / contract | $100 as advertised: $100 /hr | Academic transcripts or proof of degree, often a short subject test | Current or recent grad students with a Master's or PhD |
| Micro1 — Palo Alto micro1.ai · AI Expert — Frontier Lab Projects | Freelance / contract | $100 as advertised: $100 /hr | A resume review plus a technical assessment | Experienced AI/ML practitioners comfortable with a formal screening process |
| Mindrift mindrift.ai · AI Trainer — All Skills Welcome | Freelance / contract | $100 as advertised: $100 /hr | Sign-up plus a short skills assessment for your chosen track | Beginners and experienced contributors alike — roles span a wide pay range |
| AfterQuery (YC-backed) afterquery.com · AI Expert — 40+ Roles Open | Freelance / contract | $90 as advertised: $90 /hr | A remote setup; some roles want a specific technical or writing background | Freelancers comfortable with structured evaluation and grading tasks |
| RemoExperts (Rex.zone) rex.zone · Expert-First AI Training — All Domains | Freelance / contract | $65 as advertised: $65 /hr | A laptop, stable internet, and proof of expertise (resume or portfolio) in your domain | People with deep knowledge in a specific field, not just general writing skill |
| Deccan AI Experts deccanai.com · AI Expert Network Roles — Deccan AI | Freelance / contract | $50 as advertised: $50 /hr | Typically a referral or an inbound invite rather than an open application | Established experts with a public track record — publications, GitHub, portfolio |
| TELUS International AI telusinternational.com · AI Contributor — 7 Roles Open | Freelance / contract | $50 as advertised: $50 /hr | ID verification or a background check is common for larger BPO-style platforms | People who prefer a more corporate, process-driven application experience |
| OneForma oneforma.com · AI Contributor — 60+ Languages | Freelance / contract | $45 as advertised: $45 /hr | Native or fluent-level skill in your listed language(s) | Bilingual or multilingual speakers, especially in less common languages |
| CrowdGen by Appen appen.com · AI Contributor — 500+ Languages | Freelance / contract | $40 as advertised: $40 /hr | Just a sign-up and basic task tutorials — no special qualification usually needed | Anyone wanting flexible, low-commitment microtasks on the side |
| Saroot Labs Inc. sarootlabs.com · Prompt Engineer | Part-time | $30 as advertised: $30 /hr | Strong written English and some familiarity with how AI chat tools respond to prompts | People comfortable writing clear, structured instructions for AI systems |
| Stellar AI stellarai.com · Earn $25/hr+ Training AI — No Experience | Freelance / contract | $25 as advertised: $25 /hr | Just a sign-up and a short onboarding — most tasks are self-explanatory with built-in guidelines | Beginners looking for a low-barrier entry into AI training work — no degree or prior experience needed to… |
| Prolific prolific.com · Get Paid for Online Studies | Freelance / contract | $20 as advertised: $20 /hr | Just a participant profile — no special qualification needed to start | People who enjoy surveys and short studies rather than ongoing task work |
| RWS TrainAI rws.com · AI Data Specialist — TrainAI Community | Freelance / contract | $20 as advertised: $20 /hr | Language-pair fluency relevant to the open tasks | Translators or bilingual freelancers looking for AI-adjacent work |
| AI Acquisition LLC aiacquisition.com · 50+ Remote Corporate Roles — 20+ Countries | Full-time | not published as advertised: Multiple | Relevant experience matching the specific department — these are standard corporate hires with normal interview processes | Marketing, Operations, or Customer Success professionals looking for standard full-time or contract remote… |
| Alignerr alignerr.com · Robotics ML Expert & AI Trainer Roles — Alignerr | Freelance / contract | not published as advertised: $1000 /ref | Relevant technical background; the referral bonus needs a successful invite | People with a robotics, ML, or computer-vision background |
| Anthropic anthropic.com · The Company Behind Claude AI — Hiring! | Full-time | not published as advertised: Premium | Technical roles use live coding (Colab/CodeSignal); non-technical interviews are conversational. | Engineers, researchers, and policy/operations professionals who care about AI safety — independent research,… |
| Avalara (NYSE: AVLR) avalara.com · Global Tax-Tech Company — Multiple Roles | Full-time | not published as advertised: Multiple | Relevant degree and work experience matching the specific role — these are standard full-time hires, not gig work | Professionals wanting stable, long-term corporate employment rather than quick freelance income |
| Besimple AI besimple.com · Get Paid to Record Your Voice for AI | Freelance / contract | not published as advertised: Varies | A Google account to sign up — no technical skills, just read provided scripts and record clearly | Anyone with a phone, a quiet space, and a few minutes a day — non-English speakers get higher bonus rates |
| CVAT.ai cvat.ai · Computer Vision Tooling Roles (4 open) — CVAT.ai | Full-time | not published as advertised: 4 Roles | Data Annotator is contract-based with no listed experience requirement. | Data annotators, frontend developers, technical writers, and QA engineers who want to work on a… |
| CloudFactory cloudfactory.com · 32 AI & Data Roles — Annotators, Linguists & Engineers! | Full-time | not published as advertised: 32 Roles | Requirements depend on the opening. | Data annotators, linguists, AI operations specialists, software engineers, delivery managers, and consultants… |
| Crossover crossover.com · Remote Full-Time Tech & AI Roles (Pay Varies by Role) — Crossover | Full-time | not published as advertised: $1M /yr | Multi-stage interviews and skills testing — the process is longer than most | Highly experienced professionals comfortable with rigorous, performance-tracked work |
| DataForce by TransPerfect dataforce.ai · 1.3M Worldwide Community — Sign Up in 5 Min | Freelance / contract | not published as advertised: Varies | A 5-minute sign-up plus a qualification step — pay is calculated per task, per hour, or flat rate depending on the project | Bilingual speakers, students, and anyone wanting flexible side income — beginners welcome, no AI experience… |
| ElevenLabs elevenlabs.io · 150+ Open Roles incl. Voice AI Engineering — ElevenLabs | Freelance / contract | not published as advertised: Multiple | Full-time roles need relevant experience; freelance roles (dubbing, transcription, audiobook) depend on language skills and audio quality | Engineers, marketers, and sales professionals for full-time roles; linguists, translators, and audio… |
| GitLab gitlab.com · World's Largest All-Remote Company | Full-time | not published as advertised: Multiple | A standard full-time hiring process — resume screening, interviews, and role-specific assessments | People wanting a stable, full-time remote job at an established public company — not freelance gig work |
| Innodata Inc. innodata.com · Data Annotation & AI Content Roles — Innodata | Full-time | not published as advertised: Premium | A standard full-time application process, often with role-specific technical screening | People who prefer working with an established, publicly accountable company |
| Invisible Technologies | Meridial Expert Network invisible.co · AI Training & Operations Roles — Invisible Technologies | Freelance / contract | not published as advertised: Elite | Onboarding into the expert network before tasks become available | Generalists comfortable with varied operational and data tasks, not just one niche |
| LinguaSenseAI linguasenseai.com · Language & Audio Remote Jobs | Freelance / contract | not published as advertised: Varies | A decent microphone or quiet recording space for audio-based tasks | People with clear speech, strong language skills, or audio-editing experience |
| MaxAccelerate maxaccelerate.com · IBM Maximo Roles — Dubai Sponsorship Available! | Full-time | not published as advertised: $103K avg | Relevant IBM Maximo or EAM experience — contract roles are 12–24 months, some permanent options. | IBM Maximo developers, EAM consultants, RedHat/cloud specialists, and enterprise tech sales professionals —… |
| Naveera Tech naveera.com · 25+ Remote Tech Jobs Open | Full-time | not published as advertised: 25+ Roles | A standard full-time hiring process — interviews, background checks, and so on | People looking for a full-time remote tech job, not freelance gigs |
| Outlier AI outlier.ai · AI Expert — 61+ Roles Open | Freelance / contract | not published as advertised: Varies | Passing a subject-specific qualification quiz to unlock paid tasks | People strong in a specific subject — coding, writing, math, and similar |
| Revolut revolut.com · 622 Open Positions — Hiring Now! | Full-time | not published as advertised: Multiple | Relevant degree or work experience for the specific team — most roles are full-time employment, not freelance/gig work | Experienced professionals in fintech, compliance, engineering, or finance who want high pay and don't mind a… |
| Scale AI scale.com · AI Data & Model Evaluation Roles — Scale AI | Freelance / contract | not published as advertised: Premium | Account sign-up plus task-specific qualification tests | Anyone wanting to start with a recognizable, widely-used platform |
| Scholars by iMerit imerit.ai · PhD & Expert Network — Teams Not Crowds | Freelance / contract | not published as advertised: Varies | A relevant advanced degree (MA, MSC, or PhD depending on the project) and proficiency in the required language for that role | Master's/PhD holders and subject matter experts across professional, academic, and creative fields — from… |
| Shaip AI Community shaip.com · Global Contributor Community — SHAIP | Freelance / contract | not published as advertised: Varies | Just an email to sign up — each project has its own qualification step, usually a simple test or sample task before you start earning | Anyone worldwide — especially Indian native language speakers (Hindi, Haryanvi, Indic languages) who can earn… |
| Snorkel AI snorkel.ai · Full-Time Careers OR Expert Community | Freelance / contract | not published as advertised: Multiple | Full-time roles need relevant tech/research experience; Expert Community needs deep expertise in a specialized field, any background | Tech professionals wanting full-time SF-based careers, OR PhDs/specialists wanting flexible remote contract… |
| Tether tether.io · 250 Remote Roles — AI Engineers & More! | Full-time | not published as advertised: Multiple | Relevant engineering or domain experience — roles range from internships (ML Engineer) to senior positions (AI Research Engineer) | AI/ML Engineers, LLM researchers, Backend developers, and Marketing professionals — India roles available in… |
| Turing — Anthropic • Nvidia • Disney turing.com · LLM Trainer — Agent Function Call | Freelance / contract | not published as advertised: Frontier AI | Usually a coding assessment plus a technical interview | Software engineers comfortable with technical interviews |
| Uber AI Solutions uber.com · Freelance AI Contributor | Freelance / contract | not published as advertised: Flexible | Details vary by role — check the official application page | People comfortable evaluating a new platform on their own |
| Welo Global welo.com · 25+ Years Global Excellence — Hiring | Freelance / contract | not published as advertised: Multiple | A profile sign-up and language proficiency assessment — role type and pay depend on the specific project you qualify for | Bilingual or multilingual speakers, especially those with skills in less common languages — but general… |
How we capture these numbers
- Source. Only the platform's own public recruiting page — never an aggregator, a review blog, a screenshot in a Facebook group, or a rate quoted in an advertisement run by someone else.
- Figure taken. The highest hourly figure the page states for the role family it is recruiting for. Where a page only quotes a range, we store the top of the range and show the raw text next to it, so nothing is hidden behind our formatting.
- Annual offers. A handful of platforms publish yearly salaries. Those are divided by 2,080 hours (40 h × 52 weeks) purely so they can sit in the same sort order as hourly quotes; the row is labelled from yearly and the original figure stays visible. Freelance platforms rarely have an annual salary at all.
- Not published. Where a platform says "rates vary by project" and gives no number, we record nothing. That is why 26 of 46 rows show not published — filling those in with a competitor's number would be the exact kind of noise this table exists to remove.
- Re-capture. The last full sweep was 28 Sep 2026. Each sweep is recorded in the review log, including which platforms moved.
What the distribution actually says
Two things are worth knowing before reading any number here: the 20 entries with a figure are hourly contractor quotes, and most of the 26 without one are salaried employers (Anthropic, GitLab, Revolut, ElevenLabs, Scale AI's careers page) whose pay is never published as an hourly rate. So this table describes the contributor market, not the AI job market as a whole. Within it, three patterns are consistent across sweeps.
1. General annotation and evaluation sits near the bottom of the published range
The quotes under roughly $41/hr are the ones attached to open-entry work: labelling, ranking, transcription, response comparison. That is the realistic band for a first contract — and note that it is the maximum those platforms advertise, not their entry tier. Anyone comparing "my old salary" to these numbers is comparing an average against a ceiling.
2. Everything from the middle up is a credential market, not an effort market
The upper half of the range is attached to a specific scarce profile: nursing or clinical background, law, advanced mathematics, senior software engineering, or PhD-level research. Those platforms are buying judgement a model cannot fake. Producing more volume does not move you into that band; holding the credential does, or not at all.
3. The single $1,000/hr figure is a top-of-range marketing number, and it should be read that way
One platform advertises $1,000/hr for its rarest specialist tier. It is a real figure, published by a real company, and it is not what a new contributor earns — which is exactly why the table prints it next to the raw text instead of quietly dropping the outliers. When a rate looks like an outlier, the honest treatment is to label it as one, not to average it into the middle.
Between the advertised figure and money in your account sit three mechanisms, and they apply to every row: qualification tests that place you in a pay tier; task supply, which is project-driven and can fall to zero for weeks; and quality review, where rejected work is unpaid. The Pay Checker applies those multipliers to any rate you paste in.
A rate above this whole table is a warning sign, not a find. If a Facebook group,
WhatsApp "agent" or Telegram recruiter offers $60–$200/hr for "typing work" with no assessment and a
"registration fee", it is not the same market as the 20 platforms above. Use the
Pay Checker to see whether a claimed rate exists anywhere in this dataset, and the
scam checklist for the red flags we see most often.
Adjacent comparisons
- Contractor pay across platforms — how to read a rate against the costs you carry as a contractor (tax, no benefits, unpaid bench time).
- Best-paying AI training platforms — which quoted rates survive contact with qualification requirements.
- Jobs by country — the eligibility side: which of these platforms accept applications from your country at all.
- Taxes & payments — what actually arrives after withdrawal fees and withholding.
Reuse this data
The table is published for reuse under CC BY 4.0: copy it, chart it, build on it — with a link back to this page and to each platform's own page for the underlying figure. If you spot a rate that no longer matches what a platform publishes, email us; corrections are logged publicly in the review log.
Questions we get about this index
Why not publish an "average pay" figure?
Because nobody outside these companies has one. Payment data is private to each platform, and any average we printed would be invented. We publish what is actually on the record and label it as advertised.
Why does a platform I know well show "not published"?
It either quotes per-project rates or reviews applicants before revealing rates. Both are common for invite-only expert networks. Absence of a number is a fact about the platform's recruiting, not an oversight.
How current is this?
The rate sweep behind it is dated 28 Sep 2026 and the page was last restructured on 18 October 2026. Rates change with project demand, so verify the live figure on the platform's own page before you rely on it — every row links there.
Do you get paid when someone applies through this table?
Some outbound links are referral or affiliate links, and where they are, the row's target page controls the relationship. That never changes which platforms appear or what number we print — we copy the figure the platform publishes, including ones that make the market look less flattering.
Advertising appears on this page. Rates are as published by the companies listed; HowToAIJob is independent, is not affiliated with any of them, and cannot guarantee current rates, task availability or earnings.