Pay report · updated October 7, 2026
AI training pay rates 2026. What experts earn by field and platform.
From 909 open AI training roles at 59 employers. We read the hourly rate each posting lists and take the middle of its range.
- Median pay
- $82.50/hr
- Middle half
- $70–$100
- Roles listing pay
- 55%
- Remote
- 93%
Key findings
- Law pays the most, with a median of $110/hr. Annotation pays the least at $21/hr.
- 45% of roles (410) don't list pay up front, so the real spread is wider than these numbers show.
- Among platforms with at least 5 roles that list pay, Handshake AI has the highest median at $117.50/hr.
- The highest rate listed right now is $300/hr. 18 roles pay per task instead of per hour and aren't counted here.
Median hourly pay by field
Midpoint of each role's listed hourly range, USD.
- Law$110
- Coding$100
- Medical$82.50
- Finance$82.50
- Science & math$82.50
- Generalist$80
- Languages$40
- Annotation$21
| Field | Open roles | Listing pay | Median | Middle half | Top listed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Law | 35 | 15 | $110/hr | $105–$115 | $300 |
| Coding | 272 | 120 | $100/hr | $75–$115 | $300 |
| Medical | 45 | 22 | $82.50/hr | $82.50–$96.25 | $285 |
| Finance | 77 | 69 | $82.50/hr | $82.50–$100 | $280 |
| Science & math | 93 | 69 | $82.50/hr | $82.50–$82.50 | $300 |
| Generalist | 187 | 137 | $80/hr | $70–$100 | $300 |
| Languages | 170 | 56 | $40/hr | $23.75–$50 | $150 |
| Annotation | 30 | 11 | $21/hr | $18–$32.50 | $140 |
How pay is spread
Roles by hourly midpoint, 499 roles that list pay.
Pay by platform
Employers with at least 5 open roles that list hourly pay.
| Platform | Open roles | Listing pay | Median | Middle half | Top listed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Handshake AI | 9 | 8 | $117.50/hr | $28.75–$127.50 | $150 |
| micro1 | 78 | 55 | $110/hr | $65–$122.50 | $300 |
| Alignerr | 90 | 15 | $100/hr | $61.25–$100 | $100 |
| Turing | 108 | 20 | $100/hr | $100–$100 | $300 |
| Mercor | 61 | 46 | $90/hr | $60–$120 | $210 |
| DataAnnotation | 102 | 102 | $82.50/hr | $82.50–$82.50 | $125 |
| Paro | 5 | 5 | $82.50/hr | $82.50–$82.50 | $125 |
| Ethos | 128 | 127 | $80/hr | $70–$100 | $150 |
| AfterQuery | 46 | 35 | $77.50/hr | $71.25–$110 | $180 |
| OpenTrain AI | 5 | 5 | $75/hr | $65–$100 | $150 |
| Babel Audio | 30 | 22 | $50/hr | $50–$50 | $150 |
| Beat Pulse Labs | 49 | 12 | $24/hr | $19.89–$28 | $39.90 |
| Welocalize | 16 | 8 | $10.50/hr | $3.88–$13.56 | $40 |
How we measure
Twice a day we collect public job postings for AI training and evaluation work, drop reposts and salaried jobs, and group duplicate postings into one role. Roles not seen for 21 days drop out.
For each role that lists an hourly rate, we take the midpoint of its range (a role paying $40–$60/hr counts as $50). Rates in other currencies are converted at fixed approximate rates. Per-task pay and roles without a rate are left out of the pay figures but counted in role totals.
Listed rates are what employers advertise. Actual earnings depend on hours available and project. Field labels are assigned automatically from job titles and may occasionally be wrong.