Partner Comparison
Three companies will pay you to license your operational data for AI training, and they are not interchangeable. They want different data, they take different sizes of company, and only one of them publishes what it pays.
Everything below comes from what each partner publishes or has told us in writing. Where a partner has not said something, we say that rather than filling the gap. We introduce companies to all three, so we have no reason to talk one of them up.
See which ones fit your company| micro1 | Mercor | |
|---|---|---|
| Who they take | 30 to 200 employees with established, documented processes, for the corpus and workflow programs. A separate frontline operations program is sized on Microsoft Teams users instead, at 7,000 to 20,000. | No published minimum or maximum company size. |
| Geography | US, Latin America, or Europe for the corpus and workflow programs, with operations in English. The frontline operations program leans towards companies headquartered outside the United States. | No published geographic requirement. |
| Published payout figures | Yes, tiers published | No, quoted per company |
| How you get in | Apply directly | By introduction only |
Rows only contain what a partner publishes. Empty is not a judgement, it means unpublished.
Headcount is the one requirement partners state as a firm range, so it decides most of your options. This is the same table our matching runs on.
| Employees | micro1 | Mercor |
|---|---|---|
| 1–30 | Outside their range | Open |
| 31–50 | Open | Open |
| 51–200 | Open | Open |
| 201–500 | Outside their range | Open |
| 501–1000 | Outside their range | Open |
| Over 1000 | Outside their range | Open |
Licenses anonymized workflow and corpus data for frontier model training, structured as a recurring partnership rather than a one-time sale.
Data they want
How you get paid
micro1 publishes tiers: $100k+ for first licensing agreements on standard in-scope workflows, $500k+ for recurring agreements spanning several workflow types, and $1M+ for specialized proprietary operations that labs cannot source elsewhere. The frontline operations program lists a typical $100k to $400k range for selected partners. Where you land depends on dataset size, workflow complexity, data quality, and how unique your operations are.
How the process runs
micro1 accepts applications directly. We link you to the right listing and step out of the way.
Best fit for
A 30 to 200 person company whose work already runs through systems of record, and that wants to see the size of the prize published up front.
What they have not published
Anonymizes and contributes operational data to frontier AI labs, running the connect, extract, anonymize, and payout pipeline once a company signs on.
Data they want
How you get paid
Calculated from data volume, how many tools you connect, and the depth of that data. Mercor publishes no fixed tiers, so there is no figure to quote before they estimate yours. They state the company pays nothing upfront and that they cover extraction, anonymization, and transfer costs.
How the process runs
Mercor takes companies through referral rather than an open application, so there is no link to send you to. We submit your details to them by hand within 7 business days of your intake.
What Mercor states about handling your data
These are Mercor's own statements. We have not audited or verified them, and we do not guarantee them. Ask them to confirm anything you plan to rely on.
Best fit for
A company outside the 30 to 200 band, or one that would rather have a payout estimated for its actual tools than read a published tier and guess.
What they have not published
Can a company work with more than one of these partners?
Nothing in what any of them publishes says otherwise, and the programs cover different data and different company sizes. What you can commit to twice depends on the exclusivity terms in the agreement each partner puts in front of you, so read that before signing a second one.
Which partner pays the most?
Only micro1 publishes figures, so a straight ranking is not possible. Mercor estimates a payout from your actual tools and data volume before you commit. Getting an estimate is the most honest way to know what your company is worth to them.
Does it cost anything to be introduced?
No. The match and the introduction are free to you, and none of these partners charge a company to apply.
Does aitrainer.work see our operational data?
No. We never collect, store, view, or process any company data. We take a short company profile, work out which partners fit, and make the introduction. Everything after that is between you and the partner.
More on how these deals work in our guides, and on what we do and do not touch in our data & governance policy.
Answer a handful of questions about your company and we will tell you which of these partners fit, why, and what each one wants next.
Find your partner match