# AI work pay index

The middle half of top hourly rates currently advertised by AI-work platforms runs from $35 to $110/hr (median top rate $70/hr), measured from 540 distinct advertised rates across 3608 live listings on 23 platforms, as of 2026-10-13.

## By field

Each row measures the roles its page lists and shows the same figures that page does. A pay band posted in two fields counts in both, so the rows do not add up to the figures above. Those also leave out a band whose top is more than 3 times its bottom when one platform repeats it on more than 30 listings, and the field rows keep such bands, as their pages do. Roles counts every role on the page, including roles without an hourly rate.

| Field | Median | Typical (p25–p75) | Highest | Distinct rates | Roles |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| [Medicine & health](https://aipaylist.com/jobs/domain-experts/medicine) | $100/hr | $70–$140/hr | $450/hr | 83 | 148 |
| [Software engineering](https://aipaylist.com/jobs/coding) | $95/hr | $65–$120/hr | $400/hr | 140 | 481 |
| [Law & legal](https://aipaylist.com/jobs/domain-experts/law) | $120/hr | $100–$150/hr | $400/hr | 53 | 107 |
| [Finance](https://aipaylist.com/jobs/domain-experts/finance) | $105/hr | $85–$150/hr | $350/hr | 77 | 174 |
| [Business & ops](https://aipaylist.com/jobs/domain-experts/business) | $80/hr | $55–$103/hr | $350/hr | 39 | 87 |
| [Voice & audio](https://aipaylist.com/jobs/audio-speech) | $30/hr | $20–$50/hr | $280/hr | 92 | 431 |
| [Cybersecurity](https://aipaylist.com/jobs/cybersecurity) | $90/hr | $60–$120/hr | $250/hr | 27 | 58 |
| [Multilingual](https://aipaylist.com/jobs/multilingual) | $35/hr | $20–$50/hr | $200/hr | 76 | 676 |
| [Science & math](https://aipaylist.com/jobs/domain-experts/science) | $77/hr | $60–$115/hr | $200/hr | 67 | 207 |
| [Model evaluation & rating](https://aipaylist.com/jobs/model-evaluation) | $45/hr | $30–$65/hr | $200/hr | 46 | 212 |
| [Marketing & sales](https://aipaylist.com/jobs/domain-experts/marketing) | $65/hr | $50–$80/hr | $150/hr | 16 | 27 |
| [Education](https://aipaylist.com/jobs/domain-experts/education) | $60/hr | $40–$85/hr | $150/hr | 15 | 27 |
| [Writing & content](https://aipaylist.com/jobs/writing) | $68/hr | $43–$100/hr | $140/hr | 19 | 41 |
| [Data annotation](https://aipaylist.com/jobs/data-annotation) | $28/hr | $15–$50/hr | $125/hr | 32 | 68 |

## By platform

| Platform | Median top rate | Typical | Highest | Distinct rates | Listings |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Mercor | $105/hr | $70–$150/hr | $450/hr | 83 | 215 |
| Turing | $100/hr | $20–$100/hr | $150/hr | 6 | 23 |
| AfterQuery | $93/hr | $63–$123/hr | $175/hr | 43 | 219 |
| micro1 | $90/hr | $45–$130/hr | $400/hr | 128 | 343 |
| Handshake AI | $80/hr | $55–$110/hr | $300/hr | 30 | 222 |
| Alignerr | $75/hr | $50–$120/hr | $400/hr | 67 | 627 |
| xAI Specialist AI Tutors | $75/hr | $75–$100/hr | $100/hr | 5 | 25 |
| Terac | $65/hr | $40–$90/hr | $200/hr | 13 | 19 |
| SME Careers | $50/hr | $27–$80/hr | $120/hr | 26 | 735 |
| Meridial (Invisible) | $45/hr | $28–$65/hr | $200/hr | 29 | 762 |
| Rise Data Labs | $45/hr | $40–$60/hr | $150/hr | 11 | 88 |
| Grayder | $45/hr | $20–$50/hr | $185/hr | 9 | 13 |
| Claru | $35/hr | $25–$50/hr | $100/hr | 11 | 40 |
| Braintrust | $29/hr | $18–$90/hr | $150/hr | 20 | 25 |
| Lionbridge | $22/hr | $17–$34/hr | $45/hr | 25 | 40 |
| RWS TrainAI | $20/hr | $16–$24/hr | $36/hr | 18 | 64 |

Machine-readable: https://aipaylist.com/pay.json

---

Source: AIPayList (https://aipaylist.com/pay)
Observed: 2026-10-13
Licence: CC BY 4.0. Reuse freely with a link to the source URL.
Method: rates are read from each platform's own public job feed. One vote per unique platform+rate band, counted at the top of the band (the most the role says it can pay). Per-task pay is never converted to hourly. No benchmark is published below 5 distinct advertised rates. Population: since 2026-08-26 a role must advertise at least $10/hr (or $10 per task) to be listed, so these figures describe listed roles rather than all AI work; lower-paid rating work exists and is not represented. Full rules: https://aipaylist.com/methodology