Prolific

How it works

Prolific is an online research platform: academics and companies post studies, and verified participants take part in them for a reward. Prolific was founded in 2014 by Phelim Bradley during his doctorate at Oxford, according to Oxford University Innovation, and TechCrunch reported its 2023 Series A as a bet on using that participant pool to train and stress-test AI models.

Getting in is slower than most platforms in this market. Prolific runs a waitlist and emails an invite when it wants more participants; eligibility depends on where you live, not your nationality, and you must be over 18. Once invited you verify your identity through Onfido with a photo ID from your country of residence and a selfie video. Prolific states that if you fail verification it cannot offer you an account, and you cannot rejoin with a new one.

The AI work sits in two invitation-only groups. AI taskers are participants Prolific picks for high approval rates and strong past performance, then invites to a two-part AI Task Assessment; the tasks include reviewing model outputs and fact-checking AI-generated information. Domain Experts are participants with verified qualifications (Prolific's examples include lawyers, programmers, healthcare workers, red teamers and fluent language speakers) who pass a skills test, document check or qualification review. You cannot apply for either group; you are invited.

Worth knowing

Good:

• Prolific enforces a minimum hourly reward on every study, calculated from the median actual completion time rather than the researcher's estimate
• Prolific states AI tasker work usually carries higher rewards than ordinary studies because it is more complex, and it recommends researchers pay Domain Experts considerably more than the general floor
• Submissions a researcher leaves unreviewed are approved automatically after 22 days, so a silent researcher cannot sit on your pay indefinitely
• Participants on Trustpilot rate Prolific highly overall, 4.5 out of 5 across more than 15,000 reviews when we checked

Less good:

• The waitlist has no published timeline, and people outside the supported countries can join a waitlist with no guarantee of access
• Account holds are the recurring complaint. Prolific lists the triggers itself (a VPN, a PayPal account registered in another country, shared accounts, and using LLMs or automation to complete studies unless a study permits it) and says appeals can take up to four weeks, with an upheld hold being final
• Participants on Trustpilot in September 2026 describe studies that show open places but are already full when clicked, and rejections whose disputes went unanswered for months
• The AI groups are opt-in by invitation only, so a new account starts on ordinary academic studies and has no way to request AI work

About this page

Facts above come from Prolific's participant help centre (eligibility, identity verification, account holds, study pay, cashout and the AI taskers and Domain Experts articles) and its participant how-it-works page, last checked 29 September 2026. The figure in the facts grid is Prolific's published minimum hourly reward for studies, a floor rather than a typical rate; Prolific publishes no typical earnings figure. Worker reports come from Prolific's Trustpilot page and are attributed where they appear. We could not read the r/ProlificAc subreddit and have not relied on it.

If you want work that is AI training from day one rather than by later invitation, the AI safety and evaluation roles on this site are posted by platforms that recruit for it directly, and how you actually get paid explains the per-task pay model most of them use.