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Labeling Jobs

Guides to AI training work

What these platforms actually pay, how to get accepted, and which ones are worth your time, written from the listings on this site.

66 guides besides interview prep

  • xAI is the one large employer that hires under the title AI Tutor: 32 open roles on 3 October 2026, mostly language audio work at $35–45 an hour in the US, with specialist roles up to $100. This guide covers the roles and terms, the 2025 layoff of generalist tutors, and the same work at other platforms under other names.

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  • Data annotators label the material AI models learn from. On 3 October 2026, annotation roles on this board paid from $6 to $400 an hour, and the gap came from expertise: entry-level video labelling at the bottom, nurses and radiologists at the top. This guide covers the work, salaried and contractor pay, pay outside the US, and how annotators move up.

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  • Multimango is not a company you apply to. It is a web tool where contractors rate and annotate AI outputs, and its terms say you are engaged and paid by a separate administrator: in practice the vendor you already work through, such as Outlier, TELUS Digital, RWS, Mercor or CrowdGen. Here is what its terms say, how people get access, and what changed in 2026.

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  • Outlier pays weekly on Tuesdays through PayPal, Airtm or ACH, at a rate set per project and shown before you start. Some projects pay hourly, some per task, with mission bonuses on top. Here is what its terms say can hold pay back, what it does not publish, and the bonus disputes and rate cuts contributors reported in 2026.

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  • Alignerr is a real, paying platform run by Labelbox, a San Francisco data company founded in 2018. It states a rate on each job and pays weekly. Workers also report removals without explanation, unpaid evaluation work and pay held after a deactivation, and fake recruiters use lookalike domains. Here is what Alignerr publishes, what we found on lawsuits, and what workers say.

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  • Mercor publishes no platform-wide rate, but each of its 304 listings on this site states one. The typical hourly listing advertises $70, rates run from $12.68 to $400 an hour, and medicine pays most while language and audio work pays least. Pay by field, the top roles, language rates and how weekly payouts work, as of 3 October 2026.

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  • A drought is what DataAnnotation workers call weeks or months with an empty dashboard on an open account. DataAnnotation does not acknowledge droughts; its FAQ says work depends on demand for your skills and your performance. What workers believe causes them, how long 2026 droughts lasted by their accounts, and what to do meanwhile.

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  • Mercor and Alignerr both pay experts weekly to train AI, but they screen, pay and hire differently. Mercor runs a 20-minute AI interview, background checks and 304 listings on this site; Alignerr, run by Labelbox, adds a one-shot Zara interview for some jobs and is open almost worldwide. Here is who should pick which, and how to do both.

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  • OneForma screens applicants with automatic pre-checks (no VPN, phone and ID verification) and then timed certifications. Its Help Center gives 15–90 minute time limits, pass marks typically 75–85% that vary by test, about 3 attempts for most certifications, and no pausing. A final Failed blocks every job needing that certification. This guide covers the official rules and what workers report.

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  • DataAnnotation screens everyone with a Starter Assessment chosen by track at signup: about an hour, one to two hours for specialized tracks, and one attempt with no retakes. It grades thoroughness over speed and says silence may mean you were not accepted. This guide covers its FAQ, what applicants report about the Core test, and how to prepare.

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  • Handshake AI pays US-based students, graduates and professionals to train AI models, at posted rates from up to $40 an hour to $125 for specialists. Work authorization matters more than degrees, and projects are assigned, not chosen. Here is who qualifies (including F-1 students), how matching and pay work, and how to spot fake Handshake messages.

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  • Alignerr's path to paid work runs through a resume upload, a job application, a Persona ID check, a contract and billing setup, and sometimes a Zara AI interview. Here is each step as Alignerr and its Labelbox help centre describe it, how pay and payouts work, why accepted people often wait, and what raises your chances of being picked.

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  • If DataAnnotation has gone quiet, rejected you or never replied, there are more than twenty other platforms paying for AI training work. They differ on entry gates, published pay, payout rails and where they accept people from. Here they are grouped by who they suit, with the four names that turn out to be the same company as a platform you already know.

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  • DataAnnotation and Outlier are the two names people weigh most often when they start AI training work. They differ in who they accept, how you get in, how pay is shown and how you are paid. Here is a side-by-side from each platform's own pages, what contributors report about each, and which suits whom.

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  • Outlier is a real platform operated by Scale AI through a subsidiary called Smart Ecosystem Inc., and it pays weekly through PayPal, Airtm or ACH. Its degree rule, unpaid onboarding and uneven task supply are what catch people out. Here is what Outlier publishes about itself, what happened at Scale AI in 2025, and what contributors say.

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  • Writing and education AI training jobs pay journalists, editors, writers and teachers to rewrite, mark and teach on the record for AI labs. From 16 listings on this site: the three kinds of task, what they pay (median midpoint $67.50 an hour) and what counts as a qualification.

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  • Audio and voice AI jobs cover recording, transcription, speech data auditing, listening QA and audio engineering. From 107 listings on this site: what each type involves, what it pays (median midpoint $28 an hour, voice cloning up to $150) and what you need to qualify.

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  • Psychology and mental health AI training jobs pay psychologists, psychiatrists and specialist clinicians to review cases, write scenarios and judge how AI responds to distress. From 20 listings on this site: the tasks, what they pay (16 of 20 at $100 to $200 an hour) and who qualifies.

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  • Engineering AI training jobs pay mechanical, electrical, manufacturing and nuclear engineers to build and check the technical work AI systems are learning. From 98 engineering listings on this site: the work by discipline, what each pays (median midpoint $75 an hour) and who qualifies.

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  • STEM AI training jobs pay mathematicians, physicists, chemists and biologists to write, solve and check the problems AI models are tested on. From 64 science and maths listings on this site: the four kinds of task, what each field pays (median midpoint $80 an hour) and who qualifies.

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  • Finance AI training jobs pay bankers, analysts, accountants and underwriters to build and mark the financial work AI models attempt. From 56 finance listings on this site: the kinds of task, what they pay (median midpoint $85 an hour), which experience counts and who hires.

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  • Medical AI training jobs pay doctors, nurses and other clinicians to check and stress-test how AI handles medicine. From 45 healthcare listings on this site: the main task types, what they pay (physician roles median $180 an hour), which credentials count and where the lower doors are.

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  • Legal AI training jobs pay lawyers to write, grade and review the legal work AI models produce. From the 56 legal listings on this site: the three kinds of task, what they pay (median midpoint $110 an hour), which credentials matter and who is hiring.

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  • Data annotation is adding labels to audio, video, documents and text so a model can learn from them. What one task involves, who hires, what the 27 annotation roles on this site pay, and how to start.

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  • RL environment jobs pay software engineers to build the tasks, reference solutions and verifiers AI agents are trained and graded on. What one environment contains, who hires, and what the 14 listings on this site pay.

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  • AI safety and policy review jobs pay you to judge whether a model handled a sensitive request correctly under a written policy. What one task involves, who hires, and what the listings on this site pay.

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  • Prompt writing and prompt evaluation jobs pay you to write hard, realistic questions for AI models and to check whether a question is good enough to test one. What a task involves and what 36 listings on this site pay.

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  • Side by side comparison tasks ask you to pick the better of two or more AI outputs and say why. What one task involves, the 24 listings on this site that describe it, and what they pay.

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  • AI response evaluation jobs pay you to judge a model's answer against a rubric and explain why. What one task involves, who hires (133 listings on this site) and what it pays, from $14 to $400 an hour.

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  • AI red teaming jobs pay people to test where a model's safeguards fail and write up what they find. What one task involves, the three kinds of listing, and what the 56 red teaming listings on this site pay.

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  • Specialist AI training jobs pay more on average: a $75 an hour median against $50 for the general field, across 699 listings on this site. But language and audio specialisms pay less than generalist work, and the best generalist roles reach $140 to $200.

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  • How to earn more in AI training jobs: the rate follows the credential a listing asks for. From 699 listings on this site, the bands for recording and annotation work, generalist evaluation, degree-level fields and licensed professionals, and what moves you from one to the next.

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  • For most people, no: most AI training roles are contract work sized for 20 hours a week or fewer, with no benefits and pay that often depends on output. A few are genuine full-time placements. What the 699 listings on this site say about hours, contracts and the arithmetic.

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  • Do AI training jobs pay differently by country? Only 147 of the 699 listings on this site restrict applicants by country, so the data answers part of the question. Where platforms name a market, some pay one rate everywhere and others price the same job by country.

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  • Outlier and Mercor both publish the conduct that gets accounts removed: VPNs, second accounts, AI-written work, padded hours and leaked task content. What their rules say, what workers report about suspensions, and the habits that keep an account in good standing.

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  • The typical AI training listing on this site advertises about $70 an hour, but the range runs from $6 to $400. From 699 listings as of 29 September 2026: how hourly rates spread, what each field and level pays, and how per-task and salaried roles compare.

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  • Getting accepted on AI training platforms is mostly automated matching, and the platforms publish what their matching reads. Five things that shorten the path on Mercor, micro1, Alignerr, Outlier and DataAnnotation, each taken from the platform's own help pages.

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  • Six listings on this site are open only in India, 28 require an Indian language, and most of the rest name no country restriction. What AI training jobs in India pay, which platforms post them, what they ask for, and the payment check to make before you apply.

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  • You do not need to be a native English speaker for most AI training work. Of the 699 listings on this site, 552 name no country restriction, 172 require another language, and only a handful ask for native-level English. What that means for speakers in Africa, Asia and elsewhere, and the payment check to make first.

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  • AI training platforms pay through Stripe, Wise, PayPal and a few others, and each of those services has its own list of countries it serves. Which platform on this site pays through what, and where each payout service says it is unavailable or limited, from the services' own pages.

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  • Plenty of data annotation jobs are open without a degree, but not the best-paid ones. Across the 699 listings on this site, 126 state that no degree is asked for and 216 name a degree or professional qualification. Here is where each group sits and what it pays.

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  • Of the 699 roles on this site, 201 are entry or junior level, and three platforms post all of them. What micro1, Mercor and Invisible Technologies each offer beginners, what the work pays, and which beginner listings are tied to one country.

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  • The United States has income tax treaties with many countries, and they can reduce or remove US tax on some US source income paid to residents of those countries. How the IRS describes the mechanism, how a treaty claim is made on the W-8BEN or Form 8233, and where to read your own country's treaty.

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  • Some non-US contractors see US tax withheld from AI training payments; many see none. How the IRS rules on withholding for foreign persons work, what decides whether income counts as US source, where the W-8BEN fits, and what the IRS says about services performed outside the United States.

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  • AI training platforms ask for a tax form before your first payout. Whether it is a W-9 or a W-8BEN depends on one thing, whether the IRS treats you as a US person. What each form is for, who fills in which, and what the W-8BEN asks for, from the IRS pages.

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  • An AI training resume is read first by a parser and a fit check, then by a person, and later by a background check. What Mercor, Outlier and Alignerr say they do with your CV, and illustrative before-and-after bullets for three common backgrounds.

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  • Most AI training assessments give you one attempt, forbid AI help and are graded against guidelines you were just handed. What Mercor, Outlier and DataAnnotation publish about their tests, and the habits that follow from it.

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  • Speaking a second language is the most common way into AI training work, but the same job can pay three times more in one language than another. From the 135 non-English roles on this site: which templates pay the same in every language, which pay by market, what a professional skill adds, and where each language does best.

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  • Engineering is where AI training pays best, but the listings describe very different jobs under similar titles. Using more than a hundred engineering roles on this site, here are the five kinds of work (auditing, task authoring, environment building, reviewing agent output, building on pre-release models), what each pays, who gets in, and how to pick.

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  • A growing share of AI training jobs ask for more than your time: a clone of your voice, your personal Gmail and calendar, recordings of your screen, or first-person video of your home. What current listings actually ask for, what they leave unsaid, and the questions to settle before you connect or record anything.

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  • DataAnnotation is a real platform run by Surge Labs, Inc., the company behind Surge AI, and it pays through PayPal. It is also the platform people most often describe as silent: no word after the assessment, weeks without tasks, and accounts closed without explanation. Here is what it states, what workers report, and what it leaves unsaid.

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  • Five platforms come up again and again in remote AI training work in 2026, and each gates entry, publishes pay and pays out differently. Here is a side-by-side of what Mercor, micro1, Outlier, Alignerr and Handshake AI publish about entry, pay, payouts and eligibility, and which to apply to first depending on who you are.

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  • The category is real: Scale AI, Labelbox and Handshake all run one, and micro1 publishes peer-reviewed research on its own interviewer. That is exactly why the imitations work. Here is what a genuine platform does, the things that feel wrong but are normal, and the signals that mean stop, drawn from what the five platforms on this board actually publish.

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  • Every listing on this board advertises an hourly rate, and almost none of them pay by the hour. What you are really agreeing to is a per-task rate, a payout schedule, and a payment rail that has to reach your country. Here is what each platform publishes about all three, and the gap between the number in the ad and the number in your account.

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  • Every platform runs the same five steps in a different order: profile, eligibility, assessment, onboarding, then a wait. Most people do them backwards and burn an evening on an unpaid AI interview for a project their country was never open to. Here is the sequence that fails fast and cheap, with what each of the five platforms actually asks for.

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  • "AI training" covers three different jobs: labeling data, judging what a model produced, and doing your own professional work so a model can learn from it. They pay differently, screen differently, and want different people. Here is what separates them, and which one the listings on this board are actually offering.

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  • Country eligibility is decided at two gates: whether the platform can engage you at all, and whether the specific project is open where you live. Of the five platforms we track, two publish a policy you can check in advance, and only one tells you, on the listing itself, which country a given project is open in. This guide sets out what each actually says.

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