From $15 an hour to $100: what moves you up the AI training pay ladder

The ladder, rung by rung

The spread in AI training pay is wide: from $6 to $400 an hour across the 699 listings on this site as of 29 September 2026. Most of that spread follows which credential a listing asks for, and very little of it follows effort. Grouping hourly listings by the role named in the title gives a clear ladder (medians of each listing's midpoint):

The bottom rung: $6 to $20

The cheapest listings need a phone, a camera or a pair of ears. micro1's video-recording and annotation listings mostly pay $6–15 an hour, and its At-Home Video Recorder (US) $10–15. They ask for equipment and time rather than expertise, and they are priced that way.

The first step up: judgment in general work

Generalist evaluation roles, where you write and grade prompts rather than record data, sit around $50 an hour. Mercor's Generalist Expert pays $50–70, and a now-closed micro1 Generalist listing paid $50–90. No specific degree is asked for; the work is judged on clear writing and sound reasoning. That jump, from $15 to $50, is the largest you can make without a credential.

A degree and a field: $60 to $100

This is the largest block on the board: 236 hourly listings have a midpoint between $60 and $100. Engineering, science, software and finance roles have medians of $75–80. What moves you within the band is specialism: Mercor's broad Finance Domain Expert pays $60–100, while listings on identical text for investment banking pay $100–150 and for private equity $110–150. Naming a narrow field you have actually worked in beats claiming a broad one.

A PhD adds a consistent premium where a listing offers both tiers. Mercor's bilingual AI safety roles pay, for example, $48–52 at generalist level and $68–72 at STEM PhD level for Japanese.

The top: licensed professionals

Above $100 the listings mostly want a licence. Health and medicine has the highest median of any field on the site, $140 (browse it here). Mercor's US-licensed dermatologist listing pays $270 an hour and its radiologist listing $200–400. micro1's BigLaw attorney listings pay $140–400 (law and policy listings). Seniority matters too: senior-tagged listings have a median of $95 against $63 for mid-level.

What actually moves you up

• Lead with your strongest credential, not your broadest. A licence, a bar admission or a PhD is what the top bands screen for.
• Apply to the specialist version of a listing when a platform runs the same template at several rates.
• Pair a language with a skill. A language alone mostly pays $17–50; paired with medicine it can pay well over $100, as our bilingual guide shows.
• Check whether the rate is really hourly. Many listings pay per task, so speed and acceptance rate move your real pay as much as the band does; see how you actually get paid.

More on AI training pay

• How much do AI training jobs pay?: the full distribution by field, level and pay model
• AI training pay by country: which roles are priced by market and which pay one rate everywhere
• Can AI training work replace a full-time salary?: weekly hours, contracts and benefits
• Specialist vs generalist AI training jobs: the general field against every specialism