How you actually get paid
Pay breakdown · 8 September 2026
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.
The advertised rate is not the pay model
All 32 listings on this board quote an hourly rate. The range runs from a $45 floor to a $400 ceiling, and every one of those figures is the platform's own published number rather than our estimate.
Almost none of them mean you are paid by the hour.
micro1 says so directly on several listings: pay is output-based, per task that meets the project specification, not per hour at the desk. It adds that the time a task takes varies with the expert's experience and workflow. Read those two sentences together and the advertised band describes what a fast contributor reaches, not a rate you are owed for time spent.
Check which model applies before you accept; it is covered further in why these jobs advertise an hourly rate but pay per task.
Three pay models, and how to tell them apart
Hourly, actually hourly. You log time and are paid for it. Rare on this board, and usually attached to the project-shaped engagements: Mercor's UK data engineering project quotes $140 to $200 an hour against 40 hours a week for four defined weeks, which is the only shape here where the arithmetic is straightforward.
Per task, advertised hourly. The common case. You are paid a fixed fee per accepted task, and the hourly figure is a projection. What decides your real rate is how long a task takes you and how many are accepted.
Per project. A fixed engagement with dates, where the total is the rate multiplied by expected hours. Mercor's two UK projects run from 14 September to 10 October 2026, which at the stated rate and hours works out to roughly $22,400 to $32,000 for the engagement. That figure is our arithmetic on their published rate and hours, not a total Mercor publishes.
The tell is usually in the compensation paragraph rather than the headline. If it uses the words "per task", "output-based", or "meets the project specification", the hourly number is an estimate of your throughput.
What each platform pays into, and when
Everything in this table is the platform's own published statement, checked on 8 September 2026.
| Platform | Payout schedule | Paid via |
|---|---|---|
| Mercor | Weekly, every Wednesday | Stripe, Wise |
| Alignerr | Weekly: pay period Monday to Sunday, paid by the following Friday | Stripe Connect, PayPal |
| Outlier | Weekly, on Tuesdays | PayPal, Airtm, ACH bank transfer |
| micro1 | Biweekly | micro1 wallet |
| Ethos | Not stated | Not stated |
Two points follow from that table.
The rail decides your eligibility as much as any country policy does. Airtm on Outlier's list is there because PayPal and ACH do not reach everywhere; a platform paying only into a wallet or only by ACH is quietly narrower than one paying by Wise. Confirm the rail reaches you before you onboard, not after.
micro1 is the outlier on both columns: it pays biweekly rather than weekly, and into its own wallet rather than a rail you already hold. Neither is a problem, but it is a longer gap between finishing work and holding money, and one more withdrawal step at the end of it.
Nobody withholds your tax
You are a contractor on every platform here, and that has consequences the listings do not spell out.
Mercor is the most explicit, and the clearest published statement of what is normal across the field. Its contractor documentation states that it does not withhold taxes from your payments, that you are classified as an independent contractor responsible for reporting and paying all required taxes in your country, and that EU-based contractors will not receive a 1099 form or equivalent: you report from your Stripe payout records and your own bookkeeping. EU contractors are also required to complete a W-8BEN during onboarding, and Mercor states it is not VAT-registered in the EU and does not collect or remit VAT on your behalf.
The other platforms mostly do not raise the subject. Treat tax handling as something to confirm per platform rather than assume, and see will I get a 1099, and does the platform withhold tax.
Two practical consequences. Keep your own records, because you may not be issued any. And check whether your country requires you to register as a freelancer or hold a tax ID before you can lawfully invoice a foreign company; Mercor states that is on you, and the others largely do not mention it.
What can go wrong
The pay pages say little about what can go wrong:
- A weekly submission minimum you were never told. Several micro1 listings carry the line "Experts must submit a minimum of tasks per week" with the number missing from the ad. Ask what it is before you accept. It is the difference between a flexible side engagement and a quota.
- Rejected work. On a per-task model, a task that does not meet the specification is time you are not paid for. No platform here publishes its acceptance rate.
- Task droughts. Contributors and reviewers report projects ending without warning and stretches with no work available on Outlier, which publishes nothing about task supply. See is the work steady, or does it come and go.
- Deactivation with work outstanding. Workers posting on Glassdoor and Reddit report Alignerr accounts deactivated with completed work still unpaid, and support going unanswered; one Glassdoor reviewer describes being removed from the platform while chasing an outstanding balance. Alignerr's own materials do not say what happens to unpaid completed work after a deactivation. That is a worker report rather than a platform statement, and we present it as one.
Ask these before you accept
- Is this paid per hour or per task? If per task, what is the fee per task?
- What is the weekly submission minimum? Ask outright if the ad leaves the number blank.
- What is a typical task, in time? A three and a half hour task and a three minute task are not the same job.
- Which rail pays me, and does it reach my country?
- When does the pay period close, and when does money land?
- What happens to completed work if my account is deactivated?
The first three decide what the advertised rate is actually worth. The last three decide whether you see it.
What we could not establish
- No platform on this board publishes a platform-wide pay range. Rates are per listing or per project, which is why the typical-pay fields on our company pages are empty rather than averaged across work that has nothing in common.
- Per-task fees are not published by any platform here. Where a listing quotes only an hourly band, the underlying task fee is unknown to us.
- Acceptance and rejection rates are not published by anyone.
- Ethos publishes no rate, payout schedule or payment method at all; you will not learn the terms until you are through sign-up.
Sources
- The payout schedules and payment methods published by Mercor, Alignerr, Outlier, micro1 and Ethos
- Mercor's contractor documentation, for the tax, W-8BEN, 1099 and VAT statements
- The 32 listings live on this site on 8 September 2026, for every rate and quotation
- Worker reports on Glassdoor and Reddit, attributed as such above
Last updated 8 September 2026. Payout terms change without notice, and a platform's own page always outranks this one. We are not affiliated with any of these platforms and we do not process applications.
Labeling Jobs does not give financial or tax advice.
Questions
- What payment methods do these platforms use?
- Mercor pays via Stripe or Wise. Alignerr pays via Stripe Connect or PayPal. Outlier pays via PayPal, Airtm or ACH bank transfer. micro1 pays into a micro1 wallet. Ethos publishes no payment method at all. The rail matters as much as the country policy, because a platform paying only by ACH reaches far fewer people than one paying by Wise. Confirm it reaches you before you onboard.
- How often do AI training platforms pay out?
- Weekly on most of them, with different cut-offs. Mercor pays weekly every Wednesday. Alignerr runs a Monday to Sunday pay period paid by the following Friday. Outlier pays weekly on Tuesdays. micro1 is the exception at biweekly, into its own wallet. Ethos states no schedule. All of these are the platforms' own published statements as at 8 September 2026.
- If a job advertises $100 an hour, will I earn $100 an hour?
- Not necessarily, and often not. micro1 states on several listings that pay is output-based, per task meeting the project specification, rather than per hour at the desk, and that how long a task takes varies with the expert's experience and workflow. On that model the advertised band describes what a fast contributor reaches. Ask for the fee per task and how long a typical task runs before accepting.
- Do these platforms withhold tax?
- No. You are an independent contractor on every platform here. Mercor states explicitly that it does not withhold taxes, that you are responsible for reporting and paying tax in your country, and that EU-based contractors will not receive a 1099 or equivalent and should report from Stripe payout records and their own bookkeeping. EU contractors also complete a W-8BEN during onboarding. Other platforms largely do not address it.
- What happens to my completed work if my account is deactivated?
- No platform here publishes an answer, which is itself worth knowing. Workers posting on Glassdoor and Reddit report Alignerr accounts deactivated with completed work still unpaid and support going unanswered, and Alignerr's own materials do not state what happens to that work. Treat this as a worker report rather than a platform policy, and ask the question before you build up a large unpaid balance.
Platforms covered here
Put this into practice
Every listing shows its pay and who it is open to.