Pay explorer
What does training AI actually pay?
The honest answer: it depends enormously on the work and your skills. The same hour can be worth a few dollars labeling images or a few hundred writing formal proofs. Here is the whole map.
, AITraining.jobs lists 3,684 open AI training roles; their typical pay runs $35 to $120 an hour, with a median of $65.
“Typical” runs from the 25th percentile of what roles pay (the middle of each advertised range) to the 90th-percentile advertised ceiling, measured from 2,453 distinct advertised rates across 26 platforms, drawn from the 3,684 roles open now, so it includes the well-paid expert tier. Advertised rates run from $2/hr to $450/hr; both are real but neither skews the number. Every kind of work and platform below is measured the same way, from its own open roles. Live figures update daily; other figures are compiled from public sources, each labeled by how we know it. Data last refreshed 18 Oct 2026. How we compile pay. For the findings written up as a report (highest-paying work, the pay gap, what share of roles publish a rate), read The State of AI Training Pay, or see the highest-paying platforms ranked. To turn these rates into your own number, use the earnings calculator.
By type of work
12 kinds of AI training work.
Pick the work that fits your background. Each links to a full breakdown of who hires for it and what they pay.
New to AI training work? Start with the learning guides to understand what each kind of work actually involves, who it is for, and how to begin, then come back here to compare the pay.
Law, Medicine & Finance
Credentialed professionals (physicians, attorneys, CPAs, financial analysts, consultants) evaluate model reasoning in their field. The highest-ceiling work in the industry: in 2026 the expert-data premium climbed steeply, with medical, legal, and finance specialists commanding $250–$450/hr and the rarest consulting and executive engagements reaching $500–$1,000/hr for a verifiable license and years of experience.
Live median $70/hr. Measured from 697 distinct advertised rates, across 20 platforms. 110 of the 1,118 open roles here state no hourly rate.
Multilingual & Localization
Provide native-language data, translation, and dialect expertise, especially for the underserved and low-resource languages frontier labs are racing to cover as they close the multilingual reasoning gap. Native fluency in an in-demand language is a genuine premium skill, not just an entry ramp for non-US workers.
Live median $65/hr. Measured from 705 distinct advertised rates, across 13 platforms. 175 of the 1,005 open roles here state no hourly rate.
Transcription, Audio & Speech
Transcribe, edit, and annotate recorded speech so AI models can hear and speak, or record your own voice for speech datasets. It spans accessible per-task transcription and voice recording and a fast-growing premium tier: native-language transcription, audio annotation, voice and audio evaluation, and AI-trainer sound engineering now command the top rates.
Live median $30/hr. Measured from 334 distinct advertised rates, across 13 platforms. 185 of the 521 open roles here state no hourly rate.
Coding & Software Evaluation
Review, write, and grade code so models can program: bug-finding, code-generation review, agentic-coding evaluation, and worked engineering examples. One of the best-paid categories for people with real software experience.
Live median $65/hr. Measured from 188 distinct advertised rates, across 13 platforms. 27 of the 285 open roles here state no hourly rate.
Math & STEM
Author and verify advanced math, physics, chemistry, and biology problems, including formal proofs. Rare expertise (formal-proof mathematics, physics PhDs) sits at the very top of the pay scale on several platforms.
Live median $65/hr. Measured from 188 distinct advertised rates, across 12 platforms. 14 of the 219 open roles here state no hourly rate.
AI Evaluation & Rating (RLHF)
Rate, rank, and compare model responses so a model learns which answers are better. The backbone of modern alignment work, and an increasingly tiered one: routine rating is commoditizing while the premium moves to credentialed expert evaluation and reinforcement-learning reward signals.
Live median $60/hr. Measured from 84 distinct advertised rates, across 16 platforms. 26 of the 143 open roles here state no hourly rate.
Data Annotation & Labeling
Annotate and label images, video, LiDAR point clouds, and text so models can perceive and categorize the world. Data annotation is the most accessible entry point into AI training, though the simplest labeling is increasingly automated by AI pre-labeling, so pay stays geography-priced with a real floor while budgets shift toward verifiable expert work.
Live median $30/hr. Measured from 85 distinct advertised rates, across 14 platforms. 47 of the 140 open roles here state no hourly rate.
Robotics & Physical-AI Data
Generate and annotate the data that teaches robots and embodied AI to act in the physical world: label robot and egocentric video, annotate vision-language-action (VLA) demonstrations, collect teleoperation and manipulation data, and quality-check robot-perception datasets. This is the newest frontier of AI-training work, growing fast as humanoid and physical-AI labs race to close the real-world data gap that text and images cannot fill.
Agentic Tasks & RL Environments
Build and grade the interactive tasks and reinforcement-learning environments that agentic models train against: author multi-step tool-use scenarios, annotate agent trajectories and reasoning traces, and design verifiable-reward graders. This is the 2026 frontier of AI-training work and one of the best-paid, because it needs real domain judgment rather than volume.
Live median $50/hr. Measured from 45 distinct advertised rates, across 9 platforms. 14 of the 64 open roles here state no hourly rate.
Red-Teaming & AI Safety
Adversarially probe models to find unsafe, biased, or wrong behavior before release. Blends security, domain, and creative skills; pays a premium over generalist rating.
Live median $55/hr. Measured from 30 distinct advertised rates, across 8 platforms. 10 of the 54 open roles here state no hourly rate.
Writing & Content
Write prompts, craft reference answers, and create or edit content that teaches models to write well. A strong fit for professional writers and educated generalists.
Live median $55/hr. Measured from 20 distinct advertised rates, across 4 platforms. 8 of the 35 open roles here state no hourly rate.
Research Studies & Surveys
Take part in surveys, experiments, and human-preference studies that generate research and evaluation data. Two tiers: low-barrier consumer surveys are flexible supplemental income, while professional and expert panels (B2B interviews, paid expert consultations) pay materially more for verified expertise.
Live median $100/hr. Measured from 18 distinct advertised rates, across 4 platforms. 17 of the 35 open roles here state no hourly rate.
Estimate your rate
A rough guide based on compiled ranges, not a quote. Real pay is set per project.
Rough estimate
$35–$100/hrAnchored on 705 distinct advertised rates
Median $65/hr. Measured from 705 distinct advertised rates, across 13 platforms. 175 of the 1,005 open roles here state no hourly rate. Entry and expert figures above are the lower and upper half of this range.
Pay by platform
Rows marked Live from feed show the typical pay (the 25th percentile of what roles pay (the middle of each advertised range) to the 90th-percentile advertised ceiling) measured from that platform’s open roles, as of 2026-10-18, and open them by pay. They refresh daily. Every other figure is compiled from public sources as of 2026-07-25.
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