Mercor alternatives
The closest alternatives to Mercor are Handshake AI, micro1, Scale AI. This page ranks five providers by overlap with Mercor in data types and provider type.
Five alternatives to Mercor
1. Handshake AI
Handshake AI is the AI data business of Handshake, the career network for students and graduates, which connects university-trained experts to AI labs for human data work.
Shared with Mercor: Expert demonstration data, Evaluation sets, RLHF and preference data.
Pricing models: Per-hour expert labor, Project contract.
2. micro1
micro1 is an AI recruiting and expert-data company that vets domain experts and places them on human data projects for AI labs.
Shared with Mercor: Expert demonstration data, RLHF and preference data, Evaluation sets.
Pricing models: Per-hour expert labor, Placement fee.
3. Scale AI
Scale AI is an AI data company that supplies labeled data, RLHF data, model evaluations and data infrastructure to AI labs, enterprises and governments.
Shared with Mercor: RLHF and preference data, Evaluation sets.
Pricing models: Per-task, Per-hour expert labor, Enterprise contract.
4. Surge AI
Surge AI is a data labeling company that provides human-written and human-rated RLHF and evaluation data to AI labs.
Shared with Mercor: RLHF and preference data, Evaluation sets.
Pricing models: Per-task, Per-hour expert labor, Project contract.
5. Turing
Turing is a technology company that supplies coding, reasoning and multimodal training data and engineering talent to AI labs and enterprises.
Shared with Mercor: Evaluation sets.
Pricing models: Per-task, Per-hour expert labor, Project contract.
Alternatives compared
| Provider | Type | Buyers | Pricing models |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mercor | Expert talent marketplace | Frontier labs and AI application companies | Per-hour expert labor, Placement fee |
| Handshake AI | Expert talent marketplace | AI labs | Per-hour expert labor, Project contract |
| micro1 | Expert talent marketplace | AI labs and AI-native companies | Per-hour expert labor, Placement fee |
| Scale AI | Expert data lab | Frontier labs, enterprises, government agencies | Per-task, Per-hour expert labor, Enterprise contract |
| Surge AI | Expert data lab | Frontier AI labs | Per-task, Per-hour expert labor, Project contract |
| Turing | Expert data lab | Frontier labs, enterprises | Per-task, Per-hour expert labor, Project contract |
Frequently asked questions
What is the best alternative to Mercor?
Handshake AI overlaps most with Mercor on data types and provider type, but the best choice depends on the data you need and how you want to pay.
Why look for a Mercor alternative?
Common reasons are price, access to specialist experts, neutrality concerns, or a need for a marketplace rather than a managed service. Revenue figures include contractor pay, so gross numbers overstate margin.
Editorial note. No company listed here pays for placement or has reviewed its entry. AI Data Auction is building its own auction marketplace and will label any commercial relationship with a listed company. Figures are as reported by the named source on the stated date; check the primary source before relying on them. See our methodology.