Defined.ai Data Partner program review: how its marketplace pays you

Defined.ai, a Seattle AI data company founded in 2015, pays its Data Partners “Licensing fees from data marketplace sales”: a business lists a dataset, Defined.ai licenses it to AI developers, and the partner earns when buyers take a license, on terms “aligned with and approved by the partner.” As of October 2026 it publishes no revenue split or payment schedule.

Is Defined.ai a buyer or a marketplace?

A marketplace. Defined.ai does not describe buying your data outright or paying anything upfront. Its program page says data “is monetized through dataset licensing driven by marketplace demand,” so income starts only when a buyer licenses your dataset, and continues only as long as buyers keep doing so. Its marketplace listed 819 datasets on October 5, 2026, filtered by audio, image, video and text, with no prices shown.

The same page offers a second program, AI Service Suppliers, which pays for “Project-based jobs” collecting or annotating data. That is paid work for Defined.ai, not a license of your own records. Upfront payment or revenue share? explains how payment from marketplace sales compares with a one-time license fee.

Does Defined.ai want ordinary company records like email and chat?

Its pages do not say so. For an operating business, the program page gives “sales, marketing, logistics etc.” as examples, generated through “customer interactions, stock information, shipping routes etc.” The categories it calls high-demand are cinematic video, anime, coding and STEM. Its three partner testimonials come from a podcast and video media aggregator, a supplier of 3D objects and sensor data for robotics, and an aggregator of professional codebases, all businesses whose product is the dataset.

Email, chat, internal documents and CRM history are not named, as of October 2026. If those are what your company holds, ask the partnership team whether they qualify before preparing anything. For recorded calls and video, providers that buy video and audio compares the programs that name them. The program FAQ says “There is no fixed minimum” dataset size.

What do Defined.ai’s partner earnings figures mean?

They describe Defined.ai’s existing partners, not what a given company’s records would earn. Its program page states “$600K+ Average partner revenue,” “$1M+ Revenue for 5+ partners” and 319% year-on-year growth in dataset sales, without a time period, a partner count for the average, or a definition of revenue. Its January 2026 release says “several partners now generate more than $1 million annually” and that third-party partner datasets rose 1,200% in 2025. Its About page counts 100+ partners.

The partners it quotes run data businesses, so the figures say little about an operating company licensing its own archive. How much is my company’s data worth? covers figures for that case.

What rights would buyers get to our dataset?

Defined.ai’s published Data License Agreement, dated November 30, 2022, gives buyers a “non-exclusive, non-sublicensable, and non-transferable” license that either side can end on 60 days’ notice. It permits “commercial exploitation of models” trained on the data, as long as the data itself is not disclosed. A non-exclusive license is what lets the same dataset sell to several buyers, which is how marketplace income adds up.

That agreement names DefinedCrowd Corporation, Defined.ai’s former name, as licensor and does not mention partner datasets. Ask whether it, or a different license, applies to your dataset. The program FAQ says use follows “clearly defined licensing terms and agreed use cases,” and that “Individual restrictions can also be considered on a case-by-case basis,” so any limit you want, such as excluding certain buyers or uses, has to be requested.

What does Defined.ai check, and what does the partner have to prove?

The partner carries the rights question. The program FAQ requires that “All data must be ethically sourced, including proper consent, documentation, and the right to commercialize the data for AI training.” Onboarding has four steps: creating a Jira account, market research into commercial opportunities, an evaluation of data quality, volume and metadata, and an “Assessment of your licensing rights as well as legal, compliance and cybersecurity checks.” Datasets are then reviewed for “quality, relevance, and compliance” before listing.

For records that mention employees or customers, that means documenting your right to license them, which Is it legal to sell company emails and records? discusses. The pages do not say whether Defined.ai or the partner removes personal details. The application opens a Jira Service Management portal that requires an Atlassian account.

What should we ask Defined.ai before listing a dataset?

Start with the money: what share of each license fee you receive, whether there is a minimum price per license, how often Defined.ai pays and what sales reports you will see. Then ask about control: whether the listing is exclusive to Defined.ai, whether you can withdraw the dataset and what happens to licenses already sold, and which license buyers sign, including whether you can exclude buyers or uses. Last, ask who removes personal details and who is responsible if some are found after listing, and whether Defined.ai accepts internal records such as email, chat and documents at all.