How long until I get paid for my company's data?

As of October 2026, Mercor says it typically pays within two to four weeks of signing, Corpus 30 to 60 days from intake (its get-paid page says after delivery), and Polyshares net 30 to 60 after approval. Payment usually waits on approval, delivery or acceptance, not signature. Most other programs publish no timeline, so the dates written into your agreement are the ones that count.

How long does it take to sell company data, start to finish?

At Corpus, which publishes a day marker for each of its six stages, payment comes on days 40 to 60, counting from a description of your data on day 0 (Corpus). Other programs date a few steps, or none. The order also varies. Polyshares reads a sample of your records before it prices them, while Corpus signs the agreement first and shows you its redaction sample afterwards.

These are the steps most programs describe, with what each publishes about them as of October 2026:

Step	What happens	What providers publish
1. Intake	You describe the company and its systems. No files change hands.	Polyshares: about two minutes (source). Appen: a reply within two business days (source). Corpus: day 0.
2. Review	A call or desk review, then a range or an offer	Corpus: a written range on days 1 to 3. Polyshares: an offer within one to two weeks. Handshake AI: a scoping call on data, de-identification, terms and timeline (source).
3. Sample	The buyer checks a slice of the records; some programs also show you a de-identified sample to approve	Polyshares prices from a sample. Appen licenses nothing until you sign off a sample pack (source). Corpus: redaction review on days 15 to 35, ending with your sign-off.
4. Agreement	Price, scope, permitted uses, exclusivity and the payment trigger, in writing	Corpus: days 5 to 15. Polyshares: terms are “papered right after” the offer. Telegraph Lab: payment milestones set in a written agreement, with no step durations published (source).
5. Export and delivery	Records are exported or extracted, de-identified and transferred	Corpus: days 35 to 50. Mercor connects to your tools and extracts automatically (source). Troveo: your team runs the exports with its guidance (source).
6. Acceptance	The buyer checks the delivery against the agreed standard	Appen pays on acceptance, not submission. Nyne agrees acceptance criteria before anything is collected (source).
7. Payment	A wire, or an invoice paid on net terms	Mercor: a wire on delivery. Polyshares: net 30 to 60. Corpus: on delivery confirmation.

The event that releases each program’s payment is compared in how data licensing offers work. Where acceptance is the trigger, step 7 cannot start until the buyer signs off step 6.

How long until the money’s in the bank?

It depends on how the program pays, and the published terms run from a wire on delivery to net 30 to 60 days after approval.

• If it wires on delivery, the money follows the delivery. Mercor says it wires payment when the anonymized dataset is delivered to the buyer, which typically occurs “within 2-4 weeks of the signed agreement, depending on data extraction and processing time”.
• If it pays on net terms, add one to two months after approval. Polyshares states net 30 to 60 once the data is approved, anonymized and delivered (Polyshares).
• If it pays on acceptance, add however long acceptance takes. Appen and Nyne publish no duration for that step (Appen, Nyne), so the deadline has to come from your agreement.
• If it pays a revenue share, the first payment waits for a sale. See the last section.

It can go faster. Telegraph Lab, which is commercially affiliated with Data Licensing Report, has described one transaction to Data Licensing Report: for an online retailer, three buyers were approached, two made offers, and the owner received $300,000 within two weeks of the first conversation. That is one deal, not a typical timeline, and Telegraph Lab publishes no duration for any step of its process (checked October 2026).

Closing companies are on a different track. Appen says wind-downs “follow a faster path”, and Sunset, a wind-down service, says a partner like itself can finish an asset or data sale in weeks rather than months (Sunset).

What slows things down on my side?

Mostly exports, other people’s approvals, legal review and your own sign-offs.

Exports. Systems impose their own waits. Google Workspace’s Data Export tool needs a super admin account at least 30 days old with 2-Step Verification on; the files are available no earlier than 48 hours after the export starts, and an export typically takes 72 hours but can take up to 14 days (Google). On Slack Business+, exporting private channels and direct messages starts with an application to Slack, signed off by the workspace’s Primary Owner (Slack). If your IT provider holds the admin accounts, the export runs on its calendar. What each system asks of your team is in how much work it is.

Approvals. If a co-owner, a lender or a customer contract has a say over the records, their review runs on their schedule, not the buyer’s. Is it legal to sell company emails and records? lists which agreements to check.

Legal review. Miro Advisory says rights review, scoping and buyer discussions “typically run over weeks, and longer where legal or privacy review is involved”. Troveo’s help center, describing its content program, lists legal review and custom approvals among what lengthens a deal (Troveo).

Your own sign-offs. Some programs wait for you by design. Appen licenses nothing until you approve its sample pack, and Corpus schedules its redaction review for days 15 to 35, ending with your sign-off. Every customer, person or folder you ask to leave out is one more thing to check in that review.

Two things shorten the wait without sending anyone your data: confirm who holds admin rights in each system (on Google Workspace, that a super admin account has existed for 30 days), and write a one-page data inventory.

Is it one check, or do I get paid over time?

Either, depending on the program: some pay once, some in milestones, and some over time as your data sells.

• One payment. Corpus describes one license payment, with “No fees, no revenue share, no ongoing obligation”. Each of Polyshares’ published case studies shows one amount per deal (Polyshares), and Mercor describes a single wire on delivery.
• Milestones. Telegraph Lab sets payment milestones in the signed agreement and does not publish a schedule (Telegraph Lab). Corpus says larger engagements can be structured as “an upfront tranche plus a delivery tranche”. Avelence, an introducer, says its partners pay under their own agreements’ milestones (Avelence).
• Over time. Troveo pays a share of every sale of your data (Troveo). Replay says its offers are typically upfront cash plus a perpetual revenue share. Scale AI says it designs partnerships with an opportunity for recurring revenue (Scale AI), and a June 2026 micro1 announcement describes its program as a way to turn operational data into “a recurring revenue stream”, though micro1’s program pages do not say how payment is structured.

Which fits depends on when you need the money:

• If you need it by a known date, only a single payment or milestones with dates attached can be planned around.
• If the main payment is a revenue share, the first money waits for a buyer to pay the provider. For its content program, Troveo’s help center says “It is not uncommon for deals to take up to 4-5 months from delivery to payout”; Troveo has not published whether business data follows the same path (checked October 2026).
• If the offer is a hybrid, ask when the upfront part is paid. Replay does not publish that (checked October 2026).

“Upfront” rarely means on signature; Upfront payment or revenue share? explains the difference and how each model divides risk, and the directory lists providers that pay upfront and providers that share revenue. If a revenue share comes with exclusivity, Am I selling my data or licensing it? covers what that commits you to, and payment conditions are one of the items in What’s the catch?