How much is my company's data worth?

As of October 2026, AI data companies publish ranges of $10,000 to $4 million or more for an operating company’s records, and most advertised program ranges start at $100,000. Closing startups were typically paid $10,000 to $100,000 each through wind-down firm SimpleClosure, Forbes reported in April 2026. These are the providers’ own statements, not offers for any particular company.

What do AI data companies say they pay?

Their published figures run from $10K to $4M and more, each with the provider’s own conditions attached: headcount, years of records, country or the kind of deal. None is a market average or an offer. As of October 2026, in alphabetical order:

Provider	Published figure	Conditions attached	What the figure is
Appen	None; each partnership is “quoted individually” (source)	Priced on volume, systems, workflow complexity, quality and rarity	No published range
Avelence	$160K–$500K (source); also $80K–$300K, $285K–$700K, $375K–$1M and $210K–$700K (source)	In order: 20 employees and 10 years of records, US; 20 and 1 year, US; 50 and 10, US; 100 and 10, US; 50 and 10, UK or Europe	Calculator outputs, “not … a buyer offer”
Handshake AI	$100K–$4M, “$4M+” on its program page (source)	20+ full-time employees and 3+ years in operation	Advertised range
Handshake AI	$383,083–$896,969 (source)	100 employees, 10 years, USA (estimator default)	“Indicative estimate only”
Mercor	None (source)	Pay depends on data volume, tools connected and depth	No published range
micro1	Tiers of $100K+, $500K+ and $1M+ (source); $100K–$2M+ (source)	30+ employees, operating in English; $500K+ for large-scale datasets or ongoing participation, $1M+ for “highly unique” data	Advertised tiers
micro1	$50,284–$92,776 (source)	Estimator example; inputs not shown	“Indicative estimate only”
Polyshares	$100K–$2M, “and above for large records” (source)	No minimum size published	Advertised deal size
Polyshares	$110K, $275K, $300K and $450K (source)	A marketing agency, a solar company, a general contractor and a roofing company; each a perpetual exclusive license; undated	Self-reported case studies
Replay	$10K–$100K; $100K–$1M; $1M+ (source)	20–50, 50–250 and 250+ employees; Replay calls headcount “a proxy”	Tiers by headcount
Scale AI	$10K–$1M+ per partnership, “scaling with cadence” (source)	Prefers 40+ employees	“Illustrative value”
Telegraph Lab (affiliated)	$100K–$4M (source)	Subject to data review and agreed terms	Advertised range
Telegraph Lab (affiliated)	$385K–$895K (source)	100 employees, 10 years, USA (calculator default)	“An illustration”
Telegraph Lab (affiliated)	$350K, $450K and $650K (source)	A 60-person accounting firm, a 70-person engineering firm and a 100-person freight broker; undated	Self-reported past deals
Troveo	“Typical full-company deals start at six figures” (source)	Paid as a share of each sale; no minimum size published	Provider statement
Troveo	$850K–$925K (source)	First-year net earnings from 4+ licensing deals	Sample result, “illustrative”

The self-reported deals name no sellers and carry no dates, and Data Licensing Report found no third-party confirmation of them. The buyer profiles give each provider’s figures alongside its payment terms and track record, and the guide explains how these programs work.

What have closing companies and bankruptcy sales fetched?

Mostly $10,000 to $100,000 per company, with one closed company in the hundreds of thousands and one airline in the millions. These figures come from companies that had stopped operating, so they describe a different situation from the table above:

Situation	What was paid or bid	Reported by
Startups shutting down, through SimpleClosure: nearly 100 deals in the year to April 2026	Typically $10,000 to $100,000 per company	Forbes, April 2026, citing SimpleClosure
Startups shutting down, through Sunset	“Similar prices,” depending on a company’s size, age and “data richness”	Forbes, citing Sunset’s CEO
cielo24, a closed transcription company founded in 2012	“Hundreds of thousands of dollars” for 13 years of records; “mid-six figures,” per SimpleClosure	Forbes; SimpleClosure
Spirit Airlines, in bankruptcy: about 100 million emails and 500 million Teams chats, plus operating records	Google $10 million (winning bid) and Mercor $7.5 million (backup bid) at an August 2026 auction; micro1 $12.5 million, offered later	Bloomberg Law, August 2026; Fortune, September 2026

The Spirit sale was still before the bankruptcy court on October 2, 2026, when the Electronic Privacy Information Center said it had filed a brief opposing the transfer of employee data (EPIC). What three bids for the same records show is covered in how offers work.

Why do the published ranges disagree?

Because they measure different things, and each provider has its own buyers behind it. At 20 employees with ten years of US records, Avelence’s model gives $160K to $500K, while Replay’s tier for 20 to 50 employees is $10K to $100K (Avelence, Replay). The two ranges do not overlap.

• Kind of figure. An advertised range describes a whole program. A calculator output comes from a handful of inputs and no records. A case study is one past deal the provider chose to show.
• What the money covers. Troveo’s sample result adds up a year of revenue share across four or more licenses. Each Polyshares case study is one payment for a perpetual exclusive license. Replay does not say whether its tiers include the revenue share it pays, and Scale AI does not say whether its range is per package, per year or in total. Upfront payment or revenue share explains how the two models compare.
• Inputs. Replay’s tiers use headcount alone. The calculators add years and country, and they ask about years in different ways; how AI companies price company data compares them.
• Buyers. A provider prices against the demand it has at the time, which how offers work explains.

Am I talking $20K or $2M?

Most published figures for operating companies with 20 or more employees fall between those two numbers. Which end applies depends first on headcount and retained history, as the providers’ own thresholds show (as of October 2026):

• If the company is closing, the reported range is SimpleClosure’s typical $10,000 to $100,000 per company, and Forbes reported that Sunset pays similar prices.
• If you have fewer than 20 employees, no published size tier covers you. Replay’s tiers and the Avelence and Telegraph Lab calculators start at 20, and Handshake AI states a minimum of 20 full-time employees and three years in operation (Handshake AI). Replay’s valuation form does accept companies of 1 to 9 people (Replay).
• If you have 20 to 50 employees, the figures published for that size run from $10K to $700K: Replay’s tier is $10K to $100K, and Avelence’s model gives $160K to $500K at 20 employees and $285K to $700K at 50, each with ten years of records. micro1 asks for 30 or more employees, and Scale AI prefers 40 or more.
• If you have 50 to 250 employees and about ten years of records, every figure published for that size starts at $100K or more. Replay’s tier is $100K to $1M; Avelence’s model gives $375K to $1M at 100 employees, and Handshake AI’s and Telegraph Lab’s calculators show about $385K to $895K at 100 employees and ten years in the US.
• If you have more than 250 employees, Replay’s tier is $1M and up.
• If your records go back only a year or two, expect the lower end. At 20 employees, Avelence’s model drops from $160K–$500K with ten years to $80K–$300K with one (Avelence).
• If your company is based outside the US, Avelence’s model gives $210K to $700K for a UK or European company of 50 with ten years, against $285K to $700K in the US, though Avelence says that is not a fixed regional discount in real deals (Avelence). micro1 says it prioritizes US companies, then other Western markets (micro1).

On those figures, $20,000 is a closing-company or small-company number. Among the providers above, $2 million and above appears only at the top of advertised ranges: Polyshares’ “$2M, and above for large records,” micro1’s “$100K–$2M+” for approved data packages, and Handshake AI’s and Telegraph Lab’s ranges up to $4M. No calculator output shown above reaches $2 million. Does my company’s data qualify? covers what counts toward history and size.

Is there a price per employee?

No. As of October 2026, no provider in the Data Licensing Report directory publishes a price per employee for company records. Headcount is an input to every calculator, and Replay says “headcount is a proxy”, with how long you have operated, your industry, the apps you run and how much data sits in each factoring into its final price.

The published outputs also do not scale with headcount. In Avelence’s model, five times the staff (20 to 100 employees, ten years, US) moves the range from $160K–$500K to $375K–$1M, roughly double (Avelence). A per-employee figure taken from one output would not carry over to a company of a different size. The other units owners ask about, such as per year or per gigabyte, are covered in how AI companies price company data.

Should I wait?

No public source shows whether waiting raises or lowers an offer. Most providers’ ranges carry no date, so they cannot show whether prices are rising or falling. What can be dated is buyers’ activity:

• September 30, 2026: VentureBeat reported that Google was expanding a pilot that pays developers and small businesses for proprietary code and other non-public content, without disclosing payment ranges (VentureBeat).
• September 17, 2026: Bloomberg reported that teams in SpaceX’s AI unit had informally discussed buying data from troubled or defunct startups (Bloomberg Law).
• September 14, 2026: Fortune reported that micro1 said in its Spirit Airlines court filing that it had completed more than 50 data transactions in the preceding 45 days, without naming sellers or prices (Fortune).
• September 3, 2026: SimpleClosure said its AssetHub, built for startups that are closing, was open to operating companies as well (SimpleClosure release).
• August to October 2026: the Spirit Airlines records drew bids of $7.5 million to $12.5 million, then objections from unions and a brief from EPIC, and the sale was still awaiting the court on October 2.

These facts describe activity and scrutiny, not prices. The cost of waiting that you can check is your own retention. If a system deletes older records on a schedule, each month shortens the history a buyer can license. What is a data inventory? lists the default deletion rules to check, what’s the catch weighs selling now against later, and the market facts page is updated as new deals and programs are reported.