Outlier, Handshake AI and Mercor all pay people to train and test AI models, but they are built for different people. Outlier is the easiest to get into and the least predictable. Handshake AI pays the most on paper and is mostly limited to people who can work in the United States. Mercor sits in between and screens everyone with an AI video interview. None of them is a job: all three are contract work with no guaranteed hours.
This guide compares those three and five more platforms people usually weigh alongside them, then covers the two things that decide whether you get accepted anywhere: your CV and how you handle an AI-led interview.
What AI training work is
AI labs need people to check and improve what their models produce. The work is usually one of four things: rating or ranking model answers, writing prompts and ideal responses, fact-checking, and reviewing code. More specialised projects ask a doctor, lawyer, accountant or engineer to judge answers in their own field, and those pay the most.
You are paid per hour or per task as an independent contractor. There is no salary, no benefits, and no promise of work next week. Projects open and close with little notice, which is the single most common complaint across every platform in this guide.
Side-by-side comparison
| Platform | Best for | How you get in | Reported pay |
|---|---|---|---|
| Outlier (owned by Scale AI) | Generalists, writers, coders and multilingual workers who want the lowest barrier to entry | Sign-up, skills assessment, then project onboarding quizzes | Roughly $15–$50/hr depending on skill and country (contractor-reported) |
| Handshake AI | Students, graduates and subject experts who are authorised to work in the US | Application and project-specific assessments | $50–$125/hr for the MOVE program (Handshake’s own FAQ) |
| Mercor | Experienced professionals in software, finance, law, medicine and consulting | CV upload plus an AI video interview of about 20 minutes | About $20–$100+/hr, widely spread by role (contractor-reported) |
| DataAnnotation | Strong writers and coders in its core English-speaking countries | A written starter assessment; no interview | Advertised from around $20/hr, more for coding |
| Alignerr (by Labelbox) | Domain experts and multi-skill coders | Application, assessment and an AI-led interview; often a waitlist | Roughly $15–$60/hr for many roles (third-party trackers) |
| micro1 | Engineers and specialists looking for longer project-based contracts | An AI interviewer screens every candidate | Varies by contract |
| Turing | Senior software engineers who want full-time contract hours | The longest vetting of the group: coding tests and interviews | Varies by contract; the highest ceiling for engineers |
| Mindrift | Applicants outside the US and Europe, including much of Africa | Application and a qualification test per project | Varies by project and country |
Outlier
Outlier is owned by Scale AI and has the largest pool of general tasks. You sign up, pass a skills assessment, and then qualify for individual projects by passing their onboarding quizzes. Tasks include rating responses, writing prompts, fact-checking and reviewing code.
The advertised rates and the rates people actually report are far apart. Listings for specialists quote very high hourly figures, while most contractor reviews describe $15 to $30 an hour for general work and $25 to $50 for coding, with lower rates in lower-cost countries. Scale says rates depend on qualifications, location and customer demand.
Three things come up again and again in reviews. Work is uneven: a full week one week, an empty queue the next. Tasks often take longer than the time the platform estimates, which pulls your real hourly rate down. And rates on a project can be cut while you are working on it. Reports of not being paid at all are rare; late first payments are the more usual problem.
Choose Outlier if you want to start quickly, you have a second income, and you can live with weeks where there is nothing to do.
Handshake AI
Handshake is the career network used by universities, and Handshake AI is its program that connects students, graduates and subject experts with AI labs. The best-known track is the MOVE program. Handshake’s own FAQ for its university partners gives pay of $50 to $125 an hour, set by education level and expertise, and says the rate is shown before you accept a project. Other Handshake pages quote a range starting at $40.
That makes it the best-paid option in this guide for people who qualify, and qualifying is the hard part. You generally need to be based in the United States with valid work authorisation. The rules for student visas are reported inconsistently across sources, so confirm them with Handshake and your university before you apply. Projects are matched to your field, so a maths or chemistry PhD will see more work than a generalist.
Choose Handshake AI if you are US-based, you have a degree or deep expertise in a specific subject, and you want fewer, better-paid hours rather than a large volume of small tasks.
Mercor
Mercor works more like a hiring marketplace than a task queue. You upload your CV and complete an AI video interview of about 20 minutes. The result is kept on your profile and reused when you apply to other listings, so you are not interviewed from scratch each time. Companies and AI labs then pick from candidates who are already assessed.
Pay depends heavily on the listing. Contractor reports put general evaluation work at about $20 to $30 an hour, software work at $35 to $60, and specialist work in medicine, law and finance higher than that, with individual expert listings advertised well above $100. As with every platform here, there can be long gaps between projects, and applicants report getting no feedback when they are turned down.
Choose Mercor if you have real professional experience to talk about and you interview well. The AI interview is the gate, and a strong one keeps working for you.
Five more worth knowing
DataAnnotation
There is no interview: you take a written assessment and, if you pass, tasks appear in your dashboard. It suits careful writers and coders. Its main countries are the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, and applicants commonly report never hearing back after the assessment.
Alignerr
Run by Labelbox, Alignerr recruits domain experts and coders for evaluation work and includes an AI-led interview in its screening. Reviewers describe clear communication about rates and a waitlist that is hard to get past.
micro1
micro1 places engineers and specialists on project contracts and screens every candidate with its own AI interviewer. If you are applying there, the interview is most of the process.
Turing
Turing is closer to a remote staffing company for software engineers than a task platform. Vetting is the most demanding in this list, and the contracts are longer and nearer to full-time.
Mindrift
Mindrift is the most widely available outside North America and Europe, and is one of the platforms most often recommended to applicants in African countries.
If you are outside the United States
Eligibility is the detail most comparison posts skip. Handshake AI is largely US-only. DataAnnotation concentrates on five English-speaking countries. Outlier accepts many countries, but sources disagree about some of them: one tracker lists Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana and South Africa as supported, while workers in Nigeria report being turned away. Availability also changes by project, so a country can be open for one language and closed for another.
Before you spend an evening on an assessment, check two things on the platform’s own site: whether your country is accepted, and how it pays out. A platform that only pays through a processor you cannot use in your country is not an option, whatever the hourly rate.
Gig work or a job?
AI training work is a good way to earn alongside something else. It is a poor replacement for a job, because the two things you need from a job are missing: predictable hours and a contract that lasts.
- Pick AI training gigs if you want flexible extra income, you can absorb empty weeks, and you have a skill that is in demand on these platforms.
- Pick a job if you need steady pay, a team, or experience that builds a career. Remote roles are open to far more countries than most AI training platforms.
Plenty of people do both: a remote role for stability and a few hours of evaluation work on the side. Hyrovo is on the job side of that line. It is not an AI training platform. It lists remote jobs and on-site roles worldwide, including data, writing and software roles, and ranks them against your CV.
How to get accepted
Every platform above decides on the same two things, and they are the same two things an employer decides on.
1. A CV that states your expertise plainly
These platforms match you to projects by field. A CV that says “experienced professional” gets matched to nothing. Name your degree, your specialism, the tools and languages you use, and what you produced. If you are applying for coding evaluation, list the languages. If you are applying as a domain expert, say exactly which domain. Our guide to writing a CV that software can read covers the formatting side, and the AI CV builder will write one from your answers.
2. An AI interview you have rehearsed
Mercor, micro1 and Alignerr all put an AI interviewer between you and the work. It will ask about your background, then push on the details: what you did, how, and what happened. People who are perfectly qualified fail these because they answer in general terms, or because talking to software for the first time is uncomfortable.
The fix is to do it once before it counts. Read how to pass an AI interview, then run a spoken mock interview with Dami using the listing you are applying for.
Sources
The figures and eligibility notes in this guide come from the following pages.
- Handshake — MOVE Program overview and FAQs
- aitrainer.work — Handshake AI fellowship guide
- aitrainer.work — Mercor review
- aitrainer.work — platform comparisons
- talentsforai.com — Is Outlier AI legit?
- financialbinder.com — Outlier AI review
- remowork.life — Handshake AI vs Outlier
- selfmadesuccess.com — Outlier AI alternatives
- zikoko.com — Platforms that pay Nigerians to train AI
Hyrovo is not affiliated with Outlier, Scale AI, Handshake, Mercor, DataAnnotation, Alignerr, Labelbox, micro1, Turing or Mindrift. Names are used to identify the services described. Pay and eligibility change; treat this guide as a starting point and confirm details with each platform.