Data-collection networks · Business data-capture program

Mercor

Mercor's robotics program is for businesses, not individual job seekers. A restaurant, salon, workshop or similar hands-on business applies; Mercor ships free capture kits, staff who choose to take part wear a lightweight camera during their normal work, and Mercor pays the business for every approved hour of footage, bi-weekly. Mercor says it does not require employees to participate and asks businesses not to either; each participant signs a consent form with Mercor and can stop at any time. An individual can still refer a business through the same page and earn a referral bonus based on the hours it contributes. (Its broader Experts marketplace is mostly generic AI-training work, not robotics.) For that general AI-training work, including its pay, roles and legitimacy, see the Mercor review on AITraining.jobs, a sister board we also run.

$12–$18 per approved hour, paid to the business

Stated by the employer

Apply as a business

Mercor's robotics program pays businesses, not individual workers: a business applies and Mercor pays it per approved hour of its team's footage. As an individual, you can refer a business you know and earn a referral bonus based on the hours it contributes.

Is Mercor legit?

Researched October 2026 · 32 sources

Yes. Mercor is a genuine San Francisco company (valued at $10 billion in October 2025). Its robotics program pays businesses rather than individuals, per approved hour of footage their staff record. Individuals cannot sign up to record: the business is paid, and what a participating employee receives is up to the business. The March 2026 breach also showed that personal details uploaded to Mercor can leak. It pays $12–$18 per approved hour, paid to the business.

Joined through its own application (it publishes no job postings)

Who is behind it

Brendan Foody (CEO), Adarsh Hiremath and Surya Midha started Mercor in 2023. A February 2025 round brought in $100 million at a $2 billion valuation, an October 2025 round added $350 million at $10 billion, and in 2026 it acquired Sepal AI and Deeptune. Mercor states it pays more than $2 million a day to over 30,000 contractors active each week (May 2026). OpenAI and Anthropic are among its customers.

Getting paid

The robotics program pays the business a set rate for every approved hour of footage, $12 to $18 depending on the kind of work, paid bi-weekly. An approved hour is well lit, with hands visible, showing the task. There is no fee or equipment cost.

Worker ratings

Trustpilot 4.4/5 (999 reviews) · Glassdoor 4.2/5 (195 reviews) · Indeed 3.9/5 (26 reviews). Read October 2026.

Who can join

For businesses: the application asks for the business's country, and the program lists hands-on business types such as restaurants, bakeries, salons, auto repair, warehouses, construction and manufacturing.

Fake Mercor recruiters

Genuine Mercor email comes from @mercor.com, and Mercor says it charges no fees; businesses apply at mercor.com/robotics. Treat an offer from any other or misspelled domain as fake and forward it to support@mercor.com. Job scams tend to open with a text, WhatsApp or Telegram message and ask for money later.

What people praise

Mercor ships the capture kit at no cost and supplies, maintains and replaces it, so a business pays no fee and no equipment cost.
Mercor says employees do not have to take part and asks businesses not to require it; each participant signs a consent form and can stop at any time.
The business reviews and approves every recording before it is uploaded, and Mercor says the vast majority of footage passes.

What people complain about

Experts on Mercor's main marketplace describe projects that stop or close without warning, at times with nothing more than an automated email, and patchy work in the gaps between them.
A number of expert contractors say hours they had already logged were taken off and payment was denied once the work was finished.
Help comes mostly from automated replies, and applicants who are turned down say no reason is given.

What has gone wrong

March 2026. Between March 24 and 30, 2026, an attacker got in through a tampered copy of LiteLLM, an open-source tool, and pulled Mercor data that state filings say included Social Security and government ID numbers. Meta put its Mercor work on hold. Mercor's account: only a very limited subset of experts was affected, it found no sign of fraud, and it offered credit monitoring.
April 2026. Within a week of the breach, contractors had filed five lawsuits over the exposed personal data in federal courts in California and Texas, and Mercor gave no comment. A proposed class action filed in Texas federal court in May 2026 claims Mercor misclassified more than 30,000 experts as contractors; Mercor wants the case moved to arbitration.
November 2025. Musen, a Meta project that peaked at more than 5,000 people, was shut down by Mercor over 'project scope changes'. Workers were then offered comparable tasks on a new project paying $16 an hour, down from $21. Mercor's response was that it makes plain from day one that this is 'temporary, project-based work.'

Who it suits

Best for: Owners of hands-on businesses (restaurants, salons, repair shops, warehouses, construction and the like) whose staff are willing to wear a camera during their normal shifts. Not for: Individual job seekers looking for recording work: the program pays businesses, not the people who apply on their own.

Honest catches

Pay here is stated by the employer, not measured live from a job feed, so treat it as a benchmark rather than a guaranteed rate.

Sources for this review

What Mercor pays

Stated by the employer · updated 2026-10-06

$12–$18 per approved hour, paid to the business

Researched rate card (stated by the employer), updated 2026-10-06

Mercor's robotics page states $12 to $18 per approved hour depending on the kind of work, paid bi-weekly to the business. An approved hour is footage that is well lit, with hands visible in frame, showing the task; Mercor says the vast majority of footage passes. What a participating employee receives is up to the business; Mercor does not publish it.

Role	Work type	Researched pay
Host recording at your business	Egocentric Capture	$12–$18 per approved hour, paid to the business
Refer a business	Egocentric Capture	Referral bonus based on hours contributed

Wondering where a number comes from? Read how researched rate cards are sourced and graded.

Live Mercor roles

Mercor does not publish a public job feed.

Apply as a business

Some links here are referral links: when you join an employer through one, RobotTraining.jobs may receive a commission. It costs you nothing, and the employer pays you exactly the same.

Get new Egocentric Capture roles by email

Mercor keeps no public job board for us to read, so we'll send you new Egocentric Capture openings from employers that do, each with its posted pay. No cost, and you can stop any time.

Kinds of work at Mercor

Open any of them for the day-to-day tasks, every employer hiring for it and market-wide pay.

Egocentric & Wearable Capture

First time doing this kind of work? Read the beginner guides or line up pay at every employer.

What our research records about Mercor

4 dated facts from public sources (the company itself, filings, regulators, courts and the press), each kept with the publication it comes from in one of our research reports. Newest first; the newest is from 29 Sep 2026.

29 Sep 2026AI trainers' misclassification suits reach robotics data work: Assured Robot Intelligence (acquired by Meta), Handshake AI and Mercor are accused of treating annotators as contractors.
Source: Bloomberg Law (Daily Labor Report) · In Legal tracker
9 Jul 2026Mercor: Founder and CEO Brendan Foody said on X that the annualized revenue run rate crossed 2 billion US dollars.
Source: TechCrunch · In Robot data vendors
24 Jun 2026Mercor: Posted a US-based contributor listing to collect first-person video of everyday household activities for a leading physical AI company (listing created June 24 2026, now closed).
Source: Mercor (job listing) · In Robot data vendors
27 Oct 2025Mercor: Raised 350 million US dollars at a 10 billion dollar valuation in a Series C led by Felicis Ventures (confirmed by the company).
Source: TechCrunch · In Robot data vendors

From the forum

Ask the people doing Mercor work what only they can tell you.

Ask about Mercor

Frequently asked questions

Is Mercor legit?

Yes. Mercor is a genuine San Francisco company (valued at $10 billion in October 2025). Its robotics program pays businesses rather than individuals, per approved hour of footage their staff record. Individuals cannot sign up to record: the business is paid, and what a participating employee receives is up to the business. The March 2026 breach also showed that personal details uploaded to Mercor can leak.

Is Mercor a scam?

No. Mercor is a real company. Genuine Mercor email comes from @mercor.com, and Mercor says it charges no fees; businesses apply at mercor.com/robotics. Treat an offer from any other or misspelled domain as fake and forward it to support@mercor.com. Job scams tend to open with a text, WhatsApp or Telegram message and ask for money later.

Does Mercor pay?

Yes. Fast-growing data marketplace positioning itself around physical-AI data. Payouts: Bi-weekly, to the business, for approved hours.

How much does Mercor pay?

$12–$18 per approved hour, paid to the business. Mercor's robotics page states $12 to $18 per approved hour depending on the kind of work, paid bi-weekly to the business. An approved hour is footage that is well lit, with hands visible in frame, showing the task; Mercor says the vast majority of footage passes. What a participating employee receives is up to the business; Mercor does not publish it.

Is Mercor worth it?

How does Mercor pay out?

Bi-weekly, to the business, for approved hours.

Where is Mercor open to workers?

Sites like Mercor

Other employers and programs hiring for Mercor's kind of work, with today's openings, their pay and who is eligible.

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Mercor versus other employers

Torn between two? Each matchup lines up pay, how hard it is to get in and current openings. Sorted by what an application to either employer is likely worth to you, with a referral lift for an employer that pays us a referral fee; your pay is never affected.

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How Mercor stacks up against similar employers

TELUS Digital AI Community

Remote freelance work for TELUS Digital's AI Community, including a robot teleoperation and wearable-capture role at $32 to $45 an hour, open to applicants in any country.

$32 to $45 an hour on its robot teleoperation role, stated per postingStated by the employer

RemoExperts

Wear an Insta360 X5 on your head and film ten-minute stretches of your ordinary day (cooking, cleaning, errands) for an hourly rate set per country.

$40–$120/hr by countryStated by the employer

Sovrano AI

A European expert network whose robotics program pays remote annotators to describe what robot and human hands do in short video clips.

$5–$15/hr once placedStated by the employer

Perle

Wear a headstrap with your phone, press record, and go about your day: paid per accepted hour of first-person video for robot training.

Paid per accepted hour of footageStated by the employer

Sorted by what an application there is likely worth to you, with a referral lift for employers that pay us a referral fee; your pay is never affected.

Open the pay table for every employer

Hiring for Mercor? We find the people (you contract them yourself) or we run the project (we deliver the robot data).