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Research report · Sourced dataset

Revenue and Scale of the Companies That Train Robots

The listed robot-training employers report their revenue in filings and the private ones through statements and press reports; the largest private figure recorded is Mercor's $2 billion in gross annualized revenue (run-rate Jun 2026), and Appen's revenue changed -1.5% in FY2025.

Covers
31 Dec 2023 to 10 Oct 2026
Events by the date they happened
Computed
10 Oct 2026, 21:13 UTC
Updated as sources are reviewed
Source
Annual reports, quarterly results and regulatory filings of the listed companies; statements and press reports for the private ones, each linked beside its figure.
Method
Version 1. Definitions
CC BY 4.0, how to cite
Download all figures (CSV)JSON

Key findings

  1. 1

    Appen reported $231M of revenue for FY2025, down 1.5% on the year before ($273M in FY2023).

    Figure 1
  2. 2

    Appen's New Markets segment reported $116M for FY2024, up 42.6% on the year before.

    Figure 2
  3. 3

    The largest private figure recorded is Mercor's $2 billion in gross annualized revenue (run-rate Jun 2026, stated by the company).

    Figure 3

Figure 1

Revenue of the listed companies, by year

What do the publicly listed robot-training employers report as revenue, and how fast is it changing?

Sample. Whole-company revenue in US dollars for each fiscal year as the company reports it in filings and results releases, to 10 Oct 2026; a figure as first published, a restated one only where no original is recorded.

US dollars as reported; a figure reported in another currency is listed in the data download and not converted.

A listed company's revenue covers far more than the work of the people who train and operate its robots; a parent's segment (Alphabet's Other Bets, which include Waymo and Wing) is in the segment figure.

Compiled by. RobotTraining.jobs Research, Revenue and Scale of the Companies That Train Robots, reviewed 10 Oct 2026.

CSV

Figure 2

Revenue by segment, full years

How large are the robotics and autonomy lines inside the listed companies, and are they growing?

CompanySegmentYearRevenueChange on prior year
AppenAppen Limited (ASX: APX), ASX announcementAppen ChinaFY2025
$103M
n/a
AppenAppen Limited (ASX: APX), ASX announcementAppen GlobalFY2025
$128M
n/a
AppenAppen Limited (ASX: APX), ASX announcementAppen Global (excluding Google)FY2024
$162M
n/a
AppenAppen Limited (ASX: APX), ASX announcementChinaFY2023
$34.5M
n/a
AppenAppen Limited (ASX: APX), ASX announcementChinaFY2024
$58.9M
+70.7%
AppenAppen Limited (ASX: APX), ASX announcementExcluding Google (adjusted)FY2023
$190M
n/a
AppenAppen Limited (ASX: APX), ASX announcementExcluding Google (adjusted)FY2024
$221M
+16.1%
AppenAppen Limited (ASX: APX), ASX announcementGlobal ProductFY2024
$31.3M
n/a
AppenAppen Limited (ASX: APX), ASX announcementGlobal ServicesFY2023
$192M
n/a
AppenAppen Limited (ASX: APX), ASX announcementGlobal ServicesFY2024
$118M
-38.3%
AppenAppen Limited (ASX: APX), ASX announcementGoogle contractFY2023
$82.8M
n/a
AppenAppen Limited (ASX: APX), ASX announcementGoogle contractFY2024
$13.4M
-83.8%
AppenAppen Limited (ASX: APX), ASX announcementNew MarketsFY2023
$81.5M
n/a
AppenAppen Limited (ASX: APX), ASX announcementNew MarketsFY2024
$116M
+42.6%

Sample. Segment and adjusted figures exactly as each company names them in its filings, full fiscal years, to 10 Oct 2026. The share is the segment over the same year's whole-company revenue in the first figure.

Segments are as the company defines them and can be redefined; each row links the filing that states it.

Compiled by. RobotTraining.jobs Research, Revenue and Scale of the Companies That Train Robots, reviewed 10 Oct 2026.

CSV

Figure 3

Revenue and run-rates of the private companies

How large are the private robot-training employers by revenue, and how fast have they grown?

CompanyPeriodMeasureAmount
Handshake (AI business)Upstarts MediaARR Oct 2025ARR
$100M
HandshakeTechCrunchARR end of 2025 (forecast)Expected
$300M
HandshakeTechCrunchrun-rate early 2026Annualized revenue
$1B
MercorTechCrunchrun-rate Feb 2025ARR
$75M
MercorTechCrunchARR Mar 2025ARR
$100M
MercorTechCrunchrun-rate Sep 2025Run-rate
$450M
MercorTechCrunchrun-rate Sep 2025Run-rate
$500M
MercorTechCrunchrun-rate early 2026Annualized revenue
$1B
MercorTechCrunchrun-rate Jun 2026Annualized revenue
$2B
micro1TechCrunchARR Jan 2025ARR
$7M
micro1TechCrunchARR Sep 2025ARR
$50M
micro1Business Insiderannual revenue Sep 2025Annualized revenue
$60M
micro1TechCrunchARR Dec 2025ARR
$100M
micro1TechCrunchrun-rate Aug 2026Run-rate
$500M
Scale AITechCrunchFY2024Revenue
$870M
Scale AITechCrunchFY2025Expected
$2B
TuringTechCrunchARR Mar 2025ARR
$300M

Sample. 17 figures for private companies, stated by the company or reported by the press, to 10 Oct 2026, oldest first within each company.

Run-rate, ARR and annualised revenue multiply a recent month or quarter out to a year: they are not a year's revenue and are not comparable with a listed company's reported revenue.

A data company's run-rate is usually gross: it includes what the company passes on to the people it pays.

Reported: from unnamed sources in the outlet linked, not confirmed by the company.

Compiled by. RobotTraining.jobs Research, Revenue and Scale of the Companies That Train Robots, reviewed 10 Oct 2026.

CSV

Figure 4

What the companies say about their fleets, workforce and payouts

How large do these companies say their fleets, rides, deliveries and workforces are, and how much do they say they pay?

CompanyClaimAs stated
AppenAppen Limited (ASX: APX), ASX announcementCountriesin over 200 countries
AppenAppen Limited (ASX: APX), ASX announcementCountriesin over 200 countries
AppenAppenCountries170+ Countries represented
AppenAppen Limited (ASX: APX), ASX announcementPayouts59.7%
AppenAppen Limited (ASX: APX), ASX announcementWorkforcebetween 50,000 to 100,000 crowd contributors each month
AppenAppen Limited (ASX: APX), ASX announcementWorkforcecrowd of 1 million+ contractors ... more than 170 countries and speaking 235+ languages and dialects
AppenAppen Limited (ASX: APX), ASX announcementWorkforcemore than 1 million experts
AppenAppen Limited (ASX: APX), ASX announcementWorkforcemore than 1 million skilled contractors who speak over 500 languages
AppenAppenWorkforce1M+ Vetted contributors worldwide
Appen (CrowdGen)AppenPay rate$100+/hr
Appen (CrowdGen)AppenPay rateUp to $450 /hr
Appen (CrowdGen)AppenWorkforce500,000+ Contributors paid
HandshakeHandshakePay rateUp to $125/hr
HandshakeHandshakePayouts$500M+ payouts made
HandshakeHandshakeWorkforce188k+ fellows
iMeritiMeritWorkforcea pool of 10,000+ active resources spanning 60+ countries
MercorBusiness InsiderPay ratean average of $95 an hour
MercorTechCrunchPay rateover $85 per hour on average
MercorMercorPay rate$109/hr
MercorTechCrunchPayoutsmore than $1.5 million per day to its contractors
MercorMercorPayouts$4M+
MercorTechCrunchWorkforcemore than 30,000 experts on its roster
MercorFortuneWorkforcenetwork of more than five million domain experts
micro1TechCrunchPay rateMany earn close to $100 an hour
micro1TechCrunchWorkforcethousands of experts across hundreds of domains
ProlificProlificPay rateat least £9.00 / $12.00 per hour
ProlificTechCrunchWorkforcea network of 120,000 human participants
ProlificProlificWorkforce300,000+ participants from our Global Crowd
Scale AIScale AIPayouts$1B Paid to contributors globally
Scale AI (Outlier, Remotasks)Business InsiderWorkforceover 300,000 gig workers across its Outlier and Remotasks platforms
Scale AI (Outlier)Outlier (Scale AI)Countries50 Countries
Scale AI (Outlier)Outlier (Scale AI)Payouts$500M+ Paid to experts
Scale AI (Outlier)Outlier (Scale AI)Workforce700K+ PhD, MS students onboarded
Scale AI (Remotasks)Remotasks (Scale AI)Payouts$15M Total Earnings
Scale AI (Remotasks)Remotasks (Scale AI)Workforce240,000+ Total Taskers
TuringTuringCountries140+ countries
TuringTechCrunchWorkforcesome 4 million coders around the world
Welo Data (Welocalize)Welo DataWorkforce500k+ Curated Experts

Sample. 38 claims by the companies themselves, or reported, to 10 Oct 2026.

These are the companies' own figures, often marketing: a registered contributor is not an active worker, a fleet is not a count of the people supervising it, and a payout total is not pay per hour.

Compiled by. RobotTraining.jobs Research, Revenue and Scale of the Companies That Train Robots, reviewed 10 Oct 2026.

CSV

For robotics labs, fleet operators, data vendors and researchers

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Method and definitions

Annual reports, quarterly results and regulatory filings of the listed companies; statements and press reports for the private ones, each linked beside its figure. Every row links the publication it is taken from, with the figure as that publication states it; nothing is estimated or converted. Each figure states what it includes beneath it.

Revenue
What a listed company reports for the period in its filings or results release, in the currency as reported.
Run-rate and annualised revenue
A recent month or quarter of revenue multiplied out to a year, as a private company or the press states it. Not a year's revenue, and not comparable with reported revenue.
Stated or reported
Stated: the company or a filing gives the figure. Reported: an outlet reports it from unnamed sources.
Scale claim
What a company says about its fleet, rides, deliveries, the people on its platform or its payouts, as it says it. A registered contributor is not an active worker.

What this data cannot tell you

  • Compiled from public sources: an event that was never announced or reported is missing, and private companies' figures are what they or the press stated, not audited.
  • Fiscal years differ between companies, and a listed company's revenue includes work far beyond robot training.
  • Fleet, workforce and payout figures are the companies' own and are rarely defined or audited.

How the job feeds are read and roles are classified: site methodology. How fresh, complete and consistent the data is, checked every day: data quality and coverage.

Editions

The live report is the dataset as last reviewed; new events are added as they are published. Each complete month is also published as an edition, frozen two days after the month ends, so a figure you cite from an edition never moves.

Cite and reuse

Free to quote, chart and republish under CC BY 4.0 with a link to this page. Live figures change daily: cite a monthly edition for numbers that will read the same later, or keep the access date.

Citation

RobotTraining.jobs (2026). Revenue and Scale of the Companies That Train Robots (live data, 31 Dec 2023 to 10 Oct 2026). https://robottraining.jobs/research/robot-training-industry-revenue (accessed 10 Oct 2026)

BibTeX

@misc{robottrainingjobs_robot_training_industry_revenue_live,
  author = {{RobotTraining.jobs}},
  title = {Revenue and Scale of the Companies That Train Robots (live data, 31 Dec 2023 to 10 Oct 2026)},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://robottraining.jobs/research/robot-training-industry-revenue}},
  note = {Accessed 10 Oct 2026},
}

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