Mercor says it hit a $2 billion annual revenue run rate in June 2026, up from $1 billion in February (CEO Brendan Foody, Jul 6, 2026). That's gross: 60% to 70% of it goes to the experts doing the work, so Mercor keeps roughly $600M to $800M a year (our math on reported figures). Reported, not verified
Nothing on this page is processor-verified. Mercor is private, so these are the CEO's own posts and press reports, each linked with its date. We did not estimate any revenue number; where we do math on reported figures, we say so. For businesses whose payment data we can check, see the verified AI revenue leaderboard.
How much revenue does Mercor make?
Mercor connects AI labs and big companies with experts (doctors, lawyers, bankers, engineers, scientists) who write and grade the data used to train and test AI models. Here is how its reported numbers have moved:
| When | Reported figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Sep 2025 | Run rate went from $1M to $500M in 17 months | CEO Brendan Foody on X, Sep 15, 2025 |
| Oct 2025 | Paying contractors more than $1.5M a day; 30,000+ experts averaging over $85 an hour; raised $350M at a $10B valuation | Mercor via TechCrunch, Oct 27, 2025 |
| Full year 2025 | Revenue up 4,658%; payouts went from $2M a month to $2M a day | CEO on X, Dec 31, 2025 |
| Feb 2026 | Crossed $1B ARR | CEO on X, Jul 6, 2026 ("4 months after hitting $1B") |
| Jan–Jun 2026 | $614M gross revenue for the half-year (actual, not a run rate) | Reported (The Information, via Dealroom, Aug 2026) |
| Jun 2026 | Crossed $2B ARR (gross, before paying experts) | CEO on X, Jul 6, 2026 |
| Oct 29, 2026 | $4M+ in daily payouts to experts; $95/hr average contracted rate | mercor.com/experts, read Oct 29, 2026 |
Run rate = recent revenue times 12. Foody also posted that Mercor went from $1M to $2B in ARR in 24 months (Jul 7, 2026). Our math: $1B to $2B in four months is a doubling, and payouts grew from about $1.5M to $4M+ a day between October 2025 and October 2026, about 2.7x.
Why do the numbers disagree: $2B or $614M?
They measure different things. $2B is a run rate: June's pace times 12. $614M is what Mercor actually billed from January to June 2026, a period when it was growing from roughly a $1B pace to a $2B pace (reported by The Information, via Dealroom). The same report said Mercor expected about $2B of gross revenue for all of 2026. So the range for 2026 is $614M in the first half (reported actual) to about $2B for the year (company expectation, reported), and both are gross.
How much of that does Mercor keep?
Contractors earn 60% to 70% of what Mercor bills, according to a person familiar with the matter (Bloomberg, via Investing.com, Jul 2026). On a $2B gross run rate, that leaves about $600M to $800M a year (our math; Dealroom gives the same range). Applied to the $614M first half, it's roughly $180M to $250M kept (reported). Foody says Mercor's ARR "is usage based, same as Anthropic and almost every other AI company" (Jul 8, 2026). It's still a bigger number than what Mercor keeps, so compare it with care against software companies that report net revenue.
A cross-check: Mercor's site says it pays out more than $4M a day (read Oct 29, 2026). Our math: $4M × 365 is about $1.5B a year to experts, which fits a gross run rate of $2B or more at a 60% to 70% payout share.
Is Mercor profitable?
Reportedly a little, and it expects much more. A person with knowledge of its financials said Mercor was free-cash-flow positive and made about $6M of profit in the first half of 2025 (Dealroom). It has told investors it expects $226M of operating profit in 2026 and $1.7B in 2027 (The Information, via Dealroom). Those are forecasts, not results.
How much is Mercor worth?
Depends who you ask. Here's the range, each with its source:
| Valuation | What it is | Source |
|---|---|---|
| $10B | Last priced round: $350M Series C led by Felicis (Oct 2025) | TechCrunch, Oct 27, 2025 |
| $20B | In talks; Mercor said it had a term sheet (Jul 2026). Nvidia reportedly discussed investing (Aug 2026) | Bloomberg via TechCrunch, Jul 9, 2026; The Information via Dealroom |
| ~$27B | Implied by secondary-market share prices (lists the $20B round as done, Aug 2026) | StockAnalysis / Clarity, Oct 28, 2026 |
We found no Mercor announcement that the $20B round closed as of Oct 29, 2026. Our math: $10B is 5x the $2B gross run rate; $20B is 10x.
How does Mercor make money?
It's a two-sided marketplace. AI labs and enterprises pay Mercor for expert work (writing tasks, grading model answers, building evaluations), and Mercor pays the experts by the hour. Foody says the average AI lab or AI-native company spends 5% to 10% of its revenue on expert data (Oct 9, 2026) and puts the expert data market at about $10B to $15B (same day). Both are his estimates. He says enterprise is now Mercor's fastest-growing segment (Jul 7, 2026).
Can you make money with AI by working for Mercor?
This is the part most people searching "how can I make money with AI" care about. Mercor's money goes mostly to its experts, and the rates are public:
| What | Figure | Source (read Oct 29, 2026) |
|---|---|---|
| Average contracted rate | $95/hr | Mercor experts page (company figure) |
| Daily payouts to experts | $4M+ | Mercor experts page (company figure) |
| Median advertised rate, 202 open roles | $80/hr | AITraining.jobs (independent count) |
| Typical advertised range | $55–$150/hr | AITraining.jobs |
| Lowest to highest advertised rate | $14–$350/hr | AITraining.jobs |
| Physicians | $110–$250/hr | Mercor healthcare page |
How it works, per Mercor's contract policy: most contracts are hourly, hours are logged in a desktop time tracker, pay goes out weekly, and each contract has a weekly hours cap. Projects start and end, so treat it as contract income, not a salary. Pay is listed per role and depends on your field; specialists (medicine, law, finance) get the top rates.
Two cautions. TechCrunch noted Mercor had a data breach earlier in 2026 and that several contract workers filed lawsuits (Jul 2026). And the hourly rates above are advertised rates for open roles, not what a typical person earns in a month; nobody publishes that.
Want to build something instead of selling hours? These are businesses with verified revenue: how to make money with AI, AI side hustles with real revenue, no-code AI side hustles, and is AI passive income real?
How does Mercor compare with other fast-growing AI companies?
All reported, not verified: Cognition (Devin) passed $1B a year in September 2026; Cursor was reported at over $4B a year in June 2026; Anthropic made $16.3B in the first half of 2026 (S-1). Mercor's run rate is gross, while most of those count what customers pay for software, so Mercor's figure overstates its share next to them. All of them side by side: how much do AI companies make?
More AI revenue breakdowns
Other big AI companies: how much OpenAI makes, Perplexity, Higgsfield and Meshy. Small AI businesses with Stripe-verified revenue: Comp AI, GoMotion AI and the October 2026 AI revenue report.
Compare every AI company we cover: how much do AI companies make? (verified and reported revenue, side by side).
FAQ
How much does Mercor make?
Mercor says it crossed $2 billion in annualized revenue run rate (ARR) in June 2026, four months after passing $1 billion in February (CEO Brendan Foody on X, Jul 6, 2026). That is gross revenue: what AI labs and companies pay before Mercor pays its experts. Its actual revenue for Jan–Jun 2026 was reported at $614 million gross (The Information, via Dealroom). Reported, not verified: Mercor is private.
How much of Mercor's revenue does it keep?
About 30% to 40%. Bloomberg reported that contractors earn 60% to 70% of what Mercor bills (Jul 2026). On a $2 billion gross run rate that leaves roughly $600 million to $800 million a year for Mercor (our math on reported figures, matching Dealroom's summary). The CEO says Mercor counts ARR on a usage basis, like Anthropic and other AI companies.
Is Mercor profitable?
Reportedly, yes, on a small scale: a person with knowledge of its financials said Mercor was free-cash-flow positive and made about $6 million of profit in the first half of 2025. It told investors it expects $226 million of operating profit in 2026 and $1.7 billion in 2027 (The Information, via Dealroom, Aug 2026). Those are forecasts, not results.
What is Mercor worth?
Its last priced round was a $350 million Series C at a $10 billion valuation in October 2025 (TechCrunch). Bloomberg reported in July 2026 that it was in talks to raise at $20 billion, and The Information reported Nvidia discussed investing in that round. We found no company announcement that it closed as of Oct 29, 2026. A secondary-market tracker, StockAnalysis (Clarity prices), lists $20 billion as a completed round and implies about $27 billion on Oct 28, 2026.
How much does Mercor pay per hour?
Mercor's own experts page shows a $95 an hour average contracted rate and more than $4 million in daily payouts (read Oct 29, 2026). An independent count of 202 open Mercor roles that list a rate found a median of $80 an hour, typical pay of $55 to $150, and a range of $14 to $350 (AITraining.jobs, Oct 29, 2026). Physician roles on Mercor's healthcare page list $110 to $250 an hour.
Can you make money with AI by working for Mercor?
Yes, if you have expertise AI labs want: doctors, lawyers, finance and consulting professionals, engineers, scientists and some generalists. The work is remote contract work grading and writing data for AI models, paid weekly for hours tracked in Mercor's time-tracking app, with a weekly hours cap set per contract. It is project-based, so it is not a guaranteed full-time income.
Who founded Mercor?
Brendan Foody (CEO), Adarsh Hiremath and Surya Midha, who started it at a hackathon in São Paulo, Brazil, when they were 19 (CEO on X, Jan 1, 2026). Forbes reported they became the youngest self-made billionaires in October 2025.
From 48 tracked. Sign up free to get all 48 as a spreadsheet now, plus every full case study. No card.
Download the CSV (MRR, active subscriptions, $/sub, processor, source).
Keep reading
- How much do AI writing tools make? $18k to $241k a month
- How much does Rezi make? $241k a month, 11 years in
- Grownomic: 3 pivots, 2 paying clients, shut down in a year
- How much do AI SEO businesses make? $33k to $179k a month
- How much does Rank Prompt make? $40k a month, and a record October
- Receipts vs the pitch: how to tell a real AI-money claim from a course pitch
- How much does Comp AI make? $765k in 30 days, but only $13k MRR
- How much does Vid.AI make? $47k a month, down 65% from its peak, and for sale at $1.5M
- How much do faceless video AI businesses make? $3.4k to $66k a month
- How much does Photo AI make? $86K a month, 43% off its peak
- How much does Meshy make? $100M a year, 100x in under two years
- How much does OpenAI make? About $50B a year, not $70B
- How much does Cognition make? Devin's maker went from $37M to $1B a year in 16 months
- How much does Humanize AI Text make? $28k a month, down a quarter since last November
- AI revenue report, October 2026: two businesses made three-quarters of all the growth
- How much does Higgsfield make? $1B a year, 18 months after launch
- How much does Anthropic make? $16.3B in six months, per its IPO filing
- How much does White Glove Content make? $66k a month from faceless videos, 6 months in
- How much does Podium make? $150M a year from AI agents that answer the phone
- How much does Replit make? $240M was its last number, and now it won't say
- How much does AEO Engine make? $179k a month from 61 clients
- How much does ShipFast make? $1,700 last month, down 98% from its best month
- How much does Perplexity make? Revenue tripled after it started selling an AI agent
- How much does Cursor make? $608M in 48 days, per SpaceX's filing
- How much does Lovable make? $600M a year, and its fastest $100M took one month
- How much does ElevenLabs make? $600M a year, mostly from big companies
- How much does SEObot make? $33k a month, and its revenue fell 61% this year
- How much does MagicSlides make? $10k a month, ~1 in 3,000 users pays, and it is for sale
- How much does PropGPT make? $98k a month, and it just passed $1M
- How much does Cometly make? $199k a month from a few hundred customers
- How much does GojiberryAI make? (Verified revenue, 2026)
- How much does TypingMind make? (Founder-reported revenue, 2026)
- How to make money with ChatGPT: real businesses with verified revenue
- Is AI passive income real? What the receipts show
- How to start an AI agency: verified agency revenue and pricing
- How much money can you make with AI? Real numbers from 48 verified businesses
- AI side hustles for beginners (no code needed)
- AI app pricing: what 48 revenue-verified AI businesses actually charge
- How much does Postiz make? $324k a month, 15x in ten months
- AI side hustles with verified revenue in 2026
- How long until an AI app makes its first dollar?
- How to build an AI app like Photo AI
- AI business revenue leaderboard
- MRR calculator