Braintrust vs Mercor
Side by side from today's live listings and each platform's own documentation. Plenty of people work on both.
| Braintrust | Mercor | |
|---|---|---|
| Live roles | Behind login | 300 |
| Median hourly | n/a | $80 |
| Top rate | n/a | $450 |
| How it pays | Braintrust says it never charges talent fees, so you keep what the client pays; clients pay the platform fee. It doesn't publish a payout schedule we can cite, and payment terms vary by contract. | Weekly. Payouts for the prior work week are processed by Wednesday, mostly through Stripe (Wise where Stripe isn't offered). Stripe holds a first payout for 7 days, and banks can take 3 to 7 business days after a payout shows as paid. |
| Hiring | Apply to join, complete a short recorded video interview, then apply to roles. Admission is selective. | You apply to a specific listing, upload a resume, then do a short AI interview. Some roles add a paid assessment or work trial. |
| Run by | Braintrust, a talent network that connects vetted freelancers with companies, with its own BTRST token for governance. | Mercor, a San Francisco company that sells expert human data to AI labs. |
Median hourly by field
| Field | Braintrust | Mercor |
|---|---|---|
| Medicine & health | n/a | $126 (26) |
| Mental health | n/a | $79 (2) |
| Law | n/a | $100 (13) |
| Finance & accounting | n/a | $90 (26) |
| Chemistry | n/a | $85 (12) |
| Biology & life sciences | n/a | $118 (5) |
| Physics | n/a | $95 (12) |
| Math & statistics | n/a | $70 (3) |
| General STEM | n/a | $50 (12) |
| Business & operations | n/a | $68 (22) |
| Engineering | n/a | $84 (26) |
| Software & coding | n/a | $65 (28) |
| Machine learning | n/a | $103 (6) |
| Data & analytics | n/a | $75 (4) |
| Cybersecurity | n/a | $81 (6) |
| Design & media | n/a | $63 (10) |
| Voice & audio | n/a | $43 (33) |
| Teaching | n/a | $60 (2) |
| Humanities & policy | n/a | $150 (5) |
| Generalist | n/a | $55 (9) |
Number of hourly listings in brackets.