Handshake AI vs Outlier
Side by side from today's live listings and each platform's own documentation. Plenty of people work on both.
| Handshake AI | Outlier | |
|---|---|---|
| Live roles | 242 | Behind login |
| Median hourly | $80 | n/a |
| Top rate | $300 | n/a |
| How it pays | Weekly payouts through Stripe, according to the fellowship page as quoted by third-party guides. Handshake does not publish a rate per project. | Weekly. Outlier says payments are processed every Tuesday through PayPal, AirTM or ACH, and arrive anywhere from a few minutes to a few days later depending on the method. Its blog puts project pay between $10 and $50 an hour, with the rate shown before you start. |
| Hiring | Apply through the Handshake AI site with a Handshake account. Expert tracks ask for a degree in the field. | Sign up at outlier.ai, complete onboarding and skill assessments, then projects appear in your dashboard. |
| Run by | Handshake, the college careers network, which started an AI training business (the Handshake AI Fellowship) in 2025. | Scale AI, which runs Outlier as its contributor platform. |
Median hourly by field
| Field | Handshake AI | Outlier |
|---|---|---|
| Medicine & health | $125 (17) | n/a |
| Mental health | $75 (5) | n/a |
| Law | $130 (2) | n/a |
| Finance & accounting | $85 (31) | n/a |
| Chemistry | $58 (6) | n/a |
| Biology & life sciences | $68 (6) | n/a |
| Physics | $63 (6) | n/a |
| Math & statistics | $75 (6) | n/a |
| General STEM | $39 (2) | n/a |
| Energy & earth sciences | $85 (21) | n/a |
| Business & operations | $80 (29) | n/a |
| Engineering | $85 (45) | n/a |
| Software & coding | $105 (7) | n/a |
| Machine learning | $75 (6) | n/a |
| Data & analytics | $105 (2) | n/a |
| Cybersecurity | $140 (2) | n/a |
| Design & media | $125 (6) | n/a |
| Languages & translation | $30 (12) | n/a |
| Voice & audio | $94 (6) | n/a |
| Teaching | $75 (4) | n/a |
| Humanities & policy | $98 (4) | n/a |
| Generalist | $55 (16) | n/a |
Number of hourly listings in brackets.