Mercor vs micro1
Side by side from today's live listings and each platform's own documentation. Plenty of people work on both.
| Mercor | micro1 | |
|---|---|---|
| Live roles | 300 | 24 |
| Median hourly | $80 | $90 |
| Top rate | $450 | $240 |
| How it pays | 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. | Semi-monthly. Work from the 1st to the 15th is paid around the 20th, and work from the 16th to month-end around the 5th of the next month (Pacific time). |
| Hiring | You apply to a specific listing, upload a resume, then do a short AI interview. Some roles add a paid assessment or work trial. | Sign up, take the AI interview (20-40 minutes), and some roles add a short skills assessment. Certified experts are matched to projects as they open. |
| Run by | Mercor, a San Francisco company that sells expert human data to AI labs. | micro1, an AI recruiting and human-data company. It certifies experts with an AI interview, then matches them to lab projects. |
Median hourly by field
| Field | Mercor | micro1 |
|---|---|---|
| Medicine & health | $126 (26) | $90 (3) |
| Mental health | $79 (2) | $150 (1) |
| Law | $100 (13) | n/a |
| Finance & accounting | $90 (26) | $135 (1) |
| Chemistry | $85 (12) | $68 (2) |
| Biology & life sciences | $118 (5) | $68 (2) |
| Physics | $95 (12) | $100 (1) |
| Math & statistics | $70 (3) | n/a |
| General STEM | $50 (12) | $90 (1) |
| Business & operations | $68 (22) | n/a |
| Engineering | $84 (26) | $90 (3) |
| Software & coding | $65 (28) | $92 (3) |
| Machine learning | $103 (6) | $90 (1) |
| Data & analytics | $75 (4) | n/a |
| Cybersecurity | $81 (6) | $60 (1) |
| Design & media | $63 (10) | n/a |
| Languages & translation | $50 (1) | $82 (2) |
| Voice & audio | $43 (33) | $45 (1) |
| Teaching | $60 (2) | n/a |
| Humanities & policy | $150 (5) | n/a |
| Generalist | $55 (9) | $87 (2) |
Number of hourly listings in brackets.