Mercor vs Prolific

Side by side from today's live listings and each platform's own documentation. Plenty of people work on both.

	Mercor	Prolific
Live roles	300	Behind login
Median hourly	$80	n/a
Top rate	$450	n/a
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.	Researchers must pay at least $8 (£6) an hour, and Prolific recommends $12 (£9). Approved earnings can be cashed out to PayPal once your balance reaches $6 or £6; payments arrive within 24 hours. New accounts wait 72 hours between cash outs until they've done four.
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 as a participant and verify your identity. There is often a waitlist; once in, studies that match your profile appear on your dashboard first come, first served.
Run by	Mercor, a San Francisco company that sells expert human data to AI labs.	Prolific, a London company that runs an online research panel. Universities and AI companies pay participants to take studies and do AI evaluation tasks.

Median hourly by field

Number of hourly listings in brackets.