A completed deal with a disclosed price.
SourceX / AI Data Price Index
What AI companies
pay for data
Publicly reported prices for AI training data, each linked to the original reporting. Updated 3 Nov 2026.
- Prices tracked
- 17
- Distinct sources
- 13
- Largest single figure
- $250M
- Updated
- 3 Nov 2026
01 / The reported prices
A market with many units.
From a minute of footage to an entire company archive.
HighMediumLowLog scale · USD · units differ
Company records
Google won an auction to buy the old emails, team chats and code of Spirit Airlines, which went out of business, so it can train AI.
Winning auction bid, pending bankruptcy-court approval (hearing adjourned to Nov 6, 2026 per Chapter11Cases, Oct 14, 2026). Cache: ~100M emails, ~500M Microsoft Teams messages, ~30M lines of code; passenger/customer data excluded or de-identified. Mercor was alternate bidder at $7.5M.
View entryAfter Google won, the AI data startup micro1 offered more money for the same Spirit Airlines archive.
Unsigned proposal filed after the auction closed; not accepted. Google remains the successful bidder as of Oct 14, 2026.
View entryWhen a startup closes, a wind-down firm sells its old work chats, emails, tickets and code to AI companies and pays the founders.
Typical range SimpleClosure pays per company (nearly 100 deals in the prior year). Also reported by Gizmodo (Apr 17, 2026).
View entryCode
A founder whose crypto startup closed sold its software code to AI labs through a wind-down firm.
Single anecdote ('roughly $25,000'). Same founder's workspace data (Google, Notion, Figma, Slack) was pending, 'likely around $15,000'.
View entryAI labs buy practice problems with automatic grading so their models can learn by trial and error.
Ballpark from multiple interviewees; one founder: '$20k per task would be rare but possible.' Epoch's own Substack edition (epoch.ai page did not load).
View entryA fake copy of a business website or app that AI agents can practice using.
SemiAnalysis estimate relayed by Epoch AI. One interviewee said a high-quality replica of a complex product like Slack can cost about $300k.
View entryVideo
AI companies pay YouTubers and other creators for video clips they filmed but never posted.
Syndicated copy of Bloomberg's report (Aisha Counts). Buyers include OpenAI, Google and Moonvalley. The Decoder, citing Bloomberg: ordinary footage $1-2/min; 4K, drone and 3D footage earns more.
View entryShutterstock lets big tech companies train AI on its huge library of photos, videos and music.
Shutterstock's CFO told Reuters (Apr 5, 2024) initial agreements with Apple, Meta, Google and Amazon 'ranged from $25-50 million each, with most later being expanded.'
View entryDocuments
A big book publisher let Microsoft train AI on some older nonfiction books, paying for each book with the money split between author and publisher.
$5,000 per book split evenly ($2,500 author / $2,500 publisher); authors opt in. Buyer named as Microsoft by Bloomberg. Date is the print-issue date in the URL (story broke ~Nov 18-20, 2024).
View entryGoogle pays Reddit so it can use Reddit posts and comments to train its AI.
Reported, not confirmed: 'about $60 million per year, according to one of the sources.' Syndicated Reuters copy.
View entryOpenAI pays the owner of The Wall Street Journal to use its news stories in ChatGPT and AI training.
WSJ estimate, not disclosed by the companies; 'over five years in cash and credits'. Some outlets reported 'potentially more than $250 million'.
View entryAmazon pays The New York Times each year to use its journalism in Amazon's AI products.
Reported by WSJ citing people familiar; not confirmed by the companies.
View entryPublisher Wiley was paid by a large tech company for the right to train AI on its books and journals.
'A $23 million content rights project for training GenAI large language models' with an unnamed large tech company; one-time, completed in the quarter ended Apr 30, 2024.
View entryHealth
Tempus licenses anonymized cancer patient records to AstraZeneca and Pathos to build a medical AI model.
$200M covers 'data licensing and model development fees' combined (not data alone); multi-year. Also reported by Fierce Biotech.
View entryRobotics
Robot maker Figure pays people through an app to film themselves doing housework so its robots can learn.
Cumulative total stated by CEO Brett Adcock; not a per-unit price. 16M videos from 108 countries; no per-hour rate disclosed.
View entryRecordings of a person remotely steering a robot through a task, used to teach robots.
Estimate by Flikforge CEO Jeff Allen (single industry source) quoted in Forbes.
View entryAudio
Ready-made recordings of people talking in many languages, sold by the hour to train speech AI.
Single vendor's published catalog price. Page does NOT state a $60-$150 low-resource tier; it says rare languages push prices up but gives no figure.
View entryPrices are publicly reported figures, not offers and not SourceX payouts. Each links to its original source.
SourceX is not affiliated with the companies named and was not a party to these reported deals. Annual fees, bids, combined service fees and cumulative contributor payments are not like-for-like prices.
02 / Explore the evidence
Every figure. Its source.
17 of 17 prices
| Data | Price | Unit | Confidence | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| # | $250M | per deal (5 years) | Medium | Engadget (citing The Wall Street Journal) |
OpenAI pays the owner of The Wall Street Journal to use its news stories in ChatGPT and AI training. WSJ estimate, not disclosed by the companies; 'over five years in cash and credits'. Some outlets reported 'potentially more than $250 million'. OpenAI will reportedly pay $250 million to put News Corp's journalism in ChatGPT | ||||
| # | $200M | per deal | High | Tempus (Business Wire press release) |
Tempus licenses anonymized cancer patient records to AstraZeneca and Pathos to build a medical AI model. $200M covers 'data licensing and model development fees' combined (not data alone); multi-year. Also reported by Fierce Biotech. Tempus Signs Expanded Strategic Agreements with AstraZeneca and Pathos to Develop the Largest Multimodal Foundation Model in Oncology | ||||
| # | $60M | per year | Medium | Reuters (via Yahoo) |
Google pays Reddit so it can use Reddit posts and comments to train its AI. Reported, not confirmed: 'about $60 million per year, according to one of the sources.' Syndicated Reuters copy. Exclusive: Reddit in AI content licensing deal with Google, sources say | ||||
| # | $25M–$50M | per deal | Medium | VentureBeat (citing Reuters) |
Shutterstock lets big tech companies train AI on its huge library of photos, videos and music. Shutterstock's CFO told Reuters (Apr 5, 2024) initial agreements with Apple, Meta, Google and Amazon 'ranged from $25-50 million each, with most later being expanded.' Apple's $25-50 million Shutterstock deal highlights fierce competition for AI training data | ||||
| # | $20M–$25M | per year | Medium | Engadget (citing The Wall Street Journal) |
Amazon pays The New York Times each year to use its journalism in Amazon's AI products. Reported by WSJ citing people familiar; not confirmed by the companies. The New York Times and Amazon's AI licensing deal is reportedly worth up to $25 million per year | ||||
| # | $23M | per deal | High | Wiley (Business Wire earnings release) |
Publisher Wiley was paid by a large tech company for the right to train AI on its books and journals. 'A $23 million content rights project for training GenAI large language models' with an unnamed large tech company; one-time, completed in the quarter ended Apr 30, 2024. Wiley Reports Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2024 Results | ||||
| # | $15M | total paid to contributors (to date) | Medium | Forbes |
Robot maker Figure pays people through an app to film themselves doing housework so its robots can learn. Cumulative total stated by CEO Brett Adcock; not a per-unit price. 16M videos from 108 countries; no per-hour rate disclosed. Figure's Billion-Dollar Bet: Gig Platform For Humans To Generate Robot Training Data | ||||
| # | $12.5M | per company | Low | Fortune |
After Google won, the AI data startup micro1 offered more money for the same Spirit Airlines archive. Unsigned proposal filed after the auction closed; not accepted. Google remains the successful bidder as of Oct 14, 2026. micro1 tries to beat Google's bid to buy bankrupt Spirit Airlines' data for $12.5 million | ||||
| # | $10M | per company | Medium | TIME |
Google won an auction to buy the old emails, team chats and code of Spirit Airlines, which went out of business, so it can train AI. Winning auction bid, pending bankruptcy-court approval (hearing adjourned to Nov 6, 2026 per Chapter11Cases, Oct 14, 2026). Cache: ~100M emails, ~500M Microsoft Teams messages, ~30M lines of code; passenger/customer data excluded or de-identified. Mercor was alternate bidder at $7.5M. Google's $10 Million Bid for Spirit Airlines' Data Reveals AI's Next Frontier | ||||
| # | $10K–$100K | per company | Medium | Forbes |
When a startup closes, a wind-down firm sells its old work chats, emails, tickets and code to AI companies and pays the founders. Typical range SimpleClosure pays per company (nearly 100 deals in the prior year). Also reported by Gizmodo (Apr 17, 2026). AI's New Training Data: Your Old Work Slacks And Emails | ||||
| # | $25K | per codebase | Low | MIT Technology Review |
A founder whose crypto startup closed sold its software code to AI labs through a wind-down firm. Single anecdote ('roughly $25,000'). Same founder's workspace data (Google, Notion, Figma, Slack) was pending, 'likely around $15,000'. AI labs are buying data from dead startups to train their models | ||||
| # | $20K | per environment | Low | Epoch AI |
A fake copy of a business website or app that AI agents can practice using. SemiAnalysis estimate relayed by Epoch AI. One interviewee said a high-quality replica of a complex product like Slack can cost about $300k. An FAQ on Reinforcement Learning Environments | ||||
| # | $5K | per title (3-yr license) | High | Publishers Weekly |
A big book publisher let Microsoft train AI on some older nonfiction books, paying for each book with the money split between author and publisher. $5,000 per book split evenly ($2,500 author / $2,500 publisher); authors opt in. Buyer named as Microsoft by Bloomberg. Date is the print-issue date in the URL (story broke ~Nov 18-20, 2024). Agents, Authors Question HarperCollins AI Deal | ||||
| # | $200–$2K | per task | Medium | Epoch AI |
AI labs buy practice problems with automatic grading so their models can learn by trial and error. Ballpark from multiple interviewees; one founder: '$20k per task would be rare but possible.' Epoch's own Substack edition (epoch.ai page did not load). An FAQ on Reinforcement Learning Environments | ||||
| # | $50–$200 | per hour | Low | Forbes |
Recordings of a person remotely steering a robot through a task, used to teach robots. Estimate by Flikforge CEO Jeff Allen (single industry source) quoted in Forbes. Figure's Billion-Dollar Bet: Gig Platform For Humans To Generate Robot Training Data | ||||
| # | $60–$95 | per hour | Low | SpeechData.ai |
Ready-made recordings of people talking in many languages, sold by the hour to train speech AI. Single vendor's published catalog price. Page does NOT state a $60-$150 low-resource tier; it says rare languages push prices up but gives no figure. How to Buy Speech Data: The Complete Buyer's Guide | ||||
| # | $1–$4 | per minute | Medium | Bloomberg (via Bloomberg Law) |
AI companies pay YouTubers and other creators for video clips they filmed but never posted. Syndicated copy of Bloomberg's report (Aisha Counts). Buyers include OpenAI, Google and Moonvalley. The Decoder, citing Bloomberg: ordinary footage $1-2/min; 4K, drone and 3D footage earns more. YouTubers Are Selling Their Unused Video Footage to AI Companies | ||||
03 / How to read the confidence ratings
Not every number is equally certain.
04 / Your company's records
What these prices mean for your company
These are public reports, not offers. Your company's records may be worth more or less. Size, years of history, how many systems you used and what you own all matter.
Company archives are priced per company. Video and audio often use a price per minute or hour. Check the unit before you compare two numbers.
A bid can still change. The Spirit Airlines sale was awaiting bankruptcy-court approval in the reporting included here. A competing proposal is not a completed deal.
Some figures cover more than data. The Tempus agreement includes model development fees, and Figure's $15M figure is a total paid to contributors, not a price per recording.
05 / Questions
About the index
How much do AI companies pay for data?
Public reports range from $1–$4 per minute of unused creator video to a reported $250M News Corp agreement over five years. Those figures cover very different things. Read the unit and source note before comparing them.
Why are prices so different?
The size, history, type of records and rights included all affect the price. A whole company archive is not the same as an hour of audio. Some figures include services, credits or several years of access.
Are these SourceX offers?
No. These are public reports, not SourceX offers or payouts. SourceX's own indicative company-share payouts are shown in the fit check and FAQ. An estimate is not a guaranteed offer. Open the fit check or read the SourceX FAQ.
How often is this updated?
Every quarter. The date at the top shows the most recent update.
Can I cite this page?
Yes, with a link to this page. For an individual figure, also cite the original reporting linked in its row.
Cite this page
SourceX AI Data Price Index, updated 3 Nov 2026, https://sourcex.si/ai-data-price-index
SourceX / Your next step
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See if your company qualifiesPrices are publicly reported figures, not offers and not SourceX payouts. Each links to its original source.