Skip to content
AI Data Payout

Updated October 2026

License your software company's data to AI buyers

Independent and sourced. We feature companies that pay us a referral fee. Our scores and reviews don't change for it. How we earn

Cielo24 sold 13 years of Slack, Jira and email for "hundreds of thousands of dollars", Forbes reported.1

Match my companyWhat is it worth?
Product manager and engineers planning a sprint at a whiteboard in a software company

A software company writes down almost everything it does. Product managers write PRDs, engineers argue in pull requests, the on-call engineer writes up the incident, support answers the same bug report twenty times before it is fixed, sales logs every objection in Salesforce or HubSpot, and customer success notes why an account churned. Unlike most industries, these records are already linked: a support ticket points to a Jira issue, which points to a commit, which points to a release note.

That linkage is why software companies are central to the data market. Cielo24 sold 13 years of Slack, Jira and email; MIT Technology Review counts more than 150 data deals for wound-down startups through SimpleClosure; Troveo names code with commits, reviews and bug history. micro1 lists technology companies first. Brokers have started advertising to SaaS teams of 30 to 200 people with the line "Your wiki might be worth something".

This hub is for founders and operators of SaaS and software companies with ten or more employees that are still operating. It covers what buyers ask for, what customer data and contracts mean for a license, which buyers fit, and how a running company's package differs from a shut-down startup's. Companies winding down should also read the startups page.

US software publishers with 10+ employees

3,9993

US software publishers with 10+ employees

of them with 30+, micro1's floor

2,0913,4

of them with 30+, micro1's floor

of Slack, Jira and email sold by Cielo24 (reported)

13 years1

of Slack, Jira and email sold by Cielo24 (reported)

data deals for wound-down startups through SimpleClosure (MIT Technology Review)

150+5

data deals for wound-down startups through SimpleClosure (MIT Technology Review)

Worth

What a company's data may be worth

Set for a typical company, 60 staff and 8 years of records. Move the sliders to match yours. Our estimate, not an offer.

Buyers

Which buyers want this data

Buyers whose own published rules fit SaaS and software companies. We can introduce you to the ones we work with.

Featured partners

  1. #1 in our ranking

    8.7 out of 10

    micro1

    Lists "Technology companies" first among its industries and asks for knowledge bases, project management workflows and task histories.9,10

    Typical payout
    $100K to $2M+, micro1 says6

    Watch out for: Says it removes personal details only "when relevant", so ask exactly how.11

    Get matchedRead the reviewVisit micro1

  2. #2 in our ranking

    7.4 out of 10

    Polyshares

    Names software first among its industries and buys Slack, tickets, CRM and design files.12,13

    Typical payout
    $100K to $2M+, Polyshares says7
    Fees
    None, Polyshares says14
    Time to get paid
    An offer in 1 to 2 weeks, then paid in 30 to 60 days15

    Watch out for: Exclusive by default, and every deal it lists is exclusive with no end date.16,17

    Get matchedRead the reviewVisit Polyshares

Everyone else we reviewed

By score, with full reviews. We have no referral agreement with these companies, so we do not link out to them.

  1. #3 in our ranking

    7.1 out of 10

    Mercor

    Connects to GitHub, Slack, Confluence, Notion and Salesforce, and takes repositories, commits, PRs and issues.18,19

    Typical payout
    Mercor does not publish a range20
    Fees
    None, Mercor says21
    Time to get paid
    By wire 2 to 4 weeks after signing22

    Watch out for: It confirmed a cyberattack in 2026, and class actions followed.23,24

    Read the review

  2. #4 in our ranking

    7.0 out of 10

    Nyne AI

    Buys Jira, Salesforce and HubSpot data, and support tickets, the engineering and go-to-market systems of most SaaS companies.25,26

    Typical payout
    $100K or more, Nyne says27

    Watch out for: Pays only after the dataset is accepted, and publishes no timeline.28

    Read the review

  3. #10 in our ranking

    5.8 out of 10

    Troveo

    Names production code with commits, reviews and bug history, and a support escalation across tickets and chat.29,30

    Typical payout
    Six figures and up for a whole company, Troveo says31
    Fees
    A share of the revenue; the percentage is not published32

    Watch out for: You are paid from a revenue share, so ask what percentage you keep.32

    Read the review

We feature buyers that pay us a referral fee. Our scores and reviews don't change for it. How we earn. No buyer publishes prices by industry, so within each group the order is the same as in our main ranking.

Who wants this

Do buyers want SaaS and software companies?

No buyer publishes prices by industry, but their own intake forms show which industries they rate higher.

  • Troveo puts developer tools, data and AI infrastructure, and cybersecurity in its top demand tier, and business and consumer apps in its third.33,34
  • Polyshares takes software and saas, without marking it premium.35
  • VMS, a broker, gives software or tech extra weight when it estimates value.36

Which buyers take a company your size

Shown for 60 staff, a typical company. Ask whether contractors and part-time staff count.

  • micro1We can introduce you

    30+ employees (its partnership page says 30 to 200)4,37

    Takes 60 staff

  • PolysharesWe can introduce you

    No headcount rule; the length and texture of the record matter more38

    No size floor

  • ModeWe can introduce you

    20+ full-time US office staff (accounting firms 10+, law firms 6+)39

    Takes 60 staff

  • PewterWe can introduce you

    20+ staff and 3+ years; by industry, from 10+ (healthcare) to 50+ (manufacturing, finance)40,41,42

    Takes 60 staff

  • GreppedWe can introduce you

    No headcount minimum stated43

    No size floor

  • VentraWe can introduce you

    30+ US employees and 3+ years of records44

    Takes 60 staff

  • Mercor

    None stated45

    No size floor

  • Troveo

    No minimum stated; its estimator starts at 2046

    No size floor

  • Nyne

    20+ US W-2 employees and 3+ years47

    Takes 60 staff

  • Endless

    Roughly 30+ employees48

    Takes 60 staff

  • Supersoniq

    50+ employees and 5+ years49

    Takes 60 staff

What buyers value

What in a company's records buyers value

What buyers look for in your records, and what to talk through with your buyer before anything leaves your systems.

What in a company's records buyers value
DataWhere it livesWhy a buyer values itRaise with the buyer
Repositories with review and incident historyGitHub, GitLabCode with its commits, reviews and bug history, the exact phrase Troveo uses.Open-source components and any customer data in fixtures.
Jira or Linear issues linked to commitsJira, LinearBug reports and feature requests traced through to the code change that closed them.Nothing specific
PRDs, RFCs and the internal wikiConfluence, Notion, Google DocsProduct reasoning before code is written, and the trade-offs considered.Nothing specific
Support tickets and escalationsZendesk, IntercomCustomer problems diagnosed and escalated to engineering, linked to the fix.Customer names and data quoted in tickets.
Sales and customer success recordsSalesforce, HubSpot, Gong notesObjections, renewals and churn reasons written up by the people who heard them.Customer contacts and contract values.
Incident postmortemsConfluence, Slack, incident toolsWhat broke, how it was found and what changed, written for engineers who were not there.Nothing specific

Process

How it works with each buyer

In each buyer's own words. Where a buyer publishes nothing, we say so.

micro1

What it buys
Internal docs, SOPs and playbooks, knowledge bases, project management workflows, internal comms, templates, CRM and workflow metadata, task histories10
Who qualifies
30 to 200 employees37
Offer range
$100K-$2M+ per data package; over $1M for unique data6
Personal data
PII removed "when relevant"11
Ownership
The company keeps ownership of its data and reviews samples before release50
Time to payment
Not published

Polyshares

What it buys
Slack, email, Drive, CRM, tickets, design files, calls and ERP13
Offer range
$100K-$2M+7
Personal data
A third-party PII partner scrubs data before it is licensed51
Excluded data
Data held on behalf of clients is excluded52
Fees
Charges sellers no fee14
Time to offer and payment
Offer 1-2 weeks after intake; paid Net 30-6015

Mercor

What it buys
Slack, Teams, Gmail, Outlook, Confluence, Salesforce, GitHub, Drive, Notion and 100+ other tools18
Who qualifies
Not published
Offer range
Not published20
Fees
No fees21
Security
SOC 2 Type II53
Time to payment
Wire 2-4 weeks after signing22

Nyne AI

What it buys
QuickBooks, Xero, NetSuite, Salesforce, HubSpot, Asana and Jira25
Who qualifies
20+ US W-2 employees and 3+ years in business47
Offer range
$100K or more27
Offer policy
Says it beats written offers from other buyers54

Troveo

Deal structure
Licensing, not sale, on a revenue share (percentage not published)32
First step
Free value assessment, then scoping55

Selling or closing

Selling or closing your company? License its data first

Buyers already approach software companies at the moment of a deal: Mercor approached Warmly about its archives after HubSpot acquired it. If an acquisition or wind-down is in view, ask each licensing company what an acquirer would need to know about a license signed beforehand, and read the startups page for the wind-down route.2

Selling your business Closing your company

FAQ

SaaS and software companies: questions, answered

  • Operating companies are the main target for micro1, which lists technology companies first and asks for 30 to 200 employees. The closed-startup route through SimpleClosure is better documented, with 150+ deals reported, but it is not the only one.9,37,5

  • Those are named by buyers. Nyne buys Jira data, Mercor connects to Slack, Confluence and Notion, and Cielo24 sold Slack, Jira and email together. In our reading, linked tickets, docs and chat are worth more together than apart.25,18,1

  • Cielo24's archive sold for "hundreds of thousands of dollars", Forbes reported, and MIT Technology Review reported that a crypto startup's code base sold for about $25,000. Published ranges mostly run $100K to $2M, as the buyers' own claims.1,56,6,57,58,59

  • It could reach one through a model; that is the purpose of the data. Ask which AI labs receive it and whether you can exclude named competitors. Offering retired products or internal tools instead of the current codebase is one way to limit that.29

  • AI Input, an intermediary, ran ads from 2026-10-12 headed "Your wiki might be worth something", aimed at SaaS companies of 30-200 people using Confluence and Jira. It is a broker's ad, not an AI lab's offer.60

  • Offers usually come within a few days to two weeks. For payment, speeds vary, but it's usually around 3-6 weeks, sometimes longer.22,15,58,61,62,63

  • Every business is different, so this one is best talked through with the buyer you're working with. Their team goes over it with you before anything is signed.

  • Every business is different, so this one is best talked through with the buyer you're working with. Their team goes over it with you before anything is signed.

Before you sign

Questions to talk through with your buyer

Every business is different, so these are best talked through with the buyer you're working with. Their team goes over them with you before anything is signed.

Questions for this kind of business

  • Which customer contracts and DPAs cover data in tickets, logs and fixtures?
  • How is open-source code in our repositories treated?
  • Would a license affect a later acquisition: reps, warranties or exclusivity?
  • How do CCPA, GDPR, UK GDPR and state privacy laws apply, and is de-identified data still personal information?
  • Do customer, vendor or platform contracts, NDAs or API terms restrict this?
  • How does a license affect a sale of the business: reps and warranties, change of control, earnouts, exclusivity?

Questions for any buyer

  • Is the license exclusive, and for how long?
  • Can you sublicense the data, and to whom?
  • Which AI labs will receive it, and will you tell us?
  • How long do you keep it, and how is it deleted?
  • What is your liability cap, and who indemnifies whom?
  • Will the contract ban re-identification of people in the data?
  • Who removes personal data, by what method, and do we approve it first?

Proof

Deals in this kind of business

  • Cielo24, a transcription software company, sold 13 years of Slack, Jira and email for "hundreds of thousands of dollars" (Forbes reporting, via AI Weekly).1

How this page was made

Figures come from the published sources listed below, and what a buyer says about itself is its own claim. Anything marked as our estimate is ours, not a buyer quote. Drafted with AI help from our research, then checked against each source. Updated October 2026.

We feature companies that pay us a referral fee. Our scores and reviews don't change for it. See how we earn and how we rank. This site does not give legal, tax or financial advice.

Sources (63)

  1. 1.AI Weekly, summarising Forbes (16 Apr 2026). Accessed 14 Oct 2026.
  2. 2.AI Weekly, summarising The Information, published 15 Aug 2026. Accessed 14 Oct 2026.
  3. 3.US Census Bureau, Statistics of US Businesses 2022. Accessed 14 Oct 2026.
  4. 4.micro1 company referral page. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  5. 5.Forbes, published 16 Apr 2026. Accessed 14 Oct 2026.
  6. 6.micro1 company referral page. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  7. 7.Polyshares website. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  8. 8.Bloomberg Law, published 17 Aug 2026. Accessed 14 Oct 2026.
  9. 9.micro1 Enterprise Data Partnership page. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  10. 10.micro1 Enterprise Data Partnership page. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  11. 11.beri.net, published 10 Oct 2026. Accessed 14 Oct 2026.
  12. 12.Polyshares website. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  13. 13.Polyshares website. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  14. 14.Polyshares website. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  15. 15.Polyshares website. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  16. 16.Polyshares data handling page. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  17. 17.Polyshares track record page. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  18. 18.Mercor Data page. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  19. 19.Mercor Data. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  20. 20.Mercor Data page. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  21. 21.Mercor Data page. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  22. 22.Mercor Data page. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  23. 23.TechCrunch, published 31 Mar 2026. Accessed 14 Oct 2026.
  24. 24.HR Dive, published 13 Apr 2026. Accessed 14 Oct 2026.
  25. 25.Nyne sell-company-data page. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  26. 26.Nyne, sell company data. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  27. 27.Nyne sell-company-data page. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  28. 28.Nyne sell-company-data page. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  29. 29.Troveo, license company data for AI, published 20 Aug 2026. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  30. 30.Troveo, license company data for AI, published 20 Aug 2026. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  31. 31.Troveo business data page. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  32. 32.Troveo, published 11 Sep 2026. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  33. 33.Troveo business data assessment. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  34. 34.Troveo business data assessment. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  35. 35.Polyshares intake catalog. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  36. 36.VMS data licensing page. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  37. 37.micro1 Enterprise Data Partnership page. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  38. 38.Polyshares. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  39. 39.Mode company data site. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  40. 40.Pewter website. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  41. 41.Pewter partner update to AI Data Payout (email, 2026-10-15), published 15 Oct 2026. Accessed 15 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  42. 42.Pewter partner update to AI Data Payout (email, 2026-10-15), published 15 Oct 2026. Accessed 15 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  43. 43.Grepped business page. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  44. 44.Meta Ad Library, Ventra page. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  45. 45.Mercor Data. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  46. 46.Troveo business data page. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  47. 47.Nyne sell-company-data page. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  48. 48.Endless website. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  49. 49.Supersoniq website. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  50. 50.beri.net, published 10 Oct 2026. Accessed 14 Oct 2026.
  51. 51.Polyshares website. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  52. 52.Polyshares website. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  53. 53.Mercor Data page. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  54. 54.Nyne sell-company-data page. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  55. 55.Troveo, published 11 Sep 2026. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  56. 56.MIT Technology Review, published 13 Oct 2026. Accessed 14 Oct 2026.
  57. 57.Cognor Labs partners page. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  58. 58.Ventra company data page. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  59. 59.Jottings how we get paid page. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  60. 60.Meta Ad Library, AI Input. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  61. 61.Your Data Value website. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  62. 62.Cognor Labs manufacturing page. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  63. 63.micro1 Data License Master Terms, published 7 Oct 2026. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.