Updated October 2026
License your software agency's data to AI buyers
Troveo names "production code with its commits, reviews, and bug history" and says code has become its own market.1
A software agency is paid to turn a client's vague idea into working code, and every step of that leaves a trace. The discovery call becomes a statement of work and an estimate. The estimate becomes a Jira or Linear backlog. Each ticket becomes a branch, a pull request, a code review with comments and a merge. Bugs come back from the client's QA, get reproduced, discussed in a shared Slack channel and fixed. After a few years and a few hundred projects, an agency holds one of the richest records of software work there is.
Code with its review and bug history is the data type AI buyers name most clearly. Troveo names production code with commits, reviews and bug history. Mercor connects to GitHub and lists repositories, commits, PRs and issues. Software developers are a GDPval occupation, and QA testers score 100 on O*NET's email scale. Brokers now run ads offering to buy codebases outright.
This hub is for owners of custom development shops, product studios, mobile and web agencies and platform specialists with ten or more staff. It explains what buyers want from an agency, why code written under client contracts is the first thing to sort out, which buyers fit, and what to keep out of a first package. A sub-page covers Shopify and e-commerce agencies.
Worth
What a agency's data may be worth
Set for a typical agency, 40 staff and 9 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 software development agencies. We can introduce you to the ones we work with.
Featured partners
micro1
Lists "Technology companies" first among its target industries and asks for active use of modern software tools.11
- $100K to $2M+, micro1 says8
Watch out for: Says it removes personal details only "when relevant", so ask exactly how.12
Polyshares
Names software among its industries and buys Slack, tickets and Drive, but excludes data held on behalf of clients.13,14,2
- $100K to $2M+, Polyshares says9
- None, Polyshares says15
- An offer in 1 to 2 weeks, then paid in 30 to 60 days16
Watch out for: Exclusive by default, and every deal it lists is exclusive with no end date.17,18
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.
Mercor
Connects to GitHub and takes repositories, commits, PRs and issues, plus Slack and Jira-adjacent tools.19,20
Watch out for: It confirmed a cyberattack in 2026, and class actions followed.24,25
Troveo
Names production code with commits, reviews and bug history, and says code has become its own market.1
- Six figures and up for a whole company, Troveo says26
- A share of the revenue; the percentage is not published27
Watch out for: You are paid from a revenue share, so ask what percentage you keep.27
Who wants this
Do buyers want software development agencies?
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.28,29
- Polyshares takes software and saas, without marking it premium.30
- VMS, a broker, gives software or tech extra weight when it estimates value.31
Which buyers take a agency your size
Shown for 40 staff, a typical agency. Ask whether contractors and part-time staff count.
micro1
Polyshares
No headcount rule; the length and texture of the record matter more33
Mode
20+ full-time US office staff (accounting firms 10+, law firms 6+)34
Pewter
20+ staff and 3+ years; by industry, from 10+ (healthcare) to 50+ (manufacturing, finance)35,36,37
Grepped
No headcount minimum stated38
Ventra
30+ US employees and 3+ years of records39
Mercor
None stated40
Troveo
No minimum stated; its estimator starts at 2041
Nyne
20+ US W-2 employees and 3+ years42
Endless
Roughly 30+ employees43
Supersoniq
50+ employees and 5+ years44
What buyers value
What in a agency's records buyers value
What buyers look for in your records, and what to talk through with your buyer before anything leaves your systems.
| Data | Where it lives | Why a buyer values it | Raise with the buyer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pull requests and code review threads | GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket | A change, the reviewer's objections and the fix, which is how engineering judgment is taught. | Which repositories belong to clients under their contracts. |
| Tickets and backlogs | Jira, Linear, ClickUp | Requirements broken into work, estimated, re-estimated and closed, with the discussion attached. | Client product details and unreleased features. |
| Statements of work and estimates | Google Docs, proposal tools | How an agency scopes and prices software, and how close the estimate came. | Client names and rates. |
| Client Slack channels and email | Slack Connect, Gmail, Outlook | Change requests, bug reports and launch-day decisions, in the client's own words. | Client staff names and anything under an NDA. |
| Internal libraries, starters and tooling | GitHub, internal package registry | Code the agency built for itself and reuses across projects, usually the cleanest to offer. | Open-source licenses on any bundled code. |
| Engineering handbooks and QA checklists | Notion, Confluence | The agency's standards for review, testing and deployment, written for new hires. | Nothing specific |
Narrower
Kinds of software development agencies
Process
How it works with each buyer
In each buyer's own words. Where a buyer publishes nothing, we say so.
micro1
- Internal docs, SOPs and playbooks, knowledge bases, project management workflows, internal comms, templates, CRM and workflow metadata, task histories45
- 30 to 200 employees32
- $100K-$2M+ per data package; over $1M for unique data8
- PII removed "when relevant"12
- The company keeps ownership of its data and reviews samples before release46
- Not published
Polyshares
Mercor
Selling or closing
Selling or closing your agency? License its data first
When a dev agency is sold, the buyer is usually after the team and the client list, and owners searching how to sell a codebase are usually thinking about code they wrote for themselves. If a sale or wind-down is coming, ask each licensing company whether internal libraries and closed projects can be licensed separately from client work, and what a buyer of the agency would need to be told about a license signed beforehand.1,2
FAQ
Software development agencies: questions, answered
Start with what the agency built for itself: internal libraries, starter kits, tooling and its own products. Polyshares says it excludes data held on behalf of clients, and client repositories are the first thing any buyer will ask about.2
Developers score 88 out of 100 on O*NET's email scale and QA testers 100, but in an agency most writing is in tickets, PRs and Slack rather than email. Count those tools when you describe the archive.6
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 client contracts assign code and deliverables to the client, and are those repos excluded?
- How are secrets, credentials and client identifiers removed from code and tickets?
- How is open-source code inside our repositories handled?
- Who owns this data: the company, an estate, or someone else?
- Do customer, vendor or platform contracts, NDAs or API terms restrict this?
- Could the data include privileged material or trade secrets?
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?