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AI Data Payout

Updated October 2026

Selling a software agency or IT company

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

Software agencies and IT consultancies sell on their client roster and their engineers. Their archives hold what AI coding buyers prize most: requirements turned into tickets, tickets turned into code, code reviewed and revised. Turing's Project Lazarus licenses code, tickets, communications and decision records from operating and winding-down companies, by its own account.1

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The field

How many agencies clear the floors

The Census counts 10,560 US custom software development firms with 10+ employees and 4,725 with 30+, plus 6,733 IT consulting and systems integration firms with 10+ and 2,871 with 30+. Most buyers want 20 to 30+ employees (Cognor 20+, micro1 30+), and Troveo states no minimum; micro1 names technology first among its industries, Pewter lists software and IT.2,3,4,5,6,7,8

How many agencies clear the floors
FactValue and source
US custom software development firms and agencies (NAICS 541511)

10,560 with 10+ employees; 4,725 with 30+

[2] US Census Bureau, Statistics of US Businesses 2022 ·

US IT consulting and systems integration firms (NAICS 541512)

6,733 with 10+ employees; 2,871 with 30+

[3] US Census Bureau, Statistics of US Businesses 2022 ·

Turing Project Lazarus

Licenses code, tickets, communications and decision records from operating and winding-down companies; up to $1M in one payment

Turing resells to AI labs. The payout ceiling is Turing's own figure.

[1] Turing Project Lazarus page · company's own claim ·

Whose code

Most of an agency's code is written for clients

An agency writes code under statements of work, and the code usually ships to the client. That is the central question for any data license, and it is listed below for the licensing company. Polyshares says it excludes data held on behalf of clients. What is less tied to any client: internal tools and libraries, estimation spreadsheets, architecture decision records, code-review guidelines, onboarding docs for new engineers and the internal discussion in Slack or Teams.9

SimpleClosure reports Slack in 95% of the workspaces it evaluated and GitHub in 82%, and says roughly 37% of raw code disappeared after removing third-party, generated and duplicate code. Agencies that copy starter templates across projects should expect a large haircut on code volume.10,11

Terms

Process and payment

Turing says it signs an NDA from first contact, samples within a week and pays once, up to $1M, its own ceiling. Mercor buys from GitHub, Confluence, Slack and 100+ other tools. Like most buyers it charges sellers nothing, and payment typically follows 2-8 weeks after signing (Mercor 2-4 weeks, Cognor 3-6, Polyshares Net 30-60). SimpleClosure says companies need not be shutting down to use its marketplace.12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19

If the agency is being acquired, the acquirer will want to know what has been licensed. Foley reports training-data rights becoming a separate diligence category in AI deals.20

Payment and fee terms differ more than prices do. Most buyers, Polyshares among them, charge sellers nothing, while Jottings takes 20-30% of proceeds and FileYield 8%.19,21,22

FAQ

Questions, answered with sources

  • Turing licenses code, tickets and decision records; micro1 names technology; Mercor buys from GitHub and Confluence.1,5,13

  • 4,725 US custom software firms and 2,871 IT consulting firms have 30+ employees, clearing the 20-30+ floors most buyers set (Goldmined 20, Cognor 20+, micro1 30+).2,3,4,23,7

  • That depends on your contracts and is a question for the licensing company. Polyshares says it excludes data held on behalf of clients.9

  • SimpleClosure says roughly 37% of raw code disappeared after removing third-party, generated and duplicate code.11

  • Up to $1M in one payment, its own ceiling, not a typical amount.1

  • No: Turing covers operating companies and SimpleClosure says sellers need not be shutting down.1,16

  • We do not answer legal questions. Ask the licensing company: their team reviews this with you before anything is signed.

Before you sign

Legal questions go to the licensing company

We do not answer legal questions. Ask the licensing company before you sign: their team reviews these with you.

Questions for this kind of business

  • Which repositories and tickets are ours, which are clients', and how will you verify that?
  • Do customer, vendor or platform contracts, NDAs or API terms restrict this?

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?

How this page was made

Every figure comes from a published source listed below, each with the date we checked it. Buyer statements are the buyer's own claims and are marked so in the source list. Firm counts come from the US Census Bureau's Statistics of US Businesses. Anything marked as our estimate is ours, not a buyer quote.

Drafted with AI assistance from our research files, then checked against each source. Reviewed 14 Oct 2026. Last updated 14 Oct 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 (23)

  1. 1.Turing Project Lazarus page. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  2. 2.US Census Bureau, Statistics of US Businesses 2022. 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.micro1 Enterprise Data Partnership page. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  6. 6.Pewter website. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  7. 7.Cognor Labs partners page. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  8. 8.Troveo business data page. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  9. 9.Polyshares website. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  10. 10.SimpleClosure, What Your Assets Are Worth, published 3 Sep 2026. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  11. 11.SimpleClosure, What Your Assets Are Worth, published 3 Sep 2026. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  12. 12.Turing Project Lazarus. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  13. 13.Mercor Data page. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  14. 14.Mercor Data page. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  15. 15.Mercor Data page. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  16. 16.SimpleClosure, What Your Assets Are Worth, published 3 Sep 2026. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  17. 17.Cognor Labs manufacturing page. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  18. 18.Polyshares website. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  19. 19.Polyshares website. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  20. 20.Foley and Lardner. Accessed 14 Oct 2026.
  21. 21.Jottings how we get paid page. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  22. 22.FileYield data buyers page. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  23. 23.Goldmined.ai check page. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.