Updated October 2026
Should I sell my company's data?
You are weighing whether the money is worth the effort and the risk. It can be, if you clear a buyer's size minimum, hold several years of written work and can keep sensitive records out. For a firm of 20 or 30 people or more, published ranges mostly start around $100K, as the buyers' own claims. For a 12-person office, or an archive full of customer health or financial files, the answer is often no.1,2,3,4
When it makes sense
Signs it is worth a look
You have 20 to 30 or more employees and 3+ years of history, which clears most buyers' minimums. Your people do the same work over and over in writing, such as dispatching, quoting, service tickets or project updates, which is what buyers say they want. You use a few connected tools, and most of what you hold is about how the business runs, not customers' private lives.5,6,7,8
The effort is modest, because you are licensing records you already have. By the buyers' own counts it takes the owner an hour to a few hours, plus some IT time to move the files.9,10,11,12
When it does not
Signs to pass, or wait
You are under most minimums: with 10 to 19 staff, only a few buyers apply, mostly those with no stated minimum or a lower bar for accounting and law firms. Most of your records are held for clients, which buyers usually leave out, and that can be nearly all of a bookkeeper's or IT provider's archive. Or your files are thick with health, financial or HR details that buyers either exclude or charge heavily to clean.13,14,15,16,4
Or the hit to your reputation outweighs the check. If your customers would feel betrayed even by a cleaned copy, the money may not cover it, and press coverage such as "Your Former Employer Is Selling Your Slacks and Emails to Train AI" shows how it can read.17
Now or later
Should you do it now or wait?
An afternoon's work
How to decide in an afternoon
Write down your headcount, years of records, where you are based and whether any of it is sensitive, since those are the questions buyers ask first. List the folders you would never let out. Then take our quiz, which introduces you to the buyers we work with that take a company like yours, and get two written offers. Compare the lower one against the time, the risk and how your customers would feel, and if it still looks good, talk the legal questions through with the buyer you're working with before you sign.20
FAQ
Questions, answered with sources
That shrinks what you can offer, since buyers usually leave out data held on behalf of clients. Your own internal records may still be enough.16
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
- 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 is the payment taxed?
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?