How much is a company's data worth to AI labs?

Checked October 10, 2026 · Nick Hensel, founder of Pinprick

Nobody can tell you what your company's data is worth without seeing what you hold. There is no universal price per message, and Fortune found no reliable market average for a failed company's data. The public numbers, as of October 2026, run from payments of $10,000 to $100,000 for failed startups' data to a $10 million bid for an airline's internal records. Where your firm falls depends on your records and your rights to them.

Disclosure. Pinprick offers a data licensing service that represents the firm selling, so we have a commercial interest in this topic. We are not a law firm and nothing here is legal advice. Use your own counsel before you sign anything. Sources are linked below.

What numbers are public?

Very few. These are the figures in the program pages and reporting cited below, as of October 2026.

What	Figure	What it tells you
micro1 published tiers	$100,000+, $500,000+ and $1 million+	Marketing tiers on its program page. A floor with a plus sign, not an offer.
Google bid for Spirit Airlines' records	$10 million	About 100 million emails and 500 million Teams messages, offered in Spirit's bankruptcy. No source cited here reports court approval.
Mercor backup bid, same auction	$7.5 million	Same archive.
micro1 late proposal, same archive	$12.5 million	Made after the auction. Not approved when Fortune reported it.
Failed startups, via a wind-down firm	Typically $10,000 to $100,000 per company	Said by the firm's CEO to Forbes, as cited by Fortune.
One 13-year workplace archive	Hundreds of thousands of dollars	Said by the company's former CEO to Forbes, as cited by Fortune.

The tiers come from micro1's program page. The auction and startup figures come from Fortune's reporting, which also says there is no reliable market average for a failed company's data. On October 9, The Next Web reported that the court-appointed privacy official in Spirit's bankruptcy had backed Google's $10 million deal.

None of these is a quote for your firm. A published tier that starts at $100,000 does not mean a qualified firm is offered $100,000.

What drives the value?

Buyers describe it in their own words:

micro1 says pay depends on the quality, uniqueness and value of the data. Its page also lists dataset size, workflow complexity and domain expertise.
Mercor says pay depends on data volume, the tools you connect and the depth of your data.
Troveo, a marketplace, lists company size, years of history, number of systems, how complex the work is, how unusual the industry is, whether outcomes are visible, and how clean the rights are.

Put plainly, a buyer is asking four things. How much is there? How many years does it cover? Does it show a decision from the first request to the final result? And can you prove it is yours to license?

The last one matters as much as the other three. Records you cannot license are worth nothing in a deal, however good they are. See what company data can't be licensed.

Why can't anyone quote a price up front?

Three reasons.

First, the buyer has not seen anything yet. Until there is an inventory of systems, years and volumes, any figure is a guess.

Second, the terms are not set yet. Exclusivity and license length are set in the agreement, not on the public program pages. See the terms that matter.

Third, buyers value the same records differently. In the bidding for Spirit Airlines' records, The Next Web reported that Google opened at $5 million and closed at $10 million after Mercor bid against it. That is one case, not a rule.

What comes off the top?

Mercor says it charges no upfront costs, setup fees or deductions from the payment. Your own costs are real, though. Someone senior has to decide what is in scope. Your lawyer has to read your client contracts and the license. If a third party introduces you to a buyer, ask whether the buyer pays them and how much. See how to check who is behind an offer.

When is it not worth it?

When most of what you hold belongs to clients. When the firm is small and the records are thin. When the attention it takes from partners costs more than the likely payment. Or when you would rather not have your methods train a tool your competitors can use. Any one of those is a good enough reason to pass.

If you want a view on your own firm, Pinprick's data licensing service starts with a 15-minute call and an inventory. The number comes later, from offers, not from the first call.

Common questions

What is the going rate for company data?

There is no going rate. As of October 2026, micro1 publishes tiers: $100,000 and up for a qualified partnership, $500,000 and up for large or ongoing datasets, and $1 million and up for highly unique data. Mercor's page gives no figures. micro1's tiers are one buyer's marketing tiers, not an offer to any particular firm.

Is company data priced per email or per message?

Not in any published way. Troveo, a data licensing marketplace, says there is no universal price per message. Buyers describe value in terms of volume, depth, uniqueness and quality, and they decide after seeing an inventory.

Did Google really pay $10 million for a company's data?

Google bid $10 million for the internal records of the bankrupt Spirit Airlines in 2026. The archive was reported at about 100 million emails and 500 million Teams messages. A bid of that size says little about what a 60-person firm would be offered.

Does getting more than one offer change the price?

It did in the Spirit Airlines bidding. The Next Web reported that Google opened at $5 million for Spirit's records and closed at $10 million after Mercor bid against it. That is a single case, not a rule.

What does it cost to find out?

Mercor says it charges no upfront costs, setup fees or deductions. Your real costs are your own time and your lawyer's time. Pinprick charges nothing up front; our fee is a share of a completed deal, agreed in writing before we approach a buyer.