The best data brokers for AI training data in 2026
By Nico Vergauwen, founder of grokkedPublished Updated 11 min read
The best data brokers for AI training data in 2026 are grokked, Grepped, Troveo, Ooak Data and SimpleClosure if you want to sell your company’s internal data: chat, email, tickets, documents and code. Protege and Defined.ai suit organizations with media, health or other domain datasets. Datarade, Opendatabay and AWS Data Exchange suit companies that can deliver a finished, anonymized dataset themselves.
We rank grokked first. You never pay anything, you’re paid within 7 days of each sale, your data stays under your control until a buyer purchases, and you approve every buyer by name. Every other entry uses only what the provider publishes or what the press has reported, with a link for each fact.
Key takeaways
- Full-service brokers (grokked, Grepped, Troveo, Ooak Data, SimpleClosure, Protege) de-identify and package your data for you. Marketplaces (Defined.ai, Datarade, Opendatabay, AWS Data Exchange) expect you to deliver lawful, anonymized data yourself.
- Marketplaces publish their fees: Datarade takes 15–30% commission, Opendatabay 30% falling to 5%, AWS Data Exchange a 1.5–3% listing fee. Most full-service brokers take a share of each sale without publishing the rate.
- Reported payouts for one company’s workplace data run from $10,000 to several hundred thousand dollars. Google bid $10 million for bankrupt Spirit Airlines’ internal data in 2026.
- grokked and Grepped publish a 7-day payment deadline. Most others don’t publish one.
How we compared them
We looked for services that pay a company or rights holder for data used to train or evaluate AI models, and compared them on the six things a business owner asks first:
- Who can sell: companies, individuals or both.
- What data they take.
- How you’re paid: a revenue share, a one-off sale or a marketplace sale, and how fast.
- What it costs you: listing fees, annual fees and commission.
- Who de-identifies the data: the broker, or you before you upload.
- Where they’re based.
We ranked them by fit for a company selling its own internal data: who does the de-identification work, what you pay, whether payout terms are published and whether you keep control until a sale. Every fact comes from the provider’s own pages or from press coverage, linked in each entry and listed under Sources.
Disclosure: grokked publishes this guide and ranks itself first. We checked every competitor fact on October 6, 2026. Where a provider doesn’t publish something, such as fees or payout timing, we say so instead of guessing. Spotted something out of date? Email hello@grokked.ai and we’ll correct it.
Comparison at a glance
| Broker | Who sells | How you’re paid | Fees for sellers | Who de-identifies | Based in |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. grokked | Companies | Within 7 days of each sale | €0; commission on each sale | grokked | Belgium |
| 2. Grepped | Companies, professionals | Within 7 days of passing review | Not published | Grepped | Not published |
| 3. Troveo | Companies, media owners | Revenue share on every sale | None charged to sellers | Troveo | Austin, Texas |
| 4. Ooak Data | Companies with 20+ staff | $20K to several hundred thousand per deal | Not published | Ooak Data | Paris and Delaware |
| 5. SimpleClosure | Startups, operating or closing | License or sale | Percentage of each sale | SimpleClosure | California |
| 6. Protege | Data-rich organizations | Revenue share | Not published | Protege | New York |
| 7. Defined.ai | Any business with data | Licensing fees per sale | Not published | You | Seattle and Lisbon |
| 8. Datarade | Registered businesses | Marketplace sales | 15–30% + up to $12K/year | You | Berlin |
| 9. Opendatabay | Verified businesses | Marketplace sales | 30% falling to 5% | You | United Kingdom |
| 10. AWS Data Exchange | Businesses in eligible countries | AWS Marketplace | 1.5–3% listing fee | You | Global |
The 10 brokers, ranked
grokked is a data broker for companies. You pick the channels, folders and date ranges. grokked removes personal and confidential details and lists de-identified samples in a catalog that AI labs preview and buy. Your data stays under your control until a buyer purchases, you approve every buyer by name, and you’re paid within 7 days of each sale.
- Who sells
- Companies of any size and sector. For accountants, lawyers and healthcare, only internal know-how qualifies: client files stay out.
- Data
- Chat and email, documents and contracts, support tickets, code, CRM, SOPs, finance and project data.
- Buyers
- AI labs and enterprise AI teams. You can block competitors, sectors or regions.
- Payout
- Within 7 days of each sale, by bank transfer. Every license sold pays out (key terms).
- Fees
- €0. You never pay anything; grokked takes a commission on each sale.
- De-identification
- Done by grokked as your GDPR processor. You approve a de-identified sample (how we protect your data).
- Exclusivity
- None, and no minimum term.
- Based in
- Belgium.
Grepped is the closest model to grokked. It connects read-only to tools such as Slack, Microsoft Teams, Gmail, GitHub, Jira, Salesforce and Zendesk, de-identifies the data and licenses it to AI labs. Its homepage puts a company’s data at “$20K–$5M”, and it also pays individual professionals for their expertise (Grepped).
- Who sells
- Companies, plus individual professionals at “an industry consulting rate” (Grepped).
- Data
- Messages, docs, tickets, code and records (Grepped).
- Buyers
- “AI labs and research teams training frontier models” (Grepped).
- Payout
- Within 7 days of your data passing review. Most companies are paid two to three weeks after the first call (Grepped).
- Fees
- Not published.
- De-identification
- Done by Grepped. Original datasets are deleted after processing (Grepped).
- Based in
- Not published.
Troveo started in video licensing and now runs a business-data program for company email, chat, CRM, tickets and files. Instead of connecting to your systems, it guides you through an export and anonymizes it. It says AI labs and startups are “actively paying six figures for company data exports” and lists 40+ active buyers (Troveo).
- Who sells
- Companies, plus video and media owners (Troveo).
- Data
- Chat, email and calendars, tickets and wikis, ledgers and contracts, databases and code repositories (Troveo).
- Payout
- A revenue share on every sale. “Typical full-company deals start at six figures” (Troveo).
- Fees
- None: “no fees, no setup costs, no deductions from your payouts” (Troveo).
- Exclusivity
- Time-limited, with exit terms in the agreement (Troveo).
- De-identification
- Done by Troveo to “one documented standard”. Your company is never named publicly (Troveo).
- Based in
- Austin, Texas (Troveo).
Ooak Data, from Y Combinator’s Summer 2026 batch, turns company data into environments where AI agents practice real work. It buys from companies with 20 or more full-time employees that are operating, winding down or recently closed, and says multiple frontier labs use its data (Y Combinator).
- Who sells
- Companies with 20+ full-time employees (Y Combinator). Payment goes to the company, not to individuals (Ooak Data).
- Data
- Project management, CRM and sales, financial records, product analytics, internal wikis and code repositories (Ooak Data).
- Payout
- Deals so far run “from $20K, the smallest closed, to several hundred thousand dollars” (Ooak Data).
- Fees
- Not published.
- De-identification
- Done by Ooak Data. The raw archive is deleted within 30 days, and buyers get the dataset under a code name (Ooak Data).
- Based in
- Paris (Ooak Data SAS) and Delaware (Ooak Data, Inc.) (Ooak Data).
SimpleClosure helps startups shut down. Its AssetHub marketplace licenses or sells their source code and workspace data to AI buyers, and operating companies can license data while they keep using it (SimpleClosure). Forbes reported nearly 100 such deals in a year, paying $10,000 to $100,000 per company (Gizmodo).
- Who sells
- Startups winding down, and operating companies (SimpleClosure).
- Data
- Source code and workspace data from Slack, Google Drive, email, Notion, Figma and more (SimpleClosure).
- Buyers
- “Leading AI foundation labs, reinforcement learning environment builders, and other technology companies” (SimpleClosure).
- Payout
- A license or an outright sale, in deals “in the tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars” (SimpleClosure).
- Fees
- No upfront cost. SimpleClosure takes a percentage when assets sell; the rate isn’t published (SimpleClosure).
- De-identification
- Done by SimpleClosure. Sensitive employee, compensation and health information is excluded (SimpleClosure).
- Based in
- California (SimpleClosure).
Protege licenses real-world data to AI developers, with a focus on healthcare and media. It raised $30 million led by Andreessen Horowitz in January 2026, bringing total funding to $65 million, and says it works with most of the “Magnificent Seven” (Protege).
- Who sells
- Organizations with large datasets. Partners keep ownership (Protege).
- Data
- Media, audio, de-identified health records and medical imaging (Protege).
- Payout
- A revenue share agreement (Protege).
- Fees
- Not published.
- De-identification
- Done by Protege, including masking and dataset construction (Protege).
- Based in
- New York (Protege).
Defined.ai, founded in 2015, calls itself “the world’s largest AI data marketplace”. Businesses list audio, video, image, text or multimodal datasets and earn licensing fees from marketplace sales. It reports average partner revenue of over $600,000 (Defined.ai).
- Who sells
- “Any business that generates or aggregates data” (Defined.ai).
- Data
- Audio, video, image, text and multimodal data (Defined.ai).
- Payout
- Licensing fees from marketplace sales (Defined.ai).
- Fees
- Not published.
- De-identification
- Your job. Data must come with “proper consent, documentation, and the right to commercialize” it (Defined.ai).
- Based in
- Seattle, with offices in Lisbon, Porto and Tokyo (Defined.ai).
Datarade is a Berlin marketplace for commercial data of every kind, including AI training datasets. You list data products, buyers contact you, and Datarade publishes its fees (Datarade).
- Who sells
- Legally registered businesses; no individuals (Datarade).
- Data
- Alternative, financial, geospatial and consumer data, AI training datasets and more (Datarade).
- Fees
- 30% commission on the free plan; $6,000 a year plus 20%, or $12,000 a year plus 15%, on paid plans (Datarade).
- Payout
- Timing not published.
- De-identification
- Your job. No unanonymized personal data allowed (Datarade).
- Based in
- Berlin (Datarade).
Opendatabay is a UK marketplace for AI training and fine-tuning data, from text and code to agentic trajectories (Opendatabay). Listing is free, and the commission falls as the sale price rises (Opendatabay).
- Who sells
- Verified business accounts (Opendatabay).
- Fees
- 30% commission on sales up to $100, falling to 5% above $250,000 (Opendatabay). Commission also applies to deals you close off-platform with buyers it introduced (Opendatabay).
- Exclusivity
- None (Opendatabay).
- Payout
- Timing not published.
- De-identification
- Your job. Data must be collected lawfully and comply with GDPR and CCPA (Opendatabay).
- Based in
- United Kingdom (Opendatabay).
AWS Data Exchange lets qualified sellers list data products that AWS customers subscribe to. It suits companies that already package data as a product: you need a customer support process, and you handle anonymization and license terms yourself (AWS).
- Who sells
- Businesses and residents of eligible countries, including EU member states (AWS).
- Fees
- A 3% listing fee on public offers; 3%, 2% or 1.5% on private offers, depending on contract value (AWS).
- Payout
- Non-US sellers need a W-8 form, a VAT number and a US bank account; a virtual one works (AWS).
- De-identification
- Your job. Data may not identify any person unless that information is publicly available (AWS).
- Based in
- Global (Amazon Web Services).
Full-service broker or marketplace
The ten services follow two models, and the model decides how much work lands on your desk.
| Model | Who does the work | What you pay | Fits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full-service broker: grokked, Grepped, Troveo, Ooak Data, SimpleClosure, Protege | The broker scopes, extracts, de-identifies and packages the data, then finds buyers | A share of each sale; at grokked, nothing up front | Companies whose knowledge lives in everyday tools: chat, email, tickets, documents, code |
| Marketplace: Defined.ai, Datarade, Opendatabay, AWS Data Exchange | You prepare a lawful, anonymized dataset, write the listing and deal with buyers | A published commission or listing fee, sometimes an annual plan | Companies that already sell data as a product and have a data team |
De-identification is the hard part. A Slack export or a mailbox is full of names, client details, prices and file numbers, and marketplaces leave that work and the legal risk with you. Our guide on whether licensing company data is legal covers what the law asks of you.
What company data sells for
There’s no public price list. “There is no reliable market average for a failed company’s data,” Fortune wrote in September 2026 (Fortune). The published numbers give a range:
- Forbes counted nearly 100 SimpleClosure deals in a year, paying $10,000 to $100,000 per company (Gizmodo).
- Ooak Data’s deals run from $20,000 to several hundred thousand dollars (Ooak Data).
- Turing bought five to ten failed-startup codebases for an average in the tens of thousands of dollars each. Transcription company cielo24 received hundreds of thousands of dollars for 13 years of Slack messages, Jira tickets, emails and Google Drive files (Fortune).
- Google won a bankruptcy auction for Spirit Airlines’ internal data at $10 million, and Micro1 then offered $12.5 million. As of mid-September 2026, no sale had received court approval (Fortune).
Volume, years of history, the type of work the data shows and your industry move the price. Our estimator turns team size, years in business, data types and industry into a range in 60 seconds, and what company data AI labs pay for explains the numbers.
How to choose
- Who de-identifies the data? If the answer is “you”, budget for a data team and a legal review.
- What do you pay, and when? Look for published fees, and ask whether anything is due if nothing sells.
- When are you paid? A payment deadline in the contract beats “we pay fast”.
- Do you approve buyers? You should be able to block competitors and know who licenses your data.
- Is there exclusivity? It limits who else you can sell to. Check the term and the exit.
- What happens to the raw data? Ask when originals are deleted and whether buyers only ever get de-identified copies.
- Are your staff covered? In Belgium, the Netherlands, France and Luxembourg, employee chat and email can involve your works council. See the legal guide.
See what your data is worth.
Get an estimate in 60 seconds. Listing your data costs nothing.
Other platforms
A few names come up often but didn’t make the list:
- Snowflake Marketplace pays providers through Stripe, but paid listings need a billing address in one of 20 countries. France and the Netherlands are on the list; Belgium and Luxembourg aren’t (Snowflake).
- Human Native AI, a UK marketplace connecting creators with AI developers, was acquired by Cloudflare in January 2026 (Cloudflare).
- Wirestock (photos and creative work), Created by Humans (books) and TollBit (publisher websites) pay creators and publishers, not companies for internal data.
Questions
What is an AI training data broker?
A company that licenses data from the businesses or people who own it to AI labs that train and evaluate models. Full-service brokers such as grokked prepare and de-identify the data and find buyers; marketplaces let you list a dataset you’ve prepared yourself.
Which data broker pays the most?
No broker publishes an average, and price depends on volume, history, data type and buyer demand. Reported deals for one company’s workplace data run from $10,000 to several hundred thousand dollars (Gizmodo, Ooak Data). Compare when you’re paid and what you pay, not just the headline number.
Do data brokers charge sellers fees?
Marketplaces do: Datarade charges 15–30% commission plus an annual fee on paid plans, Opendatabay 30% falling to 5%, and AWS Data Exchange a 1.5–3% listing fee. grokked charges you nothing: it takes a commission on each sale, and you never pay anything.
Can I list my data with more than one broker?
It depends on the contract. grokked and Opendatabay don’t ask for exclusivity (Opendatabay); Troveo’s agreements include a time-limited exclusivity (Troveo). Check before you sign.
Is it legal to sell company data to AI labs?
It can be, when personal data is anonymized or processed on a valid GDPR basis, client confidentiality is respected and staff are informed. Our guide on whether licensing company data is legal covers the rules in Belgium, the Netherlands, France and Luxembourg.
See what your data is worth.
Get an estimate in 60 seconds. Listing your data costs nothing.
Sources
- Grepped. Monetize the data supply only you have
- Grepped. Grepped for Business
- Troveo. Business data
- Troveo. Privacy policy
- Y Combinator. Ooak Data
- Ooak Data. Partner with Ooak Data
- Ooak Data. Legal notice
- SimpleClosure. AssetHub
- Gizmodo, April 17, 2026. Failed companies are selling old Slack chats and email archives to train AI
- SimpleClosure. Press
- Protege, January 8, 2026. Protege raises $30 million led by a16z to unlock access to data for AI development
- Protege. For data providers
- Defined.ai. Partnership Programs
- Defined.ai. About us
- Datarade. Become a data provider
- Datarade. Legal notice
- Opendatabay. Licensed AI training data and LLM fine-tuning datasets
- Opendatabay. Fees
- Opendatabay. Seller agreement
- Amazon Web Services. Getting started as a provider in AWS Data Exchange
- Amazon Web Services. Understanding listing fees for AWS Marketplace sellers
- Amazon Web Services. Publishing guidelines for AWS Data Exchange
- Fortune, September 14, 2026. Little-known AI startup Micro1 tries to trump Google’s bid for bankrupt Spirit Airlines’ data
- Snowflake. Become a provider
- Cloudflare, January 15, 2026. Cloudflare strengthens content offering to AI companies with acquisition of Human Native
- Wirestock. Wirestock
- Created by Humans. The AI rights licensing platform for books
- TollBit. FAQs
About the author
Nico Vergauwen
Nico Vergauwen is the founder of grokked, a data broker that licenses companies’ de-identified internal data to AI labs. Owners never pay anything and are paid within 7 days of each sale.