Updated October 2026
What makes company data worth more or less
What pushes it up
Four things that raise a price
More people and more years. Sunset values archives by headcount, years, data volume and tools, and micro1's estimator leads with employee count and years of data. This is why the floors sit at 20 or 30 employees and 3+ years.2,1,4
Repeat work, written down. micro1 says it looks for well defined workflows that employees execute repeatedly. A dispatch desk booking loads all day, a service team closing tickets, an estimator turning bids into jobs: each leaves the same kind of trail thousands of times.3
Records that link. Our reading of the precedents: a quote tied to the emails that won it, the job notes, and the invoice is worth more than any of those alone. Mercor's census of its partners shows how common the linking tools are: Slack in 55%, GitHub 53%, Google Drive 53%, Gmail 50%, Jira 35%.5
Being rare. micro1 says over $1M is for unique data. An industry that has not licensed yet, or a workflow AI models handle badly, is the kind of gap Nyne's ads mean when they say the price changes as labs fill gaps.6,7
What pulls it down
What lowers a price, or ends the deal
Cleanup cost. Buyers say they remove personal details before data moves on, and someone pays for that work. micro1's estimator asks whether data is regulated or sensitive, and SimpleClosure excludes sensitive employee and health records outright.1,8
Client-held data. Polyshares excludes data you hold on behalf of clients. For a bookkeeper or an MSP, that can be most of the archive. Split archives hurt too: micro1's estimator asks how many business entities you have, because records spread across companies add work.9,1
Language and location. micro1 says US first with mostly English data. Its estimator asks headquarters (US, Canada, Europe or Other) and share in English.10,1
Terms change the price too
The same data can price differently by contract
Troveo says exclusive licenses command a premium, while non-exclusive ones can be sold repeatedly. The AI Data page pitches the opposite model: one copy licensed, every original stays with you. Troveo describes revenue-share licensing rather than one payment. Ask which one you are being quoted before you compare two offers.11,12,13
FAQ
Questions, answered with sources
The AI Data page says older dispatch data is worth more. That is its own claim; no buyer publishes prices by age.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
- If we grant exclusivity, what exactly can we no longer do with our own records?
- 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?