How much is your company data worth to AI?
No price list exists, and the buyers' own calculators disagree widely.
Nobody can give you a reliable price for company data today. The public record holds a handful of deals and a few buyer calculators that disagree widely. It also holds a short list of things that move the number.
In plain words
Data licensing means a company gets to use your records for a while, under rules. You keep ownership.
Think of it like this
Think of the attic. You can't price the boxes until you know what is in them, how old they are and whose they are.
A ten-minute look at your own records will tell you more than any estimate form. The check is at the bottom. The full process is in the pillar guide on licensing company data to AI companies.
Why is there no rate card for what company data is worth?
Troveo says there is no public price list, and no public per-record, per-token or per-workflow-hour rate for business data exists yet.
micro1 states deal tiers. It also says compensation depends on dataset size, workflow complexity, data quality and domain expertise.
Part of the reason is that the buyer side shares little detail. Marketplaces name buyers in generic terms. Epoch AI's review of RL environments describes app replicas and lab partnerships with product companies, and does not discuss real company archives (Epoch).
So every number below is a deal, a bid or a company's own claim. None is a rate you can multiply by your headcount.
What moves the value?
History. Buyer calculators take headcount and years of history as inputs. Count the period your records actually cover, not the company's age.
Volume. The Spirit archive was described in counts: about 100 million emails, 500 million Teams chats and about 30 million lines of code (Time). Counts are the language of the conversation.
Context. This one is our read, and no published price proves it yet. micro1's CFO and Troveo's guide both point to records of real work: a problem, the steps and the result. Whole threads that show that arc should be worth more than loose fragments.
Rights. A record you have no right to license has no value to a buyer, so rights set the ceiling. Counsel's list covers third-party confidentiality, trade secrets, privilege and employee talk the US labor law protects (counsel's list).
Buyer demand. Bids on Spirit rose from $7.5M to $12.5M. That points to demand. Supply is rising too. More than 350 companies have listed assets on SimpleClosure's hub since April (Fortune).
Exclusivity. Epoch's interviews put exclusive deals at roughly 4x to 5x the non-exclusive price for RL environments. Troveo says its exclusivity is time-limited and has to be earned.
What do the public deals show?
| Evidence | Figure | Read it as |
|---|---|---|
| Google, Spirit Airlines archive, August 2026 | $10M winning bid, still contested | One airline's archive, sale awaiting court approval |
| micro1, Spirit, September 2026 | $12.5M later offer | Same archive, a related offer and not a separate deal |
| SimpleClosure, 2026 | $10,000 to $100,000 per shut-down startup, nearly 100 deals | Small startups (Gizmodo) |
| Cielo24, a shut-down captioning company's Slack messages, email and Jira tickets | "Hundreds of thousands of dollars" | One reported case, from Forbes via Slashdot |
| Mercor, shuttered startups | Offers reported up to $300,000 per startup | BigGo Finance |
| micro1 | Tiers of $100K+, $500K+ and $1M+, and $100K-$2M+ for approved data packages | Self-reported, from its page and its Enterprise Data Partnership listing |
| Troveo | Full-company deals "start at six figures" | Self-reported (Troveo) |
| Epoch's RL environment review | About $20,000 for a website clone, figures around $300,000 for a Slack-grade clone, $200 to $2,000 per task | What labs pay to build environments, a different product from your archive |
$10,000 to $100,000
What shut-down startups got per company, across nearly 100 deals
Public figure, see sourceThe Spirit sale is still before the bankruptcy court, with no sale order. The flight attendants' and pilots' unions objected. EPIC filed a brief on 2 Oct 2026 (EPIC).
On 5 Oct 2026 the court-appointed privacy ombudsman recommended approval from a privacy view. Her report says she did not examine risks to employees or third parties (ombudsman report, Bloomberg Law).
The hearing was moved from 14 Oct to 6 Nov 2026 (Travel Weekly, 9 Oct 2026). No sale order as of 10 Oct 2026.
The deals tracker follows each public figure.
Why do calculators disagree on what business data is worth?
Each calculator runs on its own assumptions, so the same company gets very different answers. Troveo's calculator shows $800K to $1M by default, with employee tiers from 20 to 1,000+ (Troveo).
Other estimate forms I tested gave ranges far from that for similar inputs, and some showed a number before I entered anything.
These tools run on headcount, founding year and sometimes revenue. micro1 says pay depends on dataset size, workflow complexity, data quality and domain expertise (micro1). A headcount form asks for none of those.
Most calculators sit in front of a lead form that collects your name, email, phone and website, then books a call. That is how the buyer finds its next deal. Use a calculator to start a conversation. Treat the number as a hint about the buyer's pitch.
Run the ten-minute readiness check
Set a timer and open a blank doc. Write one block per system, using the template below.
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Systems. List every tool where work gets recorded: email, chat, CRM, helpdesk, project boards, docs, call recordings, code. Note who can export each one.
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Years. Write the date of the oldest record you still hold in each system, and any gaps.
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Counts and size. Estimate the number of items per system, such as tickets, threads, deals and messages. Add the storage each system uses.
micro1's pages state no data-size threshold, but a storage count helps you describe your records. Screenshot wherever the tool shows a total, with the date visible. Then you can show evidence, not a recollection.
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Rights. Write whose words are in each system: staff, customers, partners, contractors. Note which contracts mention confidentiality or data use. Note whether your tool's terms restrict export or AI use.
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Exclusions. Mark what stays out: anything under NDA, trade secrets, privileged conversations and employee talk the US labor law protects. Mark personal data about customers too. Removing names from it is harder than it sounds.
System: [tool name]
Oldest record: [date]
Approximate count: [number and unit]
Whose words: [staff / customers / partners / contractors]
Restrictions: [contracts, tool terms, privacy policy]
Exclude: [what stays out]
Screenshot saved: [yes / no]Don't change your privacy policy or customer terms to cover this after the fact. The FTC calls quiet retroactive changes for AI training potentially unfair or deceptive (FTC). Ask a lawyer how to handle your own terms.
What to do with the sheet
Bring it to a lawyer first, because rights decide what is on the table at all. Then bring it to a buyer or data program. The stated thresholds differ.
micro1's pages say 30 or more employees, with mature operations. Handshake AI's referral page says 20 or more full-time employees, and Troveo states no minimum. Check yours.
The free fit check is the next step. The buyer directory lists the buyers side by side.
If your business runs a community, a course library or a podcast, the people in that content hold rights too. The guide to licensing your business's content to AI covers members, clients and guests.
The pillar guide has the contract checklist and red flags to read before any call. If a buyer quotes you a number, ask what it is built from.
Do this safely
Run the rights check before any buyer sees your sheet. It asks seven questions about whose words sit in your systems and what your contracts say.
The risk map covers the legal and security failure points for data owners. Keep raw exports in your own systems until a signed agreement says who receives them.
micro1 may pay us a referral fee if a company we introduce goes ahead with it. How we are paid
Apply to micro1's data partnership (paid link)micro1's own data-partnerships pagePaid link. How we are paid
Vaultfish helps you run the process. We are not lawyers and this is not legal advice. If you need counsel who knows this area, we can point you to one. Ask for a referral
