Is Mercor legit?

The short answer

Who runs Mercor

Mercor.io Corporation is based in San Francisco, with offices in New York and London. Its newsroom says it was founded in 2023 and is backed by Benchmark, Felicis, General Catalyst and Menlo Ventures. TechCrunch reported a $2 billion valuation in February 2025, and by 2026 it had been valued at $10 billion.

Mercor matches experts such as doctors, lawyers, engineers and scientists with AI labs that need people to write and grade training data.

What Mercor pays

Mercor has two kinds of listing. Specific openings show their own rate, for example $90 to $140 an hour for a US maths PhD role and $120 an hour for a physician role in Spain when we checked on 8 November 2026. Standing expert pools are not job openings: they stay open whether or not a project is running, and show what past listings in the field paid:

• Medical: listings have posted $60 to $180 an hour (medical pool).
• Software engineering: $70 to $150 an hour (software pool).
• Legal: $60 to $150 an hour (legal pool).
• Maths: most past contracts paid $40 to $75 an hour (maths pool).

A pool's historical range is not an offer of paid work.

Mercor's newsroom quotes the Financial Times saying its experts earn an average of more than $95 an hour. Not every project pays at that level: in late 2025, Futurism reported that Mercor moved about 5,000 workers from one project to another with a base rate of $16 an hour instead of $21.

Who can join

• A short AI interview, about 20 minutes, for most roles.
• Experience that fits the role. There is no single degree rule.
• A supported country. Mercor listed 108 countries it can pay when we checked. China, Russia, Ukraine, Kenya and Pakistan are among those it cannot onboard.
• Visa. Its listings say it cannot support US H-1B or STEM OPT candidates.

How you get paid

Weekly. Mercor's pay policy says payouts for the prior week are usually processed by the end of Wednesday (US Pacific time), through Stripe Connect, or through Wise where Stripe is not available (it names countries such as Brazil, Kosovo and the UAE; check the current policy for yours). Processing is not the same as arrival: the policy says most experts receive funds in 2 to 10 days, and some banks take longer. Your first Stripe payout has a 7-day hold. Stripe Instant Payouts are available in some countries if you are eligible, subject to the fee shown in your account.

What workers complain about

• Data breach. On 31 March 2026 Mercor said it was "the target of a data breach" (TechCrunch, 9 April 2026). Contractors filed lawsuits, and Wired reported that Meta paused its Mercor contracts. The federal suits were combined into one case in California in May 2026, and the latest event we could verify, as of 8 November 2026, was a July 2026 order pausing it for mediation (Settlement Insight, citing the docket). There has been no finding against Mercor.
• Misclassification lawsuit. A proposed class action filed in federal court in Texas in May 2026 (White v. Mercor.io Corp.) alleges Mercor misclassified more than 30,000 workers as contractors (Law360, 11 May 2026). That number is the complaint's allegation. In June 2026 Mercor asked the court to send the case to arbitration (Law360, 10 June 2026). As of 8 November 2026, that request was the latest event we could verify, and we found no ruling on it. Not finding a ruling does not prove there is none.
• Pay cuts and project endings. Projects can end or change rate, as with the $21 to $16 move Futurism reported in November 2025.

Mercor's worker terms say you are not an employee and contain no exclusivity clause.

How to apply safely

Go to Mercor's official website and apply there. Do not pay anyone to join, take a test or get tasks, and ignore offers that arrive through personal chat apps. If someone contacts you claiming to recruit for Mercor, check that the email comes from the company's own domain before replying.

Compare Mercor

• Best data annotation jobs, all platforms compared
• Mercor vs Outlier
• Is Outlier legit?
• Is DataAnnotation legit?
• Is Alignerr legit?

Questions

Is Mercor a scam?

No. Mercor is a venture-backed company that processes expert pay weekly through Stripe or Wise. It did have a data breach in 2026, so use a strong, unique password and watch for phishing that uses its name.

How much does Mercor pay per hour?

It depends on the project. Specific openings show their own rate, such as $90 to $140 an hour for a US maths PhD role on 8 November 2026. Its standing expert pools say past listings paid about $40 to $75 an hour in maths up to $60 to $180 in medicine; those are historical ranges, not offers.

How long does Mercor take to pay?

Mercor processes hourly pay weekly, and its policy says most experts receive funds in 2 to 10 days after processing. Your first payout through Stripe is held for 7 days.

Does Mercor accept people outside the US?

Yes, in its supported countries (108 when we checked). It cannot onboard people in countries not on its list, and some openings are limited to one country.