The public figures, in US dollars
Do AI companies pay for data? How much, in published dollars
Updated
Yes. On our deal index, read up to 31 October 2026, 10 of 22 AI data licensing deals carry a price that a party, a court or the press published, from Google's $10,000,000 bid for one airline's de-identified records to a reported $250 million over five years for News Corp's journalism.
How much do AI companies pay for data, deal by deal?
Each figure below is the one its source printed, in the source's own unit: a yearly value, a total, or revenue a seller reported. A deal total is never divided into a price per item here, and the euro figure is quoted, not converted.
Source: AI data licensing deals on our index: every deal, with its source
| Licensor and licensee | Figure as published | Where it was published | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| News Corp and OpenAI | $250 million over five years, in cash and credits, as estimated by The Wall Street Journal | Engadget, reporting the Journal | Engadget, Wall Street Journal report |
| Reddit, licensees not named | $203.0 million aggregate contract value, terms of two to three years | Reddit's Form S-1 | Reddit Form S-1 |
| Taylor & Francis, AI partners | AI partnership revenue expected to be over $75m in 2024 | Informa half-year report | Informa half-year report |
| Reddit and Google | About $60 million a year, according to one source | Nieman Lab, reporting Reuters | Nieman Lab, Reuters report |
| News Corp and Meta | Up to $50 million a year, for a three-year deal | Engadget, reporting the Journal | Engadget, Wall Street Journal report |
| Wiley Research, AI licensees | $33.1 million of research AI licensing revenue in the year ended 30 April 2026 | Wiley's Form 10-K | Wiley Form 10-K |
| The New York Times and Amazon | $20 million to $25 million a year | Engadget, reporting the Journal | Engadget, Wall Street Journal report |
| Dotdash Meredith and OpenAI | At least $16 million a year | Engadget, reporting Adweek | Engadget, Adweek report |
| Spirit Airlines' de-identified data, Google | $10,000,000 winning bid at a bankruptcy auction | The bankruptcy court's notice of auction results | Bankruptcy court notice of auction results |
| Axel Springer and OpenAI | "Tens of millions of euros" a year | The Decoder, reporting the Financial Times | The Decoder, Financial Times report |
Which AI companies are paying?
OpenAI is the buyer on 14 of the 22 deals on the index. Google is on two, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft on one each, and three are revenue lines in a seller's own report that name no buyer.
Source: AI data licensing deals on our index: every deal, with its source
What data are they buying?
News and magazine journalism is 14 of the 22 deals. Books and scholarly publishing make three, forum and user posts three, developer questions and answers one, and one company's operational records, Spirit Airlines' de-identified data, the last.
Source: AI data licensing deals on our index: every deal, with its source
What do AI companies pay per minute, per photo or per book?
A smaller board records 12 prices published per unit. Four are an AI company paying a rights holder directly; six are a platform paying the people who supply the data, one is a list price to AI buyers and one is a court settlement, not a licence.
Source: AI training data prices per unit on our index: every price, with its source
| Programme, deal or case | Price, as its source printed it | Who pays whom | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| HarperCollins and Microsoft | $5,000 per book, with $2,500 of it to the author | AI company to rights holder | The Decoder report |
| Bartz v. Anthropic settlement | About $3,000 per work, across about 500,000 works | Court settlement, not a licence | King & Spalding client alert |
| HUD AI | Up to $10k for a qualifying codebase | Platform to the codebase's owner | HUD's own post on DEV |
| Babel Audio | $17 an hour to record conversations | Platform to contributors | LavX, Bloomberg report |
| Newsflare | Typically $10 to $50 per hour of video used | Platform to contributors | Newsflare AI licensing page |
| Calliope Networks | $6.25 a minute for HD video | List price to AI buyers | Italy Meets Hollywood report |
| Adobe, video | About $2.62 a minute on average, up to about $7.25 | AI company to contributors | The Star, Bloomberg report |
| OpenAI and Google, unpublished creator video | Up to $4 a minute | AI companies to creators | The Decoder, Bloomberg report |
| Troveo | Typically $0.75 to $3 a minute, upfront, for exclusive rights | Platform to footage owners | BH Media article |
| Neon Mobile | $0.15 a minute of phone call, doubled when both sides use the app | Platform to contributors | Malwarebytes report |
| Wirestock | From fractions of a dollar in bulk up to $15 to $20 per artwork | Platform to contributors | VentureBeat report |
| Adobe, photos | Between 6 and 16 cents per photo | AI company to contributors | PYMNTS, Bloomberg report |
Why do half the deals have no price?
For 11 of the 22 deals, nothing we read gives a figure: the announcements describe what is licensed and how it will appear in a product, and stop there. Where a price is known it usually comes from a filing a public company had to make, a court record, or a newspaper's sources.
Source: AI data licensing deals on our index: every deal, with its source
Does any of this price my data?
No. These are other companies' deals for news archives, books, forums and video, set by their size, rights and timing. They show which kinds of data have drawn money and in what units, which is a place to start a valuation, not an answer to one.
Source: AI data licensing deals on our index: every deal, with its source