Biggest by revenue
Surge AI
Over $1B reported 2024 revenue with no outside capital — the category’s outlier.
Guide · Companies
Biggest Data Annotation Companies (2026)
Every "biggest" list in this category ranks by vibes — whoever the author sells, partners with, or found first. This one ranks by verifiable scale signals only, and labels every figure with the class of evidence behind it.
The ranking — one table, three measures, labeled evidence
| Company | Scale signal | Figure | Evidence class |
|---|---|---|---|
| Surge AI | Revenue | Over $1B in 2024 — reported higher than Scale AI’s for the same period | Reported (Reuters, Jul 2025) |
| Scale AI | Valuation | $29B+ post-money; Meta bought a 49% stake in June 2025 | Transaction-reported |
| Mercor | Valuation | $10B at its October 2025 Series C ($350M raised) | Company-announced round |
| Appen | Revenue | ~$231M for the fiscal year to December 2025, down ~66% from its FY2021 peak | Filed (ASX) |
| Innodata | Revenue | $170.5M in FY2024 (from $86.8M in FY2023); record $92.1M quarter in Q2 2026 | Filed / company-reported (NASDAQ) |
| Invisible Technologies | Valuation | Above $2B (September 2025, $100M raise) | Reported (Bloomberg) |
| Appen · TELUS Digital | Workforce claim | Contributor communities each reported above 1 million people | Company-stated — registered contributors, not employees |
Read the evidence column before the figure column. Revenue from an ASX or SEC filing and a crowd size from a marketing page are both "numbers"; they are not the same kind of fact. Most of this market is private and discloses nothing — which is precisely why the companies that do disclose (Surge’s reported revenue, Appen’s and Innodata’s filings) anchor the ranking, and why crowd counts sit at the bottom of it.
Biggest data annotation companies in the USA
The US tier is a San Francisco story: Scale AI, Surge AI, Mercor, Labelbox and Invisible Technologies are all headquartered there, with Snorkel AI in California and the two East-Coast exceptions — Innodata (Ridgefield Park, New Jersey, and the only US-listed pure-play in the set) and Shaip (New York). Worldwide, the map widens: Appen is Australian and ASX-listed, TELUS Digital is Canadian (its AI data line descends from the $935M Lionbridge AI acquisition), and the managed services run their delivery workforces from India, Nepal, Kenya and the Philippines regardless of where the headquarters sits.
The full list of data annotation companies
"Biggest" is a short list by design. The working list — every vendor and market participant we can profile on public evidence, 34 companies as of November 2026, filterable by model, with pricing transparency stated for each — is the directory. The buyer’s ranking (which is a different question from the biggest) is best data annotation companies.
Biggest by valuation
Scale AI
$29B+ post-money in Meta’s stake purchase; the enterprise default.
Fastest filed growth
Innodata
Revenue doubled FY2023→FY2024, then a record quarter in 2026 — in SEC filings, not press releases.
Frequently asked questions
What is the biggest data annotation company?
By the hardest measure — disclosed revenue — Surge AI: Reuters reported it passed $1 billion in 2024 revenue, more than Scale AI over the same period, while remaining bootstrapped. By valuation, Scale AI is biggest (a $29B+ post-money value in Meta’s June 2025 stake purchase). By claimed workforce reach, Appen and TELUS Digital each report contributor communities above one million. There is no single biggest; there are three, one per measure, and this page shows its work for each.
What are the biggest data annotation companies in the USA?
The US-headquartered top tier: Scale AI, Surge AI, Mercor, Labelbox and Invisible Technologies (all San Francisco), Snorkel AI (California), Innodata (Ridgefield Park, New Jersey) and Shaip (New York). The global list adds Appen (Australia), TELUS Digital (Canada) and the managed services with delivery workforces in India, Nepal, Kenya and the Philippines.
What do Reddit threads say are the biggest data annotation companies?
The names that recur in forum discussions of this market are the same incumbents the filings support — Scale AI, Appen, Surge AI’s DataAnnotation on the worker side, and Invisible Technologies — mixed with a long tail of much smaller platforms that loom large in worker threads because that is where the posters work. We rank by verifiable scale signals rather than thread frequency: a company can dominate worker forums while being a rounding error in category revenue, and the reverse is also true.
How do you measure the biggest data annotation company?
In descending order of hardness: (1) revenue disclosed in filings or credible reporting — only a handful of companies disclose any; (2) valuation from an actual transaction or priced round; (3) workforce size, which for crowd companies is a company-reported claim about registered contributors, not employees. Most "biggest" listicles silently use whichever measure flatters their ordering. Ours are labeled per figure, on the page.
Sources
One primary source per company shown; full lists on each profile.
- Scale AI vs Surge AI — Reverbico
- Scale AI company review and key facts — hokai.io
- Appen company profile — Kalkine (ASX: APX)
- Investor FAQs: founded 1988, headquartered Ridgefield Park NJ, NASDAQ: INOD — investor.innodata.com
- Mercor funding history and valuation — RevenueMemo
- About Invisible Technologies (founded 2015, team 250+, RL Data Lab) — invisibletech.ai
- TELUS Digital — Wikipedia (accessed Nov 2026)
Facts on this page were drawn from the public sources above, checked November 2026. If you spot an error, tell us at the corrections address in the footer — we fix sourced errors and note the change.
Last updated: November 8, 2026