Vendor profile · Directory · Managed service
Sama
The original impact-sourcing annotation company: a Certified B Corp running managed programs with its own full-time workforce in Kenya and Uganda.
| Model | Managed service with in-house workforce (Certified B Corp) |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2008 (as Samasource) |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, CA |
| Pricing | Not published — managed programs, sales-led |
| Website | www.sama.com |
What Sama does
Sama was founded in 2008 as the nonprofit Samasource by Leila Janah and relaunched as a for-profit Certified B Corporation in 2019. It provides managed annotation, validation and model evaluation for computer vision and generative AI, delivered by full-time employees in East African delivery centers rather than an open crowd.
It names customers including Google, Microsoft, Ford, GM and Walmart, and reports a 98–99% first-batch client acceptance rate (company-reported). Its employment model — living-wage jobs in underserved communities — is independently certified through B Corp.
Strengths
- Full-time in-house workforce, not a rotating crowd
- Certified B Corp with third-party-audited impact claims
- Long enterprise track record (founded 2008)
Considerations
- No published pricing
- Widely reported litigation over Kenya content-moderation working conditions (2021 onward) — buyers running sensitive-content programs should ask about current welfare and exposure controls
- GenAI/LLM data lines are newer than its CV core
Other managed services in the directory
- Scale AI — The largest enterprise data engine: annotation, RLHF, evaluation and red-teaming delivered as managed programs for frontier labs and governments.
- Appen — The category’s longest-running operator: a publicly traded managed data provider with a crowd of over one million contributors in 170+ countries.
- Surge AI — The bootstrapped quality maximalist: over $1 billion in 2024 revenue with no outside capital, built on credentialed experts rather than crowd volume.
- iMerit — A managed data-services company that pairs employed specialist teams with its Scholars expert network — and, since 2026, sits inside EXL.
- CloudFactory — A managed-workforce company: trained analyst teams in Nepal and Kenya delivering annotation and data processing as a consumption-priced service.
- Cogito Tech — A US-registered managed annotation company whose India-based workforce and specialist consultants concentrate on healthcare, legal and financial AI data.
- Label Your Data — A managed annotation service that does the rarest thing in this market: publishes its per-unit prices, with no minimum order.
- Zilo AI — A Bangalore staffing-and-annotation firm with a distinct model: its annotators work inside the platform you already use, instead of selling you theirs.
- TELUS Digital — The telecom-owned data giant: TELUS’s digital arm runs one of the world’s largest AI data operations, built on the $935M acquisition of Lionbridge AI.
Frequently asked questions
What does Sama do?
The original impact-sourcing annotation company: a Certified B Corp running managed programs with its own full-time workforce in Kenya and Uganda.
How much does Sama cost?
Sama does not publish pricing (not published — managed programs, sales-led). Any figure quoted by third parties is an estimate; budget discovery requires engaging the vendor directly.
Who is Sama best for?
Enterprise computer-vision programs where workforce ethics, continuity and QA guarantees are part of the buying criteria.
Who should not use Sama?
Buyers who need maximum modality breadth in LLM data — Sama’s deepest bench remains computer vision.
Sources
- Sama company review — Label Your Data (accessed Nov 2026)
- Sama — the human backbone of enterprise AI — YesPress (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.
Profile last updated: November 8, 2026 · How we write profiles · Corrections: [email protected]