5 alternatives to Scale AI for data labeling

California’s Scale AI is one of the leading data labeling companies on the market today. With customers including OpenAI, Meta and the US military, the firm’s services are playing an important role in training many of today’s leading artificial intelligence models. 

But it's far from the only data labeling provider on the market. And it’s valuable to be aware of Scale AI alternatives when you are looking to collect data to train your algorithms. While Scale AI has many benefits, it also has limitations. 

Knowing about major Scale AI competitors means you can choose the right provider for the job. 

In this article, you will learn about:

• What Scale AI is
• The pros and cons of Scale AI for data labeling
• Five Scale AI alternatives to consider

What is Scale AI?

Scale AI is a data labeling business that was launched in California in 2016. The firm was initially founded to label images used in the training of autonomous vehicles. Over time, the company’s services have expanded. 

Scale AI now provides data labeling for many kinds of artificial intelligence applications, including large language models, image generators, natural language processing, mapping and more. Scale AI’s customers include leading names in generative AI, the US military, eCommerce companies and beyond. 

Scale AI provides a variety of human-in-the-loop labeling services. Essentially, the firm has a global workforce of annotators who are given labeling tasks to complete. Scale AI uses two subsidiary companies (Remotasks and Outlier) to recruit, manage and pay people to do AI labeling tasks (primarily in African and Asian countries). 

If an AI company or researcher wants to train a model, they tell Scale AI what they need and provide raw data and examples. The firm then allocates tasks to remote workers who do the tagging. Then Scale AI returns the cleaned data to its customers. 

Scale AI does not list pricing publicly. Some small research projects (typically individuals or for academic research) can get limited quantities of data annotated for free. But for enterprises, annotation services are usually much more costly. Software information website Vendr claims the average Scale AI contract value is $93k. Similarly, one Reddit user who claims to have used Scale AI suggests the firm mainly works on projects valued at $100k or above. 

Advantages and disadvantages of Scale AI

Labeling data with Scale AI has many advantages. However, businesses, academic researchers and public sector bodies often begin looking for Scale AI alternatives after experiencing some of its drawbacks. 

Pros of Scale AI

Strengths of Scale AI include:

• Built for AI labeling: Since its founding in 2016, Scale AI has been almost entirely focused on providing training data for the AI industry. Its platform is primed for this kind of work, and its global workforce has plenty of experience doing it.
• Large number of taskers: While it is unclear exactly how many taskers Scale AI works with, Remotasks’ website says there are over 240,000 people in its ‘community’. Outlier, another subsidiary, does not appear to make this information available.
• Speedy options: Every annotation project is different. But if you need fast data labeling, Scale AI’s ‘Scale Rapid’ solution provides a very quick way of completing projects. It combines automated labeling with some human-in-the-loop support to deliver large amounts of data in as little as a few hours. 

Cons of Scale AI

Researchers often start looking for Scale AI competitors after encountering certain issues with this supplier. 

• Fairness: Scale AI has come in for criticism about how Remotasks and Outlier operate and treat workers, and for low pay rates in developing countries.
• Cost: Scale AI is one of the more expensive data labeling companies. Although prices are not published on the company’s website, anecdotal evidence suggests they mainly take on clients with larger budgets.
• Complexity: Scale AI’s platform is often regarded as complex and relatively hard to use, thereby requiring extensive support.
• Basic labeling: Scale AI is primarily useful for ‘basic’ AI labeling tasks (e.g., identifying items in a photo)—and is less useful for more sophisticated activities (e.g., teaching an AI model about values).
• Representation: While Scale AI uses a global workforce, they are mainly based in a handful of less economically developed English-speaking countries—meaning your AI will not necessarily be globally representative. It is not possible to select for tasker demographics, languages spoken, skills, education or gender.  

The 5 best alternatives to Scale AI

The market for AI data labeling services is growing fast, and there are many Scale AI alternatives that offer similar services. Here, we’ve listed five of the best alternatives to Scale AI. 

1. Prolific

Launched in 2014 to support academic researchers, Prolific gives you access to a global workforce of more than 200,000 vetted taskers. Used extensively for data labeling (AI clients include Google, Semantic Scholar and the University of Oxford), Prolific allows you to speedily recruit taskers, manage them and run projects either directly on the platform or using your preferred tools. 

The UK-based company is known for its fair payment terms (minimum hourly rates of US $8/hour), highly engaged labeling pool, and rigorous verification process that weeds out bots and bad actors. It also allows you to build relationships with taskers and invite individuals to continue contributing on subsequent projects. 

Advantages of Prolific for labeling over Scale AI

Prolific is a strong Scale AI competitor for several reasons:

• Transparent and trusted: With a fair pay structure and advanced, bank grade verification, you can be confident that Prolific taskers are engaged, and that they are who they claim to be.
• Find the right AI taskers: Prolific gives you access to hundreds of filters to narrow down your search and find taskers with skills or characteristics you are interested in. Whether you need labellers with knowledge of cars, women living in eastern Europe, or taskers with a degree, Prolific lets you find the right people for the job.
• Large and global pool: Prolific has 200,000+ taskers (and growing), from countries around the world, speaking hundreds of languages.
• Rich, multimodal data: Prolific taskers provide thoughtful, detailed and accurate multimodal training data (text, voice, image, video or interaction-driven feedback). 

When is Prolific the best Scale AI alternative?

Choose Prolific for more advanced, sophisticated AI labeling tasks that require detailed feedback and interactions. It’s also the best option if you wish to base your AI on either representative or niche demographics. 

Case study: How Prolific helped the Meaning Alignment Institute make AI more democratic

2. Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk)

Amazon’s MTurk is one of the longest-established crowdsourcing platforms (it launched in 2005). 

MTurk allows AI researchers to post almost any kind of labeling task and invite people to apply. You define how many ‘Turkers’ are needed, advertise a rate, and set timelines. On completion, you then pay the Turkers for their time—but can also reject contributions if they are not adequate. 

Advantages of MTurk over Scale AI

Many AI companies and researchers have used MTurk to support labeling projects. It has several advantages over Scale AI:

• Low cost: MTurk is generally much cheaper than Scale AI for labeling projects—you set your budget and pay rate (Amazon takes at least 20% of the fee). So long as there are Turkers who are happy to accept the fee, you have complete control over costs.
• Large workforce: According to Amazon, there are over 500,000 Turkers in 190 countries worldwide. This gives you access to a larger and more diverse pool of crowd workers than Scale AI.
• Direct recruitment: MTurk gives you direct access to Turkers, meaning you don’t have to rely on an intermediary for communications or task management. 

Beware: While MTurk can be a useful tool for AI labeling, it’s essential that you implement robust quality assurance checks. Somewhat ironically, there have been reports of Turkers using AI to carry out AI labeling tasks. 

When is MTurk the best Scale AI alternative? 

Choose MTurk for lower value labeling projects—especially if your budget is restricted. It can be a good option for basic R&D at startups or for student research (e.g. for a master’s degree thesis). 

3. Surge AI

Founded in California in 2020, Surge AI is a direct Scale AI competitor. However, it differentiates itself by using what it describes as “elite” labellers who are often more educated and skilled. The firm’s customer list includes leading AI companies such as Google, Anthropic and Cohere, as well as several eminent universities. 

As with other Scale AI alternatives, Surge AI provides you with labeling tools (though you can also bring your own), helps you narrow down your search to find specific kinds of labellers, and run projects from the platform. 

Advantages of Surge AI over Scale AI

There are several reasons artificial intelligence researchers and companies turn to Surge AI, including: 

• Quality: Surge AI provides you with more educated labellers who can provide richer, more detailed responses than you might get via Scale AI.
• More granular: Surge AI’s labeling workforce is global and speaks over 30 languages. When you’re looking for labellers, the platform allows you to search for people with specific skills or backgrounds. That said, its workforce is somewhat smaller, with one article suggesting the number is around 100,000.
• Support: Surge AI’s customer service teams help you create labeling guidelines, manage recruitment and offer 24/7 support. 

When is Surge AI the best Scale AI alternative? 

Choose Surge AI for labeling projects that require niche labellers or, conversely, a globally representative workforce. 

Options: 5 alternatives to Surge AI

4. Invisible AI

Invisible AI is a managed service company that helps researchers and companies recruit AI trainers from a network of experts. 

With a select pool of around 5,000 AI trainers, Invisible AI’s approach is very different to the large-scale workforce supplied by Scale AI. What you get instead is highly experienced AI testers and trainers who have a deep knowledge of AI training. This expertise means the Californian firm is used by artificial intelligence leaders such as OpenAI, Microsoft, Cohere and many more. 

Advantages of Invisible AI over Scale AI

There are several reasons you might choose to work with Invisible AI over Scale AI:

• Transparency: Invisible AI is committed to the development of ethical AI and to treating its ‘agents’ in a fair manner. Although pay rates are not advertised on their website, the company reports high levels of worker satisfaction.
• Expertise: Since Invisible AI recruits labellers with higher levels of expertise, it can be used for more complex projects than you might run on Scale AI. 

When is Invisible AI the best Scale AI alternative? 

If you are running advanced AI training projects that require experts with in-depth knowledge, Invisible AI is a strong option.

5. Upwork

Upwork is a recruitment platform where you can find freelancers and remote workers (there are reportedly 18 million freelancers worldwide on the platform, although not all accounts are active—or open to AI work). 

Artificial Intelligence researchers can advertise AI training or labeling opportunities on Upwork, and recruit people to take part. Using Upwork allows you to set rates, interact directly with workers, and manage projects by yourself. 

Advantages of Upwork over Scale AI

Upwork is relatively different to other Scale AI competitors, but it has certain advantages:

• Complete control: You manage the relationship with workers, can conduct quality assurance, and communicate directly with them to provide feedback or ask for further help. With Scale AI, by comparison, it’s not usually possible to find individual taskers again.
• Complex tasks: As with other Scale AI alternatives like Prolific or Invisible AI, Upwork is well suited to more complex AI training tasks.
• Fair pay: Freelancers on Upwork tend to be paid better than gig workers on crowdworker platforms like MTurk or Scale AI. They can accept or decline fees, and negotiate pay (Upwork takes a 10% cut). 

When is Upwork the best Scale AI alternative? 

Upwork is generally best for small scale, complex AI training and labeling projects. It’s also a good option if you want to build a regular outsourced AI labeling team. 

The best alternatives to Scale AI

While Scale AI has grown to become one of the leading AI labeling platforms, it’s valuable to know about Scale AI competitors too. Different platforms offer varying levels of service, quality and transparency. What is more, other platforms can offer larger numbers of taskers, the ability to search for specific demographics, or simply use more experienced and skilled AI trainers. 

If you’re looking to train your AI on reliable, high quality data with quick turnarounds—all while ensuring fairness and transparency—explore Prolific’s AI service.