As we describe in our piece on why hourly rate doesn't predict monthly income, the advertised rate is only one variable. Your effective hourly rate — total earnings divided by total time, including guideline reading, setup, and any waiting between tasks — is the number that actually tells you what's worth your time. Here's how to track it without it becoming its own full-time job.
What to Track (the Minimum Useful Set)
You don't need a complex system. A simple spreadsheet with five columns covers everything important:
| Column | What to Log |
|---|---|
| Date | The session date |
| Platform | Which platform (Mercor, micro1, etc.) |
| Task type | Broad category (response evaluation, coding review, annotation) |
| Total time | All time including guidelines and setup, not just active task time |
| Earnings | What you were paid for that session |
From these five columns, you can calculate effective hourly rate per session (Earnings ÷ Total Time), then aggregate by platform and task type to see which combinations consistently perform best.
The Most Common Surprise
The most common finding when people actually track this is that their effective rate is meaningfully lower than the advertised rate — often 20-40% lower once guideline reading, setup time, and quality review are included. This isn't a problem with any specific platform; it's a structural feature of task-based work that's worth knowing going in rather than discovering after several months.
If a task pays $25 and takes you 30 minutes of active completion time, your rate looks like $50/hr. If it took 20 minutes of guideline reading before that, your effective rate is $30/hr. That difference compounds significantly at scale.
How to Use the Data
After 4-6 weeks of tracking, you'll have enough data to answer two genuinely useful questions:
- Which platform generates better effective hourly rates for you specifically? The answer won't be the same for everyone — it depends on your specific skill level and how long guideline orientation takes you on each platform.
- Which task types are most time-efficient for your background? Tasks you understand deeply tend to require less guideline review time, raising your effective rate above what a slower reader would achieve on the same task.
Connecting This to Platform Strategy
This tracking data is the foundation of the multi-platform income stack approach we describe in our income stack guide — rather than assuming which platforms are "best," you let your own tracked data tell you which combinations actually generate the most income per hour of your time. This matters more than any benchmark or published average, including the $95/hr Mercor average and the $31/hr industry average — both of which describe population averages, not your personal effective rate.
The Bottom Line
Five columns, tracked per session, reviewed weekly and monthly. That's the entire system. The data it generates will tell you more about which platforms and task types are actually worth your time than any published rate comparison — including this one.
What Determines Your Actual Earnings
Three variables determine AI training income more than any other: credentials (which sets your rate ceiling), hours (which sets your volume), and platform selection (which determines whether your credentials are correctly valued). A specialist on the wrong platform earns generalist rates. The same specialist on Mercor or SME Careers earns their market rate. Use our Platform Picker to ensure your background is matched to the platform that will value it correctly.
Realistic Monthly Income Milestones
Month 1: €0-300 (approvals, learning curve, first tasks). Month 2: €200-800 (established on 1-2 platforms, speed improving). Month 3: €400-1,500 (quality scores built, better task matching). Month 6: €600-3,000+ for consistent 15-25 hrs/week (depending on credentials). Contractors earning above €2,000/month consistently share one characteristic: they applied to multiple platforms in their first two weeks rather than sequentially waiting for each approval before applying to the next.
Start Building Your Stack
Apply to your first platforms and start tracking from day one.