Mercor
AI-powered talent marketplace matching vetted experts to AI training and evaluation work.
why this verdict
Keep it — OpenAI has not replaced it
OpenAI's version overlaps, but does not finish the HR & recruiting job, so this one is still worth keeping open.
- A named launch, not a vibe named, unlinked
- The AI labs it staffs building in-house data and evaluation teams that could bypass external marketplaces. OpenAI, September 30, 2025 — no announcement link recorded yet.
- How much of the job it covers not the job editorial call
- Parts of it. The job still needs the tool to get finished.
- Is there a free way to do it? yes
- 1 of 3 listed replacements have a usable free tier: Upwork.
- What the call is worth nothing to cancel
- No paid entry tier tracked, so there is no subscription to cancel.
- Threatened by
- OpenAI
- Since
- September 30, 2025
- List price
- free
- Per year
- —
The backstory
Mercor uses AI-led interviews and semantic matching to connect professionals with AI training and evaluation projects for companies building frontier models, free for candidates and free of the manual bidding wars typical freelance marketplaces run on. The AI labs that hire through Mercor could theoretically build hiring pipelines in-house, but the demand for vetted human expertise to train and evaluate models keeps growing faster than any single company can staff internally.
Escape hatches
AI-vetted remote developer marketplace
turing.com open_in_newVetted freelance talent network for skilled roles
toptal.com open_in_newGeneral freelance marketplace with AI project categories
upwork.com open_in_new1 of 3 replacements have a usable free tier.