Best Data Annotation Companies

Ranked on published information: pricing, modalities, quality controls and security, checked November 7, 2026. Methodology.

These are the five annotation vendors that let you check the most before you speak to sales, out of 18 we compared. We have not tested any of them; the order reflects what each company publishes, so run a paid pilot before you commit.

Number 1: Kili Technology
The most checkable platform in the table: a free trial you can open today, and security reports named on the pricing page.
Trial
Free: $0, 2 to 5 seats, up to 100 assetskili-technology.com, read Nov 7, 2026
Security
SOC 2 Type II; ISO 27001kili-technology.com, read Nov 7, 2026
Number 2: Segments.ai
Built for robotics and autonomy teams labeling point clouds and fused sensor data, with a rate you can work out before a sales call.
Price
By its own sum, $2.67 an hour, on a 3,600-hour yearly minimumsegments.ai, read Nov 7, 2026
Security
ISO 27001; TISAXsegments.ai, read Nov 7, 2026
Number 3: HumanSignal (Label Studio)
The open-source route: run Label Studio yourself for free, or pay a flat seat price for the hosted edition and bring your own annotators.
Price
$99/month hosted, 12 users in; +$49/month per added userhumansignal.com, read Nov 7, 2026
Security
SOC 2, on the Enterprise tierhumansignal.com, read Nov 7, 2026
Number 4: Label Your Data
The only managed service in our table that publishes per-object and hourly rates, and it offers a pilot at no cost.
Price
$0.02+ per box; hourly work usually $6 an annotator hourlabelyourdata.com, read Nov 7, 2026
Pilot
Free pilot, no stated minimumlabelyourdata.com, read Nov 7, 2026
Number 5: Labelbox
A broad platform covering five modalities, with labeling services on top. Usage is metered in its own units, so ask for the dollar rate.
Free tier
500 LBUs free each monthdocs.labelbox.com, read Nov 7, 2026
Metering
1 LBU per image row; dollar rate per LBU unpublisheddocs.labelbox.com, read Nov 7, 2026

A few of these five, and others below, may reward us for introductions that turn into signed work. Rank and verdicts come from the method alone.

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How do all 18 annotation vendors compare?

Every row last verified November 7, 2026 against the vendor's own pages. We are independent of every vendor in this table: none owns, funds or endorses the site, and none is affiliated with it.

Score out of 16: published pricing (up to 6), modalities covered (up to 6), security reports listed (up to 3), and both a platform and services (1). Ties broken by security, then pricing. Vendors may reward us for introductions; that plays no part in the order.
Rank	Company	Sells	Modalities	Published pricing	Security reports listed	Score
1	Kili Technologykili-technology.com, read Nov 7, 2026	Platform and services	Image, Video, Text	No-cost trial for 2 to 5 seats and at most 100 assets; Grow and Enterprise sold on custom terms.	SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001	11
2	Segments.aisegments.ai, read Nov 7, 2026	Platform	Image, Video, 3D and sensor	Core tier: 3,600+ labeling hours a year, which Segments.ai equates to $2.67 an hour. Fusion: 5,000+ hours. Enterprise: 150,000+ hours. 14-day trial.	ISO 27001, TISAX	11
3	HumanSignal (Label Studio)humansignal.com, read Nov 7, 2026	Platform	Image, Video, Text, Audio	Hosted Starter Cloud: $99/month with 12 users included, then $49/month for each added user. Enterprise priced on request. Community Edition: free, open source.	SOC 2 (Enterprise plan)	11
4	Label Your Datalabelyourdata.com, read Nov 7, 2026	Managed service	Image, Video, Text, Audio, 3D and sensor	$0.015+ per keypoint, $0.02+ per box, $0.02+ per NLP entity. Hourly work: usually $6 an annotator hour.	None found	11
5	Labelboxdocs.labelbox.com, read Nov 7, 2026	Platform and services	Image, Video, Text, Audio, Code	Billed in LBUs, e.g. 1 per image row (Annotate) or 20 per row (live multimodal or LLM work). LBU dollar rate not shown. Free tier: 500 LBUs monthly.	None found	10
6	SuperAnnotatesuperannotate.com, read Nov 7, 2026	Platform and services	Image, Video, Text, Audio	Three tiers (Starter, Pro, Enterprise) bundling 1K, 2.5K or 10K Orchestrate compute hours. Prices not shown.	None found	9
7	Dataloopdataloop.ai, read Nov 7, 2026	Platform	Image, Video, Text, Audio, 3D and sensor	Not published (quote on request).	ISO 27001, ISO 27701, SOC 2 Type II	8
8	Samasama.com, read Nov 7, 2026	Managed service	Image, Video, Text, 3D and sensor	Not published (quote on request).	ISO 9001, ISO 27001, TISAX	7
9	Scale AIscale.com, read Nov 7, 2026	Platform and services	Image, Video, Text, Audio, 3D and sensor, Code	Not published (quote on request).	None found	7
10	Encordencord.com, read Nov 7, 2026	Platform	Image, Video, Text, Audio, 3D and sensor	Not published (quote on request).	SOC 2 (type not stated)	6
11	Appenappen.com, read Nov 7, 2026	Managed service	Image, Video, Text, Audio, Code	Not published (quote on request).	None found	5
12	Centificcentific.com, read Nov 7, 2026	Platform and services	Image, Video, Text, Audio	Not published (quote on request).	None found	5
13	TELUS Digital (AI Data Solutions)telusdigital.com, read Nov 7, 2026	Managed service	Image, Video, Text, Audio, 3D and sensor	Not published (quote on request).	None found	5
14	Tolokatoloka.ai, read Nov 7, 2026	Managed service	Image, Video, Text, Audio, Code	Not published (quote on request).	None found	5
15	CloudFactorycloudfactory.com, read Nov 7, 2026	Platform and services	Image, Video, Text	Not published (quote on request).	None found	4
16	Innodatainnodata.com, read Nov 7, 2026	Managed service	Image, Video, Text, Audio	Not published (quote on request).	None found	4
17	Snorkel AIsnorkel.ai, read Nov 7, 2026	Platform and services	Text, Code	Not published (quote on request).	None found	3
18	Keymakrkeymakr.com, read Nov 7, 2026	Managed service	Image, Video	Not published (quote on request).	None found	2

"None found" means no SOC 2, ISO or TISAX certificate appeared on the pages we read, not that the vendor has none. Ask. The scoring rules and the list of what changed are on the methodology page.

Where these facts come from

Which vendors cover your modality?

Coverage is what each company says it labels. Depth varies: a vendor that lists audio may do far less of it than one built around speech. The modality guide lists every vendor per data type.

Modality	Vendors	Highest ranked
Image	17 of 18	Kili Technology, Segments.ai, HumanSignal (Label Studio)
Video	17 of 18	Kili Technology, Segments.ai, HumanSignal (Label Studio)
Text	16 of 18	Kili Technology, HumanSignal (Label Studio), Label Your Data
Audio	12 of 18	HumanSignal (Label Studio), Label Your Data, Labelbox
3D and sensor	7 of 18	Segments.ai, Label Your Data, Dataloop
Code	5 of 18	Labelbox, Scale AI, Appen

Vendors named in this table may reward us for an introduction that becomes signed work; that has no bearing on who appears or in what order.

What does data annotation cost?

Most vendors will not say until you send a brief. Only 3 of the 18 publish dollar figures, and each prices a different thing: labor per object, labor per hour, platform usage per hour, or seats.

Vendor	What the price buys	Published figure
Label Your Data	Annotator labor, managed	$0.02+ a box, $0.015+ a keypoint; hourly work usually $6 an annotator hourlabelyourdata.com, read Nov 7, 2026
Segments.ai	Platform usage, your annotators	$2.67 an hour by its own sum, with 3,600 hours a year as the floorsegments.ai, read Nov 7, 2026
HumanSignal	Hosted tool seats, your annotators	$99/month covers 12 users; each added user is $49/monthhumansignal.com, read Nov 7, 2026

Any vendor here may reward us for an introduction; the figures are printed as published regardless. Published prices are the vendors' own figures on the date read, never a quote.

A platform hour and an annotator hour are not the same unit, so these numbers cannot be lined up directly. The pricing guide explains each model, and the RFP builder writes the pricing questions to send every vendor.

Managed service, platform, or both?

Of the 18 vendors, 7 sell mainly a managed service, 4 sell mainly a platform, and 7 sell both. The choice usually follows one question: who will do the labeling?

No spare people: a managed service supplies trained annotators, project managers and quality review, and charges per item or per hour.
An in-house team or strict data rules: a platform gives your people the tool, often by seat or by usage, and the data can stay closer to home.
Both at different stages: many teams start managed to build a first dataset, then move routine work in-house on a platform.

Managed service or platform: the full comparison.

What should you check before you sign?

The risks in annotation contracts are rarely about price. They sit in who sees your data, who owns the output, and what happens when quality slips.

Security evidence

Ask for the report, not the badge. A SOC 2 Type II report covers controls over a period; ISO 27001 certifies a management system for a defined scope. 6 vendors here list one or more on the pages we read. Check the dates and which entity is covered.

Ownership and model training

The contract should say you own the raw data, the labels and the guidelines, and that the vendor will not train its own models on your data without written consent.

Who does the work, and where

Ask whether annotators are employees or contractors, which countries they sit in, and whether they can download files. If your data cannot leave the US, say so in the RFP.

A remedy for poor quality

Write the metric, the target and the fix (free rework, then a credit) into the order. Our post on measuring annotation quality covers gold sets and agreement scores.

How does an annotation project usually run?

Scope and guidelines. You define classes, shapes and edge cases; the vendor asks questions and may help write the guide.
Paid pilot. A few thousand of your items, scored against a gold set you labeled yourself.
Calibration. The guide is tightened where annotators disagreed, and targets are set from pilot results.
Production. Work arrives in regular deliveries, each audited on a sample, with rework for misses.
Close-out. Final delivery, written confirmation that copies of your data have been deleted, and a review before any renewal.

To start, write the brief: the RFP guide lists what vendors need to price it.

Questions about choosing an annotation vendor

Which is the best data annotation company?

On published information checked November 7, 2026, Kili Technology ranks first: its pricing page offers a free trial and cites both SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001. The best company for your project depends on modality, volume and whether you want a managed service or a platform, so treat the ranking as a shortlist, not a verdict.

Have you tested these annotation vendors?

No. We have not run projects with any of them. The ranking scores what each vendor publishes about pricing, modalities and security, which tells you how much you can check before a sales call. A paid pilot on your own data is the real test.

How much does data annotation cost?

Few vendors publish prices. Of the 18 here, three show dollar figures: Label Your Data (two cents a box and up, or about $6 an annotator hour), Segments.ai ($2.67 an hour of platform use by its own conversion) and HumanSignal ($99 a month for a hosted team of 12). The other fifteen quote on request. See the pricing guide.

Is a managed service or a labeling platform better?

A managed service supplies the annotators and the project management; a platform gives your own team the tool. Teams without spare people usually start managed. Teams with in-house labelers or strict data controls often prefer a platform. Compare the two.

Which annotation companies hold SOC 2 or ISO 27001?

On the pages we read, 6 of the 18 vendors list a SOC 2 report, ISO 27001 or both: Kili Technology, Segments.ai, HumanSignal (Label Studio), Dataloop, Sama, Encord. Ask any vendor for the current report and its scope before you share data.

Do vendors pay to be listed or ranked?

No vendor can pay for a place. Some reward us after an introduction turns into a signed project, and none of that money touches inclusion, rank or wording.

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A ZIP code, a reply address, then a few taps describing the work. We match the outline against what each vendor publishes and write back with names; no vendor hears about you until you pick one.

Keep data, samples, label guides and logins out of this form. The outline on its own is enough for us to work from.

How this site earns: as an introduction service, it may be paid by the annotation company you are introduced to.

First of three parts

Where is the company based?

Five-digit ZIP

Used to gauge time zones and any residency rules that could apply.

Best Data Annotation Companies

Number 1: Kili Technology

Number 2: Segments.ai

Number 3: HumanSignal (Label Studio)

Number 4: Label Your Data

Number 5: Labelbox

How do all 18 annotation vendors compare?

Which vendors cover your modality?

What does data annotation cost?

Managed service, platform, or both?

What should you check before you sign?

Security evidence

Ownership and model training

Who does the work, and where

A remedy for poor quality

How does an annotation project usually run?

Questions about choosing an annotation vendor

Get a quote

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