Rates get all the attention. The mechanics of receiving the money get almost none, and they differ enough between platforms to change what a contract is worth to you.
Three things decide when money reaches you: the unit you are paid in, the platform’s payout cycle, and whether your work has been approved.
The unit comes first
Of the 1,863 open roles this site tracks, 1800 pay by the hour, 25 pay a fixed fee per session, and 35 pay per completed task.
That distinction is not cosmetic. Hourly work pays for time that has been recorded and accepted. Session and task work pays on approval of a deliverable, which means the clock you care about is the reviewer’s, not your own.
What each platform publishes
Mercor is the most specific. Hours are counted from Saturday to Friday on Indian Standard Time, and that week is processed the following Wednesday through Stripe. Your first payout carries a seven-day hold imposed by Stripe. Deliverable-based contracts are paid after the work is approved, entering the next payout cycle, typically within three business days of completion.
The IST cutoff is worth a second look if you are not in that timezone. A Friday 11:59pm IST deadline falls on Friday afternoon in London and Friday morning in New York, so the week closes earlier than a European or American contractor might assume. That boundary decides which week an hour belongs to, and it is the most common reason a Mercor week looks short: see the Mercor pay week.
Terac pays on approval, not on a cycle. Approved submissions land in your Terac balance, and you can cash out once it reaches $12.50. Moving money to your Whop payout balance is free and usually instant, and a standard bank withdrawal typically arrives in 1 to 3 business days. In the few countries Whop cannot pay out to, Terac uses Virtual Incentives, which emails you a link to choose a payment method.
micro1 states that experts are paid in USD through Deel on a semi-monthly schedule: work done from the 1st to the 15th is paid around the 20th, and work done from the 16th to the end of the month is paid around the 5th. Deel then pays out to a local bank account or payment partner. Contractors have also described pay arriving monthly on some projects and through Stripe rather than Deel, so confirm the timing and the method against your own contract rather than assuming the published schedule covers it.
AfterQuery pays weekly through Stripe, straight to a bank account. Its help centre says work from Monday to Sunday is paid the following Friday, Stripe holds the first payout for 7 days, and cards are not supported.
Turing’s talent page claims bi-weekly payouts, but its help centre says hours are paid on the 5th calendar day of each month, and its offboarding page says the 5th business day. In Turing’s own payment flow, pay goes straight to your bank account; in the Deel flow it arrives through Deel.
SME Careers pays weekly through Deel, for work done Monday to Sunday. Approved earnings for the week are bundled into one payout, reviewed again and submitted to Deel, and SME says the money typically arrives 1 to 3 days after that, depending on the payout method you chose in Deel. Earnings still pending review are left out of that week’s payout and picked up once approved.
Turing’s pages give three different pay dates. That is a fact about this market, not a gap in this page.
Hourly pay depends on tracked time
On Mercor’s hourly contracts, hours are recorded through a monitoring tool called Insightful, and its documentation is blunt about the consequence: hours not captured through it are not eligible for payment. Working without the tracker running means working for free, regardless of what you produced.
Contractors also report hours being reduced after the fact following a review. One described disputing a deduction that took a logged 4.43 hours down to 0.18 after being accused of using AI on the task, which they attributed to having an AI coding tool open in another window while waiting for work to load.
What that software records is covered in the software you will be asked to install, and the narrower question of when Mercor removes hours already logged is covered in which hours get paid. For payment purposes the rule is narrow: on an hourly contract, tracked and approved time is the only time that pays.
The tax forms you will be asked for
Every platform here treats you as an independent contractor, so nothing is withheld and the paperwork lands on you.
Mercor’s policy sets out the split clearly, and it is the pattern across this market. If you have US tax status you complete a W-9 with your SSN, and if you earn $600 or more in a year you receive a 1099. If you are not a US person you complete a W-8BEN, which verifies foreign status and lets you claim any treaty benefit that applies, and you do not receive a 1099.
That last point catches people out. No 1099 does not mean no tax. It means there is no US form summarising what you earned, and you are responsible for reporting the income under your own country’s rules.
Mercor also states that it compensates individuals, not business entities, so invoicing through a company is not an option there.
One setting causes a lot of missing 1099s. Mercor says a W-9 filer must set their Stripe country to United States even while living abroad. Choose anywhere else and Stripe treats you as a non-US person and suppresses the form, whatever your W-9 says.
Getting paid from outside the US
The constraint is rarely eligibility for the role. It is whether the payout rail reaches you.
Stripe carries much of this market: Mercor runs on it, and some micro1 contractors are paid through it too. It does not operate in every country, so it is the first thing to check. Terac pays through Whop, with Virtual Incentives for the few countries Whop cannot reach, and needs a verified government ID before your first cash-out.
Identity documents are their own gate, separately from payment. One contractor described clearing micro1’s certification steps and then stalling because a national ID card was not accepted and only a passport was. Passing screening and being able to complete onboarding are different things.
Check three things before you invest hours in assessments: whether the platform’s processor operates in your country, what identity document it accepts, and whether your local rules treat this as self-employment income you must declare.
Before your first task
- Confirm whether the contract pays hourly, per session or per task, because that decides when you are paid
- On hourly work, confirm what counts as tracked time and keep the tracker running
- Check the payout method works where you live before starting
- Expect a hold on a first payout, which is a processor rule rather than a platform stalling
- File the right form, and remember that no 1099 does not mean no obligation
Rates are only half the picture. What AI training work pays covers the other half, and whether it adds up to a living covers what neither number tells you about available hours.