Is Turing Legit? Contractor Pay and Project Lazarus

Is Turing legit? The short answer

Yes. Turing is a funded company that supplies training data to the largest AI labs. It pays two groups: contractors who do coding and expert work, and, through Project Lazarus, companies that license their codebases and operating records.

People searching "is Turing legit" are usually contractors who received an invitation or an offer. This page covers how Turing pays them first, then what Project Lazarus is and what it has paid companies, which is the question for owners. Note that Turing (turing.com) is unrelated to other companies with Turing in their name.

What Turing is

"Turing was founded in 2018 by CEO Jonathan Siddharth" and, by its own account, "In 2022, OpenAI tapped Turing to provide coding data for ChatGPT" (Turing). Today it says it "drives real economic progress from AI by helping frontier labs improve models and enterprises deploy agentic systems" (Turing).

In March 2025 TechCrunch reported that Turing "has secured a $111 million Series E round, doubling its valuation to $2.2 billion", that it "currently generates around $300 million in ARR", and that "Turing today says that it works with some 4 million coders around the world" (TechCrunch). "It has also been profitable for around a year, according to CEO Jonathan Siddharth".

Source: TechCrunch: Turing raises $111M at a $2.2B valuation (Mar 2025)

How much does Turing pay, and when?

Turing does not publish a rate card. Its jobs page promises "remote, well-paid jobs" (Turing), and the rate for a project is set in the offer you accept. Work is contract work: "As an independent contractor, you'll be responsible for managing your tax obligations in accordance with local laws."

Onboarding includes signing Turing's terms, ID verification, and tax and payment details, and "might occur through either Turing's platform or Deel Platform (external provider)". "Only a driver's license or passport are accepted for ID verification" (Turing).

Pay is monthly, not weekly. "Payouts cannot be processed until your hours are approved by your manager," and "Regular salary and hours worked are processed and scheduled to be completed by the 5th business day of the following month" (Turing). In its help article on getting paid, Turing adds that bank transfer is the supported method: "PayPal and Airtm are not supported for withdrawals" (Turing). "It may take up to 72 business hours for funds to appear in your account" after that. Expect your first payment up to five weeks after you start.

Source: Turing Knowledge Base: project onboarding and payouts

Is Turing legit for companies? Project Lazarus

Yes. Turing launched Project Lazarus in December 2025 as "a groundbreaking initiative to preserve the complete operational history of defunct companies as training data for frontier models", saying "We're acquiring full private repositories, design docs, testing logs, infrastructure manifests, and internal wikis from defunct startups" (Turing).

In March 2026 it opened Lazarus to "founders and engineering leaders" who could "share private codebases and the operational artifacts around them (Jira tickets, PRDs, architecture docs, support threads)", and published prices (Turing). By July it said "The strongest interest now comes not just from founders whose companies have wound down, but from founders actively scaling" (Turing).

What Turing has actually paid: its CEO told The Information that "his company had bought five to ten failed-startup codebases, paying an average in the tens of thousands of dollars for each" (Fortune). That is the company's own account; no seller has published a Lazarus payment.

The terms have changed since March. As set out in our Project Lazarus guide, the Project Lazarus site has since described a revenue share paid each time a record sells, with nothing upfront, non-exclusive licenses and a 90-day period in which Turing is the only seller. Those terms come from Turing's program page, not from a signed agreement we have seen, so ask Turing to confirm the version that applies to you in writing.

Source: Turing AGI Advance: Project Lazarus price list (Mar 2026)

What Turing pays: contractors and companies

Turing's published figures, with the date each applied. Prices for companies have changed during 2026, so treat older numbers as history, not as a quote.

Turing reviews and complaints

We found no named news report alleging that Turing failed to pay contractors or companies. The practical points to weigh are structural: monthly rather than weekly pay, pay that waits for a manager to approve hours, and strict ID checks that accept only a passport or driver's license.

Turing's published onboarding steps ask for ID, tax and payment details; none of them involves paying Turing, so treat any request for a fee in Turing's name with suspicion.

For companies offered a revenue share of the kind our Project Lazarus guide describes, the points to negotiate are the split, any period in which Turing is the only seller and how sales are reported to you. Under that model nothing is paid until a record sells, so ask how many sales Turing expects and to whom.

Turing vs Mercor and other competitors

For contractors, Turing's competitors are Mercor, AfterQuery, Handshake AI and Scale AI's Outlier. Mercor and Outlier pay weekly; Turing pays monthly. Our reviews of Mercor, AfterQuery, Handshake AI and Scale AI set out each one's pay and record.

For companies, Turing is the clearest fit for code-heavy records and closed startups. Its March 2026 newsletter published fixed prices; the later terms set out in our Project Lazarus guide pay a revenue share on each sale instead. Companies that want a fixed payment usually compare Mercor, micro1, Handshake AI and AfterQuery; Mercor, for example, pays "via wire transfer upon delivery of the anonymized dataset" (Mercor); see company data buyers compared, Mercor competitors and our guide to selling source code for AI training.

How to check any buyer before you sign

A revenue share needs more checking than a fixed price: you are relying on the buyer to sell and to report sales. Our guide on how to vet an AI data buyer covers both models, the AI data companies directory lists who else buys codebases and records, and what company data is worth shows published prices.

• Confirm who signs and who pays: the company itself, or an unnamed lab behind it. Get the paying entity named in the agreement.
• Get the price, the payment trigger and the payment date in writing. An estimator figure or an "up to" range is not an offer.
• Read the license: exclusive or not, how long it lasts, whether the buyer may resell or build products on your records.
• Ask what is removed before delivery (names, customers, payroll, credentials, privileged legal material) and whether you approve a sample first.

Next step

If Turing has offered you a revenue share and another buyer a fixed price for your codebase or records, compare the two on expected value before you sign.

Not sure whether a buyer or an offer is sound? Origin checks who the buyer is, what the license allows and how the price compares with published deals before anything is signed. Get a free estimate and a second opinion.

Origin Data Partners works with companies that own data and helps get it bought. We are independent of the services on this page, and a buyer may pay us when a deal closes (how Origin is paid). See what your data is worth.