Where data scientists earn online
Data scientists earn from prize competitions, freelance analysis and modelling projects, expert calls with investors, and AI training work that pays a premium for technical skills.
Also for: data analyst, machine learning engineer, statistician
How data scientists earn online
- Prize competitions and hackathons with cash awards
- Freelance analytics, dashboards and machine-learning projects
- Paid expert calls and specialist AI training tasks
Tip: Competition rankings work as a public portfolio: strong placings help you win freelance clients.
What data scientists earn in the US
- Median pay a year
- $120,230
- Median pay an hour
- $57.80
- Range (10th to 90th percentile)
- $67K–$199K
- Employed in the US
- 262,400
US employees in the closest official occupation (SOC 15-2051), from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Freelance rates online vary widely by country, experience and platform, so treat this as a benchmark for what the work is worth, not what a platform will pay.
The top 12 platforms for data scientists, compared
| Platform | Type | Fees | Pays via | Who can join |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Kaggle |
Data science competitions | Free to enter, host-funded prizes $10k-$1M+ | Bank transfer | Worldwide |
 Zindi |
Data science competitions | Free to enter, host-funded cash prizes | Bank transfer, Mobile money | Africa-focused, open worldwide |
 DrivenData |
Data science competitions | Free to enter, host-funded prizes | Bank transfer | Worldwide |
 MachineHack |
Data science competitions | Free to enter, host-funded hackathon prizes | Bank transfer | India |
 Unstop |
Competitions platform | Free to enter, host-set prizes | Bank transfer (India) | India |
 Devpost |
Hackathon platform | Free to enter, host-funded prizes | Varies by host | Worldwide |
 HackerEarth |
Coding competition platform | Free to enter, host-funded prizes | — | Worldwide |
 Topcoder |
Coding competitions | Free to compete, challenge prize money | Payoneer, PayPal | Worldwide except Belarus, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, Sudan and Syria |
 Wazoku Crowd |
Innovation challenges | Free to solve, awards avg ~$20k up to $100k+ | Bank transfer | Worldwide except Cuba, Iran, North Korea and Syria |
 HeroX |
Innovation challenges | Free to compete, sponsor-funded purses | Bank transfer, PayPal | Worldwide |
 AIcrowd |
AI competitions | Free to enter, prize pools $17k-50k typical | Bank transfer | Worldwide |
 Comet |
Vetted tech network | 5% service fee on daily rate | Monthly bank payment on invoice | France |
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Prize competitions
11 for data scientists
KaggleThe home of data science competitions, owned by Google - prize pools regularly reach tens of thousands of dollars, plus community hackathons.
Fees Free to enter, host-funded prizes $10k-$1M+kaggle.comZindiAfrica data science competition platform, connecting African data scientists with paid challenges from companies and NGOs.
Fees Free to enter, host-funded cash prizeszindi.worldDrivenDataData science competitions with social impact - solve problems for nonprofits and public agencies with cash prizes.
Fees Free to enter, host-funded prizesdrivendata.orgMachineHackAn Indian ML competition platform with hackathons and hiring challenges from data-driven companies.
Fees Free to enter, host-funded hackathon prizesmachinehack.comUnstopIndia largest competitions and hackathons platform for students and professionals, with cash prizes and hiring challenges.
Fees Free to enter, host-set prizesunstop.comDevpostThe largest hackathon platform - find online and in-person hackathons with cash prizes across every theme and skill level.
Fees Free to enter, host-funded prizesdevpost.comHackerEarthA platform hosting coding challenges and hackathons with cash prizes and hiring contests.
Fees Free to enter, host-funded prizeshackerearth.comTopcoderThe original competitive programming and crowdsourced development platform, paying members for design, development, and data science challenges.
Fees Free to compete, challenge prize moneytopcoder.comWazoku CrowdThe challenge network formerly known as InnoCentive, paying solvers for breakthrough solutions to R&D and innovation problems.
Fees Free to solve, awards avg ~$20k up to $100k+wazoku.comHeroXA crowdsourced innovation platform where organizations post prize challenges open to anyone, from engineering to naming contests.
Fees Free to compete, sponsor-funded pursesherox.comAIcrowdAn open AI challenge platform hosting research competitions with prizes, often in reinforcement learning and applied ML.
Fees Free to enter, prize pools $17k-50k typicalaicrowd.comAI training platforms
2 for data scientists
RWS TrainAIRWS data-services arm hiring remote contributors for AI data collection, annotation, and evaluation.
Fees ~$12-18/hr AI data and rater tasksrws.com
Surge AIAn AI-data company hiring skilled remote contributors to create and rate high-quality model data.
Fees ~$20-40+/hr RLHF and annotationsurgehq.aiFreelance sites
1 for data scientists
Remote job boards
1 for data scientists
Jobicy