Amazon Mechanical Turk, the service Jeff Bezos once called “artificial artificial intelligence,” closes for good on September 30, 2026. If you still post work there, it needs a new home, and the right one depends on the job. For AI training data, a managed provider such as Zilo AI, Appen, iMerit or Sama does the labeling for you. For surveys and research participants, Prolific and CloudResearch Connect are the closest swaps. For do-it-yourself microtasks, Microworkers works most like MTurk did.
The closure came in two steps. In July, Amazon said it would stop accepting new MTurk customers, CNBC reported, and on August 25 it announced the shutdown. AWS’s own labeling services will not take you in either: SageMaker Ground Truth and Amazon Augmented AI, which could send jobs to MTurk workers, are closed to new customers.
Below are 10 alternatives, what each one does and who it suits, then the dates that still matter for your MTurk account.
MTurk alternatives at a glance
| # | Site | How you buy | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Zilo AI | Managed service | Annotation and transcription, plus IT and data hiring |
| 2 | Prolific | Self-serve, or managed | Research participants and human feedback for AI |
| 3 | CloudResearch Connect | Self-serve, or managed research | Academic studies and MTurk-style HTML tasks |
| 4 | Microworkers | Self-serve marketplace | Simple microtasks you design and check yourself |
| 5 | Clickworker | Self-serve surveys, managed data work | Survey panels, tagging and data collection |
| 6 | Toloka | Managed data projects | Training and evaluation data for LLMs and AI agents |
| 7 | Appen | Managed service | Speech and language data in many locales |
| 8 | iMerit | Managed service and platform | Medical, autonomous driving and other expert data |
| 9 | Sama | Managed service and platform | Computer vision labels and model evaluation |
| 10 | Hive | Fully managed | Very large labeling volumes |
Details are as listed on each company’s own site in September 2026.
1. Zilo AI
If most of what you sent to MTurk was AI data work, such as tagging text, labeling images or transcribing recordings, you can stop running it as a queue of HITs to review. Zilo’s team does that work as a service: text annotation, image annotation and voice annotation, plus audio, video and multilingual transcription. Zilo says its team of more than 1,600 trained annotation and speech recognition experts has annotated over 10 million data points, for industries from retail to banking and healthcare. It also staffs IT and data roles, from data scientists to cybersecurity analysts, so you can hire through the same Bangalore-based partner too.
Best for: AI teams that want labeled data and transcripts delivered, not a task queue to manage. See Zilo’s services.
2. Prolific
Prolific is the most direct swap for surveys and experiments. You build your study in a tool such as Qualtrics, paste the link into Prolific, pick from more than 300 audience filters and set a reward. As of September 2026 it lists over 300,000 active participants in more than 40 countries, with the strongest coverage in the US, the UK and Europe. The minimum reward is $8.00 an hour, and Prolific recommends paying at least $12.00.
Budget for a bigger platform fee than you paid before. Prolific’s pay-as-you-go fee is usually 42.8% for companies and 33.3% for academic and non-profit customers. MTurk charged 20%, plus another 20% on HITs with 10 or more assignments. Prolific also sells human data for AI, such as preference ranking and model evaluation, either self-serve or as a managed service.
Best for: researchers and AI teams that need screened participants within hours.
3. CloudResearch Connect
CloudResearch began as TurkPrime, a platform that made MTurk workable for research, and its own MTurk Toolkit retires on September 30 as well. Its participant platform, Connect, needs no AWS account. CloudResearch says templates written with AWS Crowd HTML Elements move across with minimal changes, and besides surveys it runs labeling tasks such as image classification and bounding boxes. If you would rather hand the study over, it also offers managed research.
Best for: labs moving existing MTurk studies and HIT templates with the least rework.
4. Microworkers
Microworkers is the nearest thing to MTurk’s do-it-yourself model. You build a campaign from ready-made templates, covering image tagging, bounding boxes, transcription, sentiment labeling, content moderation and surveys, then add verification or rating steps. There is an API for creating work in bulk, and the site says its crowd numbers more than 4.9 million workers. Quality control stays your job, just as it was on MTurk.
Best for: simple, repeatable tasks where you already have gold-standard answers and someone to review the output.
5. Clickworker
Clickworker, now part of the AI data company LXT, splits its work in two. Its self-service marketplace handles online surveys: you set the target group and a fee per participant, top up a prepaid account and launch, with no basic fees. Everything else, including product categorization, sentiment analysis, data collection and AI training data, runs through its managed service. It is ISO 27001 certified, with offices in New York and Essen, Germany.
Best for: survey panels you run yourself, and e-commerce data work you would rather hand over.
6. Toloka
Toloka started in 2014 as a crowdsourcing and microtask platform. It now supplies training and evaluation data for large language models and AI agents, including coding data, red-teaming and safety testing. Companies can set up a business account to buy data or talk to its team about a project. It is headquartered in Amsterdam.
Best for: AI labs that need expert-built datasets and evaluations rather than quick microtasks.
7. Appen
Appen has built human-labeled datasets since 1996 and is listed on the Australian Securities Exchange. Its range runs from speech and audio data across more than 500 locales to LiDAR annotation and the fine-tuning and red-teaming data used to train large models, plus off-the-shelf datasets. It is SOC 2 and ISO 27001 certified.
Best for: large programs that need many languages, dialects or data types from one supplier.
8. iMerit
iMerit, now part of EXL, focuses on data that needs domain knowledge: medical imaging, sensor data for autonomous vehicles and robots, and expert evaluation of generative AI through its iMerit Scholars network. Annotation runs on its Ango Hub platform with an in-house workforce, and it lists SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR, HIPAA and TISAX compliance.
Best for: regulated or specialist work, such as healthcare and driver-assistance data.
9. Sama
Sama is a managed annotation company for computer vision and generative AI. It labels images, video and 3D point clouds, handles text work such as instruction following, preference ranking and factuality checks, and validates existing datasets and model output. It is a certified B Corp.
Best for: computer vision teams that want human-verified labels and a second check on data they already have.
10. Hive
Hive sells AI models for jobs like content moderation and spotting AI-generated content, and it also runs a fully managed data collection and annotation service for enterprises. It says more than 5 million workers are registered on its labeling platform, that every task goes to several contributors so their answers can be compared, and that every project is checked before delivery.
Best for: enterprises that need very large volumes of labeled images or documents.
Is MTurk shutting down? The dates that matter
Yes. Amazon’s closure FAQ sets out what happens to your account:
- September 30, 2026: the last day HITs can be submitted. Anything still unsubmitted expires.
- October 30, 2026: the last day to approve or reject completed HITs, which are approved automatically if you do nothing, and the last day to pay bonuses.
- Within 30 days: Amazon says to expect a full refund of your prepaid requester balance, so check your payment details in the requester portal now.
- January 28, 2027: your transaction history stops being available.
If you run labeling jobs through SageMaker Ground Truth or Amazon Augmented AI, the MTurk workforce option disappears on September 30. Existing customers can still use a private or vendor-managed workforce, so switch those jobs before the deadline. If you ran studies through CloudResearch’s MTurk Toolkit, that retires the same day.
How to choose an MTurk alternative
Start with what you actually used MTurk for:
- Labeling and transcription for AI models: Zilo AI for text, image and voice annotation or transcription, iMerit for medical and driving data, Appen for many languages, and Sama or Hive for large computer vision jobs.
- Surveys and behavioral experiments: Prolific or CloudResearch Connect. Clickworker’s self-service marketplace also covers standard surveys.
- Small tasks you design and check yourself: Microworkers is the closest match to how MTurk worked.
- Training and evaluation data for LLMs and agents: Toloka, Appen, iMerit, or Prolific’s AI services.
- Existing SageMaker Ground Truth jobs: move them to a private or vendor-managed workforce.
Whichever you pick, test quality before you move everything. In a 2023 study, researchers reran a summarization task on MTurk and estimated that 33% to 46% of the workers used large language models to complete it. Put a small batch you already have trusted answers for through the new platform first, and compare the cost per usable answer, not the cost per task. Our guide to data quality for machine learning covers how to check labels once they come back.
If you want to rebuild your old requester workflow somewhere else, our explainer on what MTurk is walks through how it was set up. For more managed data providers, see our list of companies like Appen.
Legit sites like MTurk for workers
If you completed HITs, Amazon says approved work will be paid on your normal disbursement schedule, so check your payment method and transfer schedule in the worker portal now. Requesters can still send bonuses until October 30. Several platforms on this list also sign people up for paid tasks and studies: Prolific, CloudResearch Connect, Clickworker, Microworkers, Toloka and Appen. Read each one’s eligibility rules before you apply, because some limit who can join by country.
Frequently asked questions
Is MTurk shutting down?
Yes. Amazon will permanently close Mechanical Turk on September 30, 2026, the last day HITs can be submitted. Requesters have until October 30 to approve work and pay bonuses.
What is better than MTurk?
It depends on the job. A managed provider such as Zilo AI suits AI training data, Prolific and CloudResearch Connect suit research participants, and Microworkers suits do-it-yourself microtasks.
Are there legit sites like MTurk?
Yes. Prolific, CloudResearch Connect, Clickworker, Microworkers and Toloka all pay people for tasks or studies. Check each platform’s eligibility rules for your country before you sign up.
What happens to SageMaker Ground Truth jobs that use MTurk?
The MTurk workforce option ends on September 30, 2026. Existing Ground Truth and Augmented AI customers can switch to a private or vendor-managed workforce, but neither service accepts new customers.