Sell design and web agency data to AI companies

What design agency data do AI companies buy?

AI companies buy design agency data that shows how a brief turns into a finished design. The final website is public and has likely been crawled already. The brief, the three rejected concepts, the client's comments and the revised layout are not.

• Briefs and discovery notes linked to the concepts and final designs that answered them
• Layered design files from Figma, Sketch or Adobe tools, with version history
• Client feedback rounds and change requests, with the designer's responses
• Front-end codebases, component libraries and design tokens
• Brand guidelines and design systems
• Accessibility and UX audits with their recommendations

Linked records sell best. A buyer training a model to design or to write front-end code wants the brief, each version and the reason for each change, in order. Layered files are also image data, and the code side overlaps with source code datasets.

How much do AI companies pay for design agency data?

AI companies publish a range of $20,000 to $890,000 for design and web agency data. That is Mercor's referral listing for agencies of 10 to 200 employees, as reported by ddiy.co in October 2026.

The $890,000 ceiling is higher than Mercor's ceiling for software companies, at $500,000. The $20,000 floor is the lowest of the 11 Mercor listings ddiy.co reports, shared with cybersecurity companies and call centers, so the spread is wide. Where an agency lands depends largely on how much of its archive survives the rights checks below.

Organization also affects price. Archives that keep each project's brief, versions and feedback together are easier to value than files scattered across personal drives and email threads. If your projects sit in Figma teams or a shared drive organized by client, record that structure in your manifest so a buyer can see how complete each project is.

Do you own the work you delivered to clients?

You may not own the work you delivered to clients. Many agency contracts assign copyright in the final deliverables to the client once fees are paid, and if yours do, you cannot license those deliverables without the client's agreement.

Unused concepts, internal working files and rejected routes are often treated differently, but the contract decides. Under 17 U.S.C. section 201(b), work your employees create within the scope of their employment is a work made for hire, and your agency is treated as its author unless a signed written agreement says otherwise. Read each client contract for what it assigns and when.

Freelancers are the gap that catches agencies out. The Copyright Office's Circular 30 limits commissioned works made for hire to nine listed categories with a signed written agreement, so a freelance designer or developer usually owns what they create unless they assigned it in a signed writing, as 17 U.S.C. section 204(a) requires. Our vetting standard checks IP assignments from staff and contractors.

Stock images and fonts usually have to come out. Getty Images' content license agreement, for example, lists machine learning and AI use as a restricted use unless an additional license is bought, and bars use in connection with training, fine-tuning or other data ingestion.

Other stock libraries and font foundries set their own terms, so check each one. The practical approach is to strip licensed assets from design files, or replace them with placeholders, and record the method in your data manifest.

What about client confidentiality and personal data?

Client confidentiality covers unreleased products, pitch work and anything shared under NDA, and that material should be excluded or cleared with the client. Pitches to prospects who did not hire you are usually your own work, but they may contain the prospect's confidential briefing material, so remove anything the prospect supplied.

User research recordings, interview notes and form submissions held for client sites contain personal information. The CCPA, at California Civil Code section 1798.140, treats a transfer of personal information for monetary or other valuable consideration as a sale, so this material rarely adds enough value to justify the risk. You may decide to tell key clients before a sale rather than after, see telling staff and clients about a data license.

If you hold UK or EU data

Agencies with UK teams or UK freelancers should check the UK rule as well. Under section 11 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, the author is the first owner of copyright and an employer owns work its employees create in the course of employment, so UK freelancers also need a written assignment.

How does selling agency data work with Sell My Data To AI?

Selling agency data with Sell My Data To AI starts with a consultation about your file stores, project management tools and client contract types. We help you sort projects into cleared, needs client agreement and excluded, before any buyer is involved.

Buyers you approve see a redacted sample under a mutual NDA, and you sign the license directly with your chosen buyer. Book a free consultation to find out whether your archive is likely to interest buyers.