A Free Tier, A Published $0.10 Per Unit Starter Rate And Expert Labeling From $10 Per Hour

Labelbox is a San Francisco AI data company that began as a training data platform for labeling, curating and evaluating data, and now also sells RL environments, evaluations, robotics data and an expert network called Alignerr. Its pricing is unusually open for this category: a Free plan includes 500 Labelbox Units (LBUs) per month, the Starter plan charges a fixed $0.10 per LBU with no limit on users or projects, and its pricing page lists labeling services starting at $10 per hour. Enterprise is custom, with volume discounts. Scale AI and Snorkel AI show no prices on the pages we reviewed.

About Labelbox

Industry leader in connected fleet operations

Market Position

Training data vendor serving AI labs, enterprises and research teams, with named logos including Shutterstock, Walmart, Pinterest, Etsy, Warner Bros., Stryker and NASA JPL (vendor-reported).

Innovation Focus

Horizon for RL environments and evals, Recursion for background agents that grade their own runs, Terra for robotics data, and Alignerr for expert preference labels.

Core Strengths

Multimodal annotation, model-assisted labeling, data curation by natural language, a usage-based unit model and a SOC 2 Type II and HIPAA compliance program.

Use Cases

Computer vision labeling, LLM preference and evaluation data, RLHF and supervised fine-tuning sets, and managed labeling for teams without an annotation workforce.

Discover Labelbox’s Complete AI Data Labeling & Training Data Suite

Core Products & Solutions

Tools for annotating, curating, evaluating and sourcing the data that models learn from
Catalog

Catalog

Stores and searches data rows, with curation using natural language and custom metadata. It is billed monthly, and an image costs 1 LBU per 60 data rows per month.

Annotate

Annotate

The labeling editor with custom workflows, review steps and multimodal annotation. It is billed once per data row, at 1 LBU per labeled row for basic data.

Model

Model

Model runs, model-assisted labeling and Foundry predictions with foundation models. It is billed once per data row at 1 LBU per 5 rows, and Foundry adds separate inference costs.

Labeling Services And Alignerr

Labeling Services And Alignerr

Managed labeling is billed by the hour, starting at $10 per hour on the pricing page. Alignerr is the expert network behind it, and its own page lists average pay of $80 per hour for experts.

Horizon

Horizon

RL environments and evaluations for post-training across reasoning, tool use and computer use, plus expert preference labels. Labelbox positions it for frontier AI teams, and it shows no public price.

Recursion And Terra

Recursion And Terra

Recursion runs graded agents on triggers such as alerts or commits, and Terra supplies robotics data from several synchronized viewpoints. Both are newer products without published pricing.

Labelbox’s Pricing Plans

Pricing Overview

Published Free and Starter plans with usage billed by the LBU, and a custom Enterprise plan with volume discounts

Free

Teams and individuals evaluating the platform, and small labeling projects

$0

$0, with 500 LBUs included per month

  • Up to 30 users, 50 projects and 25 ontologies in one workspace
  • Essential labeling platform and multimodal annotation
  • Natural-language data curation
  • Community support only
  • At the limit you can still view and export data but cannot add rows, labels or predictions until the next period
Custom Quote
Get A Quote

Starter

Growing teams that want pay-as-you-go use with no user or project caps

$0.10per LBU

$0.10 per LBU, plus labeling services from $10 per hour

  • Unlimited users, projects and ontologies in one workspace
  • Custom labeling and review workflows
  • Project performance dashboard
  • Model-assisted labeling with foundation models
  • Optional on-demand labeling services
  • Customer support portal access
Custom Quote
Get A Quote

Enterprise

Large teams that need managed services, security add-ons and higher limits

Custom

Pricing

Custom, with volume discounts

  • Three workspaces, with unlimited users, projects and ontologies
  • Fully managed labeling services
  • SSO, custom embeddings and custom endpoints such as Vertex AI and Databricks
  • Enterprise dashboard and advanced labeling analytics
  • Shared Slack channel and a quality guarantee (SLA)
  • API limit of 20,000 requests per minute, against 5,000 on Starter
Custom Quote
Get A Quote
WHO

Who Is Labelbox Best For?

Ideal customer segments and business profiles

Small Businesses

1-25 Employees

The Free plan’s 500 LBUs per month and a Starter plan with no card required to sign up suit pilots and small computer vision or LLM projects, but 500 labeled rows a month goes quickly, and Free support is community only.

Mid-Market Companies

26-100 Employees

Teams labeling steadily can budget at $0.10 per LBU with unlimited users and projects, and can add labeling services from $10 per hour, though total cost depends on data type, ontology and services mix.

Enterprise Companies

100+ Employees

Large buyers get custom pricing, SSO, a shared Slack channel, an SLA and higher API limits, as in customer stories from Walmart, P&G and Intuitive Surgical, which describe use but give no cost figures.

AI Labs And Model Builders

Any Size

Frontier-model teams are the focus of the homepage, which cites Horizon, Alignerr and the Meta GIM benchmark, but none of that work shows a public price and needs a sales conversation.

Labelbox’s benefits

Measurable Impact & Benefits

Figures reported by Labelbox and its customer stories; results vary by use case

Over 90%

Of Leading US AI Labs

Labelbox’s homepage says more than 90% of leading US AI labs post-train and evaluate on it. This is a vendor claim without a named list.

2.6M+

Skill-Tested Experts

Expert count the homepage cites for Alignerr, though Alignerr’s own site says 100,000+ experts, so the two figures do not match.

5 To 10

Times Lower Cost Per Task

Reduction Labelbox claims once a specialist model replaces a general one, a vendor-reported figure with no customer named.

5x

Faster Generative AI Shipping

Speed-up stated in a creative software customer story, without a named baseline or customer.

Within Days

LLM Evaluation Results

Time to quality-reviewed LLM evaluation results for Google Cloud customers in Vertex AI, with jobs launched in minutes.

1B+

Images Curated

Image volume a farm robotics customer curated with Labelbox, per its customer story.

200,000+

Prompt-Response Pairs

Scale of the Meta GIM benchmark Labelbox says it supported, alongside 820 expert-authored problems.

$0.10

Per LBU

The Starter rate on the Limits page, which makes cost per labeled row $0.10 before any labeling services.

Labelbox’s REVIEWS

Labelbox Real reviews

G2 reviews are positive on a modest sample, while other review sites showed no ratings on the pages we checked

Our Rating:

4.5

Trustpilot reviews
N/A
G2 reviews
4.5
48
Capterra
N/A
Staci T.
Labelbox is a great LLM Training Platform for both project managers and data trainers.
Karen C.
I love how easy Labelbox is to set up; it was super simple with no issues.
Alternatives

Compare Alternatives

See how Labelbox stacks up against competitors

Scale AI describes itself as delivering data, evaluations and outcomes to AI labs, governments and Fortune 500 companies, and says 90% of leading generative…

Get Your Free Checklist

Enter your email to download instantly

No spam. Instant access. Unsubscribe anytime.

Instant
Download
No
Spam
Free
Forever
Labelbox BENEFITS

Labelbox’s Pros & Cons

Balanced evaluation to help you make an informed decision

Strengths

  • A Free plan with 500 LBUs per month and a published Starter rate of $0.10 per LBU
  • Unlimited users, projects and ontologies on Starter
  • Labeling services starting at $10 per hour on the pricing page
  • Multimodal annotation, model-assisted labeling and natural-language data curation
  • SOC 2 Type II certification, HIPAA compliance program, AES-256 encryption and TLS 1.2 or later
  • Customers can keep assets in their own cloud using signed URLs
  • G2 rating of 4.5 and a Google Cloud Vertex AI partnership

Limitations

  • The pricing page does not mention LBUs, and the calculator, billing and limits pages carry the unit rates
  • Enterprise pricing and the Enterprise LBU rate are not published
  • Pricing page shows two hourly labeling rates without mapping them to tiers
  • Foundry inference, SSO, HIPAA and labeling services are billed apart from subscriptions
  • Homepage now leads with Horizon, Recursion and Terra, which have no public price
  • Only 4.5 on G2 from 48 reviews, with no Capterra or TrustRadius ratings found

Our Verdict

Labelbox earns its Best in Pricing placement because it is the only one of the three vendors reviewed that publishes numbers. Its Free plan includes 500 LBUs per month, Starter is a fixed $0.10 per LBU with no user or project limits, and labeling services start at $10 per hour. Scale AI’s site points visitors to a demo call and shows no pricing or free trial on the pages we reviewed, and Snorkel AI’s homepage mentions no pricing or free trial. That lets a small team size a pilot before any sales call. The evidence is real but not strong. Published pricing covers only the Free and Starter tiers, the per-unit rate is stated on the docs and calculator and not on the pricing page, Enterprise is custom, and Foundry inference, SSO and HIPAA are extra. Snorkel’s own pricing page could not be loaded, so we cannot say it has none, and we did not compare quoted prices. A low per-row rate also says nothing about label quality. Run a paid pilot, price your data types in writing and ask what the Enterprise LBU rate is.

Resources

Resources & Documentation

Detailed materials for deeper evaluation

Pricing Page

Free, Starter and Enterprise tiers, features and starting labeling rates.

Pricing Calculator

LBU rates by product and the $0.10 Starter rate.

Billing Documentation

How Catalog, Annotate and Model units are consumed and billed.

Limits Documentation

Tier limits for users, projects, data rows and API requests.

Security Overview

SOC 2 Type II, HIPAA program, encryption and data hosting options.

Customer Stories

Case studies from Google Cloud, Meta, Walmart, P&G, Intuitive and others.

Google Cloud Vertex AI Case Study

How LLM evaluation by human experts runs inside Vertex AI.

Alignerr

The expert network behind Labelbox labeling services.

What to Know

What to Know Before Buying

Key considerations for evaluating Labelbox
  • Custom ontologies and review workflows take design effort before labeling begins
  • Managed labeling needs clear instructions and a quality plan
  • Labelbox offers a Python SDK, an API with rate limits from 1,500 to 20,000 requests per minute by tier, and custom endpoints such as Vertex AI and Databricks on Enterprise. Its docs list 164+ app connections for agents, so confirm your storage and model stack.
  • Starter and Enterprise have no cap on users or projects, while Free is capped at 30 users and 50 projects. Free and Education tiers cap data rows at 10 million.
  • Foundry inference carries separate costs, and SSO, HIPAA and labeling services are billed apart from subscriptions. Skipped rows count as labeled, video is charged once as a whole, and Catalog storage recurs monthly.
  • Free users can still export data at the limit. Ground truth annotation import is capped at 10,000 on Free, 2 million on Starter and 10 million on Enterprise.
  • Usage is billed monthly based on actual consumption, with no payment required before signing up. Enterprise terms and add-on details are set with your account manager and are not published.

Alternatives

Compare Alternatives

See how Labelbox stacks up against competitors

Scale AI describes itself as delivering data, evaluations and outcomes to AI labs, governments and Fortune 500 companies, and says 90% of leading generative AI model builders are powered by it. Its site sends buyers to a demo call with no prices or free trial, while Labelbox publishes a Free plan and a $0.10 per LBU Starter rate. Scale lists SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, DoD IL4 and FedRAMP High on its security page.

Snorkel AI describes itself as building expert-curated training data, benchmarks and evaluation environments for high-stakes domains, with SOC 2 and HIPAA logos on its site. Its homepage mentions no pricing or free trial and offers dataset samples and conversations with a data researcher, while Labelbox lists self-serve plans and rates.

Get Started

Ready to Get Started?

Get personalized recommendations from top 3 vendors

By submitting, you agree to receive recommendations from verified vendors. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.

Are You a Software Vendor?

List your company and get in front of decision-makers actively searching for solutions.

FAQ’s

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about Labelbox

Free includes 500 LBUs per month, and Starter is $0.10 per LBU. Labeling services start at $10 per hour, and Enterprise pricing is custom with volume discounts.

An LBU is a normalized unit of data used across Catalog, Annotate and Model. Annotate costs 1 LBU per labeled row once, Catalog is 1 LBU per 60 images per month, and Model is 1 LBU per 5 rows.

Yes, the Free plan includes 500 LBUs per month, up to 30 users and 50 projects, and community support. At the limit you can export data but cannot add more.

Yes, on-demand and fully managed services are offered, starting at $10 per hour on the pricing page, with price depending on task complexity. Alignerr is the expert network behind them.

Labelbox says it maintains SOC 2 Type II certification and a HIPAA compliance program, encrypts data with AES-256 and uses TLS 1.2 or later. It does not claim ISO 27001 certification, and its security page does not specify data residency.

Foundry inference, labeling services, SSO and HIPAA compliance are billed separately from subscriptions. Confirm each one in writing.

Labelbox publishes a Free plan and a $0.10 per LBU Starter rate, while Scale’s site routes to a demo call and Snorkel’s homepage mentions no pricing, with neither showing a price on the pages we reviewed.

Common alternatives include Scale AI, Snorkel AI, Appen, SuperAnnotate and Roboflow, which differ in whether they sell software, managed labeling workforces or expert data for frontier labs.