Rightmark vs Shaip: a 2026 head-to-head comparison

Start with the collection you need and the work remaining before your team can use it.

Check fee terms, licensing scope and project availability against the proposal. A sample request is an assessment step, with supply and permitted uses still to be confirmed.

First establish what an accepted delivery looks like, then price the work and permissions needed to get there. The questions below move from sample quality through cost, rights, control and delivery responsibilities, ending with the evidence each proposal can show.

1. Will the data pass our acceptance checks?

A folder can contain the right kind of files and still be unusable for your task. The owner needs the same clarity as the buyer: preparing the whole archive makes little sense if only one part can meet the specification.

Consider an illustrative procurement exercise: you need conversational audio with speaker labels and transcripts. A recording hour, a speech hour after silence is removed, and an accepted hour with the required annotations are different units. Decide which one the quote buys before multiplying it by a price. Then inspect how the sample was selected. A clean excerpt chosen by the supplier tells you less about the rest of the archive than a sample covering the conditions your model must handle.

The distinction also applies to images. Shaip's fashion dataset page describes RAW photography. Ask to inspect the labels you need alongside the images; an image license alone does not establish their inclusion.

Use this acceptance card with either proposal. These are fields to agree, not provider defaults:

• Unit: what counts toward the purchased quantity, including treatment of silence, duplicates or unusable files.
• Sample: how it is selected and which languages, conditions or archive periods it represents.
• Included files: source material, labels, transcripts, metadata and their schemas.
• Exclusions: missing permissions, unavailable fields and known gaps.
• Test: who checks which properties, against which agreed tolerances.
• Decision: who accepts the batch, how long review takes and what happens to disputed items.

A dated Rightmark qualification record illustrates why this comes before price. In the record observed on October 27, an audio owner had reported recording permission, but consent documents and representative-sample review were still needed before repricing a qualified subset. That was a submitted collection awaiting evidence, not an accepted delivery or a completed license.

Bottom line: Shaip fits a project that needs collection and annotation commissioned together. A Rightmark sample deserves consideration when the information already exists in a private archive. In either case, the accepted unit and the sample result decide whether the offer fits; the acquisition route cannot settle quality by itself.

What to ask both: “Show us a representative sample, the labels and metadata included in the price, and the written rule for accepting or rejecting the batch.” Treat an answer limited to total files or recorded hours as incomplete.

2. What does the buyer pay, and what does the owner receive?

The buyer needs the full cost of the usable delivery. The owner needs to know what reaches them and which event makes it payable. Putting those figures in one percentage hides who is paying for preparation and what the percentage is calculated from.

Rightmark's published standard-license wording is specific: “We take nothing from your payout on standard licenses: the buyer pays our fee on top.” That protects the owner's agreed payout from a Rightmark fee deduction on that route. It does not mean the owner receives all the money the buyer spends. The homepage also assigns extraction, scrubbing and transfer costs to buyers. Premium and bespoke deals have a separate model: owners retain 75% to 85%, agreed in writing before the deal. Re-check these terms before publication.

For Shaip data licensing, get a quote tied to the proposed collection and usage rights. Its catalog pricing explanation makes type, volume, customization and rights part of the price. Its contributor terms describe payment for services performed. A contributor payment is therefore the wrong denominator for comparing the return on an archive an owner already holds.

I would send each supplier the same blank quote worksheet. Where a charge is bundled, mark it “included in line X” so it is counted once.

The owner's calculation belongs on a separate sheet:

For the buyer, divide the complete agreed cost by the quantity that passes the acceptance test, using the same unit on both offers. For the owner, compare the proceeds with the rights being granted. An exclusive license can prevent another use or license during its term, so the highest headline payment is not a complete decision. Do not assign that restriction a made-up value; identify the opportunity it would prevent and decide whether it matters to you.

The Rightmark Price Index helps distinguish units and the evidence behind market figures. An indicative range from that index is neither a Shaip quote nor an offer for your collection.

Bottom line: Rightmark gives an existing asset owner a clear published fee starting point. A buyer still needs both itemized offers: a private-data license and a collection engagement can contain different amounts of work. Neither public price description establishes which is cheaper for the same accepted result.

What to ask both: “For this asset, use and accepted quantity, show the buyer's total, the owner's or contributor's compensation basis, every additional charge and the payment trigger.” A per-hour figure is not comparable until you know whether rejected material counts.

3. What may we use, and whose rights must be cleared?

The buyer needs permission for the intended model use; the owner needs to understand the promise attached to their signature. An ownership document, a sample NDA and the full dataset license answer different questions.

For a company archive, Rightmark's ownership pack starts with the licensing entity, its authority, a scope note and a system inventory. The practical benefit is being able to connect the proposed license to actual records: which entity owns them, which systems hold them, and which parts are excluded. A general statement that the company owns an archive is insufficient if the export mixes records from an excluded entity or a restricted customer relationship.

I would ask for a permission schedule beside the file manifest. Name the collection and version; the intended model task; permitted evaluation, training and commercial uses; exclusions; territory; term; sublicensing; treatment of derived material; and end-of-term obligations. This is a request for explicit agreement, not a claim that either provider grants every permission on the list.

Rightmark's Trust page says owners retain ownership. It also states meaningful code-route qualifications: some agreements can permit a licensing partner's own use, sublicensing or derived datasets, and some leave the owner's indemnity for ownership claims uncapped. Those provisions belong in the owner's decision before signature. Retaining the original repository does not tell you how broad the granted license is.

Shaip describes commercial licensing documentation and consent collection. Ask for the documentation covering the particular dataset. Its website-material license concerns viewing website content; it is not the agreement to rely on for a commercial training-data purchase.

Sample access needs its own answer. Rightmark limits buyer-portal material to deciding whether to license the described data. Do not assume that permission includes an embedding run, a benchmark or a training experiment.

Bottom line: Rightmark's route-specific documentation is useful when the purchase depends on an existing owner's authority. Shaip also provides a licensing route; permission is not a Rightmark-only feature. Choose the proposal whose actual documents cover your intended use and the files you expect to receive.

What to ask both: “Which document permits this model use, who grants it, what third-party material is excluded, and what happens to copies and derived material when the term ends?” A generic consent statement or sample NDA should not be the entire answer.

4. What can each side approve before the data is used?

An owner can approve a licensing program without retaining a veto over every later buyer. A buyer can approve a sample without agreeing to every subsequent change in collection or labeling. Both need the approval point named precisely.

Rightmark's code exception is important enough to read literally. Signing can authorize later non-exclusive licenses without further owner approval, and withdrawal applies to code that has not yet been licensed. A buyer's legal team being able to identify the licensor under NDA is a different control. It does not mean the owner is introduced to each final lab or gets another opportunity to say no.

For commissioned work, I would make the approved pilot and its instructions the reference for the next delivery. Shaip's training-data page describes aligning guidelines and quality targets, then delivering a sample or pilot before scaling. Use that stage to settle ambiguous cases, not just to admire a tidy sample.

Suppose a labeling instruction changes midway through a collection. In this illustrative planning exercise, the original batch remains attached to the old instruction version. The proposed change records the new label, which files it affects, whether old files need rework, the approver and the cost. That gives both parties a decision they can actually make: accept the change, narrow it or leave the existing batch alone. Ask for this process from whichever supplier is doing the work; a platform feature alone does not create a contractual approval right.

The same discipline helps an owner. Approving a connection to one system should specify the fields, period and exclusions rather than silently widening the licensed archive. Revoking a connection and ending rights already granted are also separate events. Check each in the agreement.

Bottom line: Rightmark publishes concrete owner approval boundaries, including the code exception. Shaip's configurable collection workflow suits a buyer shaping new material. The better arrangement is the one whose written approval stages preserve the decisions you need to keep.

What to ask both: “What exactly do the owner and buyer approve, which uses can proceed after the first signature, and who can stop or change work before the next delivery?” Ask for a decision, a person and a stage whenever the answer is simply “you stay in control.”

5. Can they supply the data our project needs?

A modality is only the beginning of a specification. Existing records may contain the behavior you need, while a project requiring a particular device or recording environment may need a new collection. Owners deserve an intake answer before preparing an archive outside the provider's current scope.

Shaip's collection service offers capture tailored to devices and environments. If those conditions are essential and absent from an existing sample, collection is the work to commission. Searching for a larger archive will not necessarily supply the missing condition.

Healthcare is another direct distinction. Shaip advertises medical datasets. Rightmark does not currently accept health data, including patient records, medical imaging or veterinary records, and it excludes data about children. A health category description on Rightmark's site does not change that intake boundary. An owner of patient records should not interpret this comparison's appraisal CTA as an invitation to submit them.

Rightmark is worth considering when the useful information is an existing private history: linked tickets and documents from a company, for example, rather than newly staged material. Its buyer offer seeks owners who have never listed their data. That gives the buyer a reason to describe the missing collection, but it does not establish that a matching archive is already available.

For either route, split the specification into what the current sample demonstrates, what needs additional work and what remains unavailable. A language name can conceal several unmet requirements: the relevant dialect, speaker arrangement, dates and acoustic setting. Make the supplier answer for that combination. An owner can use the same exercise to identify a useful subset rather than describing every stored file as eligible supply.

Bottom line: Shortlist Shaip for healthcare within its advertised scope and for data that must be collected under chosen conditions. Start with Rightmark when an eligible owner's existing private material is the reason for the purchase. Confirm the sample before extending either recommendation to your particular project.

What to ask both: “Which parts of this specification can you show in an existing sample, which need new work, and which are outside your current offer?” A catalog total cannot answer whether the required conditions are covered.

6. Who does the preparation and delivery work?

Finding promising material does not finish the job. Someone must document authority, prepare the export, handle masking, produce any labels and check the handoff. A buyer needs to know which tasks it is paying a supplier to perform; an owner needs to know which still require its own administrators.

For an archive, the first owner contribution is often a reliable description of what exists. An inventory needs the systems, dates, responsible administrators and exclusions. The person preparing an export then needs that same scope. Otherwise, the commercial description and the delivered folder can drift apart before the buyer has checked a single record.

Rightmark coordinates transfer from owner systems through approved access or exports. Its ownership pack and data card organize the licensing evidence; they are not a promise that every archive includes a new set of annotations. The buyer should make any extra preparation an explicit deliverable.

Shaip's annotation offering provides a separate basis for discussing labeling work. The fact that a supplier offers a service still does not mean every catalog quote includes it. Ask which label types, review and output files are in this order.

Before committing, complete a handoff plan with a named responsible party for each line:

“Supplier” is not enough for the last column. Identify who can settle a mismatch between the label specification and the delivered file, and who can authorize a corrected export. For the owner, check whether the quoted preparation assumes staff time or permissions that your team cannot provide. For the buyer, check whether your ingestion pipeline can read the sample output before commissioning the remaining batch.

Bottom line: Shaip has the clearer service fit when collection and preparation need one delivery program. Rightmark fits an existing asset whose remaining work is licensing evidence and coordinated transfer, with additional preparation explicitly scoped. Neither model establishes a universal delivery time.

What to ask both: “For every step from sample to accepted delivery, who supplies the input, who does the work, what is included and what falls to our team?” A promise of usable data needs named responsibility for labels, validation and the final export.

7. What evidence supports the choice for this project?

A buyer needs proof relevant to the task being commissioned. An owner needs evidence for the proposed economics. A published workflow, a supplier's account of a project and a confirmed payment establish different things.

Shaip's conversational-AI case study describes a multilingual audio-and-transcript delivery for an unnamed cloud-based voice-service provider. It is a useful example of the collection work Shaip reports doing. The account is supplier-authored; it does not identify the customer or establish how much your model would improve.

Rightmark's documentation gives you a different kind of evidence: what it asks the owner to supply, how the route's ownership pack is organized and what the buyer can inspect. The illustrative pack is explicitly an example. It is not a completed customer's file, and an in-preparation lot is not evidence of an accepted delivery.

Ask for the sample that resembles your purchase and the record showing what happened to it. For a delivery claim, that means the specified files and acceptance result. For an owner-return claim, it means the agreed compensation basis and evidence of the payment event. Neither has to expose another party's confidential records to be useful, but an anonymized example must still say what was verified.

Bottom line: Shaip has a published managed-collection account to inspect. Rightmark's case here rests on its sourcing and licensing process, then the evidence for the actual asset offered. Favor the proposal that can demonstrate the material, permissions and acceptance plan you need, rather than borrowing confidence from an unrelated project.

What to ask both: “Can you show a permitted example of a comparable delivery, what was accepted, and how the result or owner payment was established?” An illustrative pack, forecast or contributor wage is not proof of an archive licensing outcome.

• Find owners who have not listed their collections. Our buyer sourcing offer starts with the material the AI team needs and seeks the owners who hold it. That is useful when the missing input is a private history rather than a dataset already found in a catalog; matching supply still has to be established.
• Separate the standard owner payout from our fee. On standard licenses, the buyer pays Rightmark's fee on top of the owner's agreed payout. Premium and bespoke deals instead use the published 75% to 85% owner share, agreed in writing; compare preparation charges within the buyer's total as well.
• Assemble evidence for the particular asset. Code calls for IP documents and Repo Check evidence, company archives for authority and an inventory, and audio or video for releases naming AI training. The ownership pack tells an owner what to assemble and gives the buyer's legal team documents to inspect under NDA.
• Begin appraisal without taking the archive. The appraisal stage needs answers about the material, not files or passwords. Pre-signing review then uses reports and representative scrubbed samples under NDA, with sample-use permission kept separate from the eventual license.
• Put approval limits in view before signature. Owners approve the agreement and its scope, but code-route signing can authorize later non-exclusive licensing without another approval. Some code routes also permit sublicensing, a partner's own use or derived datasets, so the useful question is what the proposed agreement permits.

Choose Shaip when you need a new collection built around chosen participants, devices or environments. You are purchasing the creation and preparation of the missing material. Have the supplier demonstrate a pilot, agree the labels and acceptance test, then decide how much work to commission.

A matching catalog sample is another good reason to begin there. If the files meet the specification and the agreement covers your intended use, private sourcing adds no inherent benefit. Do not commission a search merely because an unlisted collection sounds more distinctive. Ask what relevant information it would add to the task you are actually trying to solve.

Healthcare also belongs on Shaip's side of this shortlist, subject to the particular dataset and agreement. Rightmark's current health-data exclusion makes it unsuitable for that requirement.

For an individual considering paid collection tasks, assess the contributor engagement on its own payment basis. For an organization licensing an existing archive, request an asset-owner agreement. Those are different transactions; an attractive service proposition for buyers does not by itself establish the proceeds an archive owner will receive.

Choose Rightmark when the value lies in an eligible private collection that already exists. For the buyer, that might mean a history of work across a company's systems that has never been listed. Start by describing the contents and intended use, then examine the proposed sample, data card and ownership evidence. Price additional preparation before treating the archive as a finished training set.

For the owner, the reason to start is concrete: you can explore the licensing route without handing over raw files at appraisal, and compare the rights and proceeds before signing. The standard fee sits on the buyer's side of the transaction. Premium and bespoke economics differ, and neither route removes the need to assess exclusivity, warranties, downstream use and the payment trigger.

This is especially relevant when the buyer's legal team needs to understand who can license the existing material. Rightmark makes the licensor and title documents available under NDA. That evidence supports a purchase decision; it does not replace the buyer's acceptance test or turn missing labels into an included service.

For code owners, keep the approval boundary in the decision: signing can authorize later non-exclusive licenses. For all owners, health and children's-data exclusions still apply. An appraisal or data request is the next assessment step, not a promise of a buyer, matching supply or a better price than another written offer.

Consider a third option if you already hold suitable, permitted data and only need cleaning, labeling or evaluation. Price that preparation against your existing collection before purchasing another license. If your own archive has unresolved rights or an inseparable confidential component, first establish what useful subset you can actually authorize; changing intermediaries does not supply the missing authority.

Relevant reading: Rightmark vs Defined.ai: compare data licensing routes considers another private-asset licensing and dataset-services choice.

Buy the work your project needs: finding and licensing an existing private collection, obtaining a matching catalog dataset, or commissioning new collection and preparation. Take the same specification and the “What to ask both” questions to each shortlisted supplier. Ask for the included files, rights, work, charges and acceptance terms in writing before comparing the totals.

If you own the collection, run a separate check on the agreement's scope and your proceeds. Follow-on licensing, exclusivity and payment conditions can matter as much as the headline amount. The right offer is the one you can evaluate on those terms and the actual material, rather than on an assumed promise attached to either brand.

Explore licensing for data you already own. Describe an eligible private collection through Rightmark's appraisal. It uses your answers to show an indicative range and possible routes, without requiring files or system access.

Appraise your data