Content moderation salary (remote, US)

Common questions about content moderation pay

• What's the average pay for a remote content moderation job?

  Across 156 verified listings, the median is $19/hour (about $39,520/year at full time). The bottom 25% earn $14/hr; the top 25% earn $26/hr.

• Does content moderation pay differ by city?

  Most cushy WFH roles pay the same nationally regardless of where the worker lives. A small minority of employers (mostly tech and high-cost-of-living based) adjust by metro — those rates are reflected in our top-paying-cities table above.

• Is content moderation work upsetting?

  Most cushy content-moderation work today is benign — search-quality rating, AI training data labeling, LLM response evaluation. The minority involving distressing user-generated content (typical for social-media trust-and-safety roles) is clearly labeled in our listings and pays a premium of $4–$8/hr above standard. We exclude trust-and-safety roles handling CSAM, terrorism content, or gore from this category entirely; those are specialized roles with mental-health support requirements and shouldn't be sold as "cushy."

• Are Appen and Telus AI legitimate?

  Yes — both are large publicly-traded AI data companies (Appen on the ASX, Telus on the NYSE). Pay is reliable when work is available, but project assignments are intermittent — you may go weeks between active projects. Both run rolling 1099 contractor programs in the US, no relocation, no minimum hours, no shift schedule. Glassdoor ratings hover around 3.4–3.6, reflecting the project-availability variance rather than pay reliability.