In 2026 several outlets reported that closed startups were selling their work archives (chat, email, documents and code) as AI training data. Here is what was reported, the prices one market participant cites, what people objected to, and what it means for a company that is still operating.
Last checked: 7 October 2026. Prices are attributed to the company that cited them.
Who covered it, and the core of the story.
On April 16, 2026, Forbes published "AI's New Training Data: Your Old Work Slacks And Emails." Fast Company and Gizmodo also covered the same development: startups that had shut down were selling their internal archives for use as AI training data.
The logic is simple. A company that has closed still owns years of records: Slack workspaces, email, shared drives, ticket systems and code repositories. Those records show how people actually worked, which is what AI developers say they want. For the founders, an archive that would otherwise sit unused can return some money to the company at the end.
The headline itself tells you where the tension sits. "Your old work Slacks and emails" is written from the point of view of the former employee, whose messages are in the archive and who has no say in the sale once the company is gone.
The stories also showed what kinds of records were changing hands. Slack and email were the headline, but the prices Troveo cites include code repositories, priced per repository. That matches what buyer programs list for running companies: communication tools, work-tracking and support systems, sales and finance records, and code with history. In both markets, the asset is the record of real work, not a customer list.
What the closure market lacks is everything around the data. There is no one left to explain why a decision was made, no current team to grade examples or answer follow-up questions, and no ongoing business to keep producing records. Those gaps help explain why a company that is still operating should not use closure-market figures as its benchmark.
Two different markets. Treat both columns as published or cited figures, not offers.
| Figure | Amount | Who says so | Context |
|---|---|---|---|
| Code repository | about $5,000 each | Troveo | Closure market, per repository |
| Archive deal | roughly $10,000 to $100,000 | Troveo | Closure market, per company archive |
| micro1 Enterprise Data Partnership | "$100k+ qualified" to "$1M+ highly unique" | micro1's own page | Running companies, 30+ employees |
| Mode company data | "$100K-$5M" | Mode's own page | Running companies, 20+ US office employees |
| Grepped | "$20K-$5M" | Grepped's own page | Any vertical |
Sources: Troveo figures as cited in 2026 closure-market coverage; buyer ranges as published on micro1.ai, data.mode.inc and grepped.ai, checked 7 October 2026. Published ranges are "up to" style ranges, not averages.
How to use these figures: treat Troveo's numbers as a floor for what a small, finished archive can fetch, and the published program ranges as the band a qualifying running company is reviewed against. Neither is a quote. Where your company lands depends on how many years of records you have, how connected your systems are, how much must be excluded, and how many buyers you ask. Nobody can price your data without seeing a manifest and a sample.
One documented objection, and the questions the coverage raises.
The clearest on-record objection in 2026 came from a larger case. Reuters reported on August 19, 2026 that a bankruptcy court delayed approval of the Spirit Airlines data sale to Google after the Association of Flight Attendants raised employee privacy concerns. Details are in our Spirit Airlines case file.
After its rival offer for the Spirit data, micro1 held a session with former Spirit employees and said it pursues "non-sensitive, non-consumer data" with third-party de-identification. That is a statement by the buyer, not an independent finding.
Direct messages and personal email threads often contain health, family and HR matters that have nothing to do with the work.
Former staff usually learn about a sale from the news. In a running company the same people are still on payroll.
Staff wrote the messages; the company receives the money. Whether employees should share in it is a fair question to settle before signing.
The three cards above are the general questions these stories raise, not quotes from named people.
The closure market is a warning about process as much as a price signal.
The buyer programs publish how they handle this. micro1's data partnership page says scope is agreed in writing, sensitive and confidential information is scrubbed, originals are deleted after processing, and the company keeps ownership of its underlying data. Mode's page says it buys "an agreed copy," originals stay with the company, and it de-identifies before onward delivery. Those are their published statements; your contract is what binds them.
If you are in fact winding down, read selling data when shutting down for what to export first and the board and creditor questions. If email is the bulk of your archive, our page on email archives covers why customer threads are the hardest part.
From a niche closure market to a court fight over an airline's archive. Each row names its source.
| When | What happened | Source |
|---|---|---|
| April 16, 2026 | Forbes publishes "AI's New Training Data: Your Old Work Slacks And Emails," on closed startups selling work archives | Forbes |
| 2026 | Fast Company and Gizmodo cover the same trend; Troveo's per-archive and per-repository prices circulate | Fast Company, Gizmodo; prices cited by Troveo |
| August 2026 | Google agrees to pay $10 million for Spirit Airlines' internal data in bankruptcy proceedings | ABC News, TIME and others |
| August 19, 2026 | Court delays the Spirit approval hearing after the flight attendants' union objects over employee privacy | Reuters |
| September 3, 2026 | micro1 files notice of a $12.5 million competing bid for the Spirit data | Stretto report, chapter11cases.com, Sept 13, 2026 |
| September 13, 2026 | Six objections and an ombudsman report on file; hearing set for September 30 | Stretto report |
| October 7, 2026 | Outcome of the Spirit hearing not confirmed when we checked | Our check, 7 Oct 2026 |
Read in order, the rows show the market moving up in size and in scrutiny. The spring stories were about small, closed companies and five-figure archive deals. By late summer, the same idea, selling the internal record of how people worked, had reached an eight-figure bankruptcy sale with unions, contract counterparties and a privacy ombudsman involved. The objections grew with the stakes.
For an owner, the practical takeaway is that the question "can we sell our old Slack and email?" now comes with a public history. Your employees may have read these stories. Your clients may have too. Expect questions from both, and have answers ready before a buyer asks for a sample.
The closure market is not your market, but its lessons scale. Published minimums are quoted from each program's page, checked 7 October 2026.
You meet Mode's 20+ and micro1's 30+ published minimums, so you are not limited to closure-style pricing. Your risk is concentration: in a small company a single Slack workspace holds everyone's work and everyone's private asides. Start with public channels only, exclude direct messages and HR, and check whether any client contract restricts what you can share. A short, honest note to staff before you apply costs nothing and avoids the "we read about it in the news" reaction the closure stories describe.
Your archive spans several teams and systems, which is what buyers say they value: connected histories across chat, tickets, CRM and documents. It also means more people whose messages are included and more client contracts to check. Assign one owner for the project, agree the exclusion list with HR and legal, and keep a written record of what was excluded and why. That record is your answer if an employee or client later asks what was shared.
At this scale you may have works councils or unions (in some countries), formal privacy officers and many client agreements with data clauses. The Spirit objection shows how organized employee groups respond. Bring them in early, define the scope narrowly, and require de-identification, deletion and audit terms in writing. Larger datasets may also qualify for direct lab programs, which makes collecting more than one offer realistic.
Drawn from the issues the 2026 stories raised, written as general guidance rather than claims about any company.
An admin export can include private channels and direct messages. Decide the scope first, then export only what is in scope. It is easier to add a channel later than to explain why private messages were shared.
The objections in 2026 came from people who found out late. In a running company the same people are still on payroll and will hear about it either way. Tell them first.
Troveo's $10,000 to $100,000 per archive describes closed companies. Running companies that meet published minimums are reviewed against different ranges. Do not accept a closure-market number without checking the programs.
Slack and email are full of client names, files and decisions. Client contracts may forbid sharing them at all. Check confidentiality clauses before you scope, not after a buyer flags it.
Practitioners say never send a full dataset before price. A manifest and a small, redacted sample are enough for a buyer to make an offer.
Buyers publish privacy statements, and those are useful. What binds them is your contract: scope of use, de-identification, deletion of originals and of the copy, and audit rights.
None of these mistakes is about the buyer. They are all decisions the seller makes before the first sample leaves the company. That is the main difference between a closed startup and a running one: the running company still has time, people and leverage to get those decisions right.
Yes, according to reporting in 2026. Forbes covered it on April 16, 2026 in "AI's New Training Data: Your Old Work Slacks And Emails," and Fast Company and Gizmodo also covered the trend of closed startups selling Slack, email and other work archives for AI training.
Troveo cites roughly $10,000 to $100,000 per archive deal and about $5,000 per code repository in this closure market. Those are Troveo's figures, not a market average, and they are well below the ranges buyer programs publish for running companies.
No outlet we cite gives a reason. Our reading: a closed company usually cannot help scope the data, answer follow-up questions or keep producing records, and many closed startups are small. Buyer programs publish minimums such as 20 or 30 employees and describe running operations.
That depends on the law that applies, the company's policies and the contract, and it is a question for a lawyer. What the 2026 stories show is that people notice. In the Spirit Airlines case, Reuters reported on August 19, 2026 that a union objection over employee privacy delayed the court hearing.
Decide early what is excluded (direct messages, HR channels, anything personal), tell staff before a deal rather than after, insist on de-identification in writing, and get more than one offer. A running company also has more to sell than an archive: a live, connected work history.
Forbes published "AI's New Training Data: Your Old Work Slacks And Emails" on April 16, 2026. Fast Company and Gizmodo also covered the trend in 2026. The Spirit Airlines bankruptcy data sale, covered by ABC News, TIME, CNN and Reuters in August 2026, brought the same question to a much larger company.
micro1's data partnership page says scope is agreed in writing, sensitive and confidential information is scrubbed, originals are deleted after processing, no customer information is exposed, and the company keeps ownership of its underlying data. Mode's page says it buys an agreed copy, originals stay with the company, and it de-identifies before onward delivery. Your contract is what binds either of them.
The data is similar; the situation is not. A closed company sells a one-time archive with nobody left to consult. A running company licenses a scoped copy, can exclude channels, can tell its staff, can answer the buyer's questions and can negotiate with more than one buyer. That gives the seller far more control over both price and terms.
Compare your team size, systems and country with each program's published rules. Nothing is stored, and no email is needed.