Contractors running 2–3 AI training platforms simultaneously need a tracking system. Without one, you can't see which platform is actually performing best. Here's the practical setup.
The four metrics that matter
- Hours worked per platform per week.
- Gross income per platform per week.
- Effective hourly rate (gross / hours).
- Quality score trajectory per platform.
Anything beyond these four is overengineering. Most successful contractors track these in a simple Notion table or Google Sheet.
The minimum viable spreadsheet
Columns:
- Date (week starting)
- Platform
- Hours worked
- Gross USD earned
- Effective hourly (auto-calculated)
- Quality score (current rolling)
- Notes (any unusual events)
One row per platform per week. After 12 weeks, the patterns are obvious.
What the data tells you
Three patterns emerge after 8–12 weeks:
- Effective rate divergence. Sometimes one platform looks similar on paper but pays meaningfully more per actual hour worked. Move hours to the higher-rate platform.
- Hour availability ceilings. One platform may consistently let you book 18 hours; another caps you at 10. Plan accordingly.
- Quality drift signals. If quality scores drop on one platform, the spreadsheet shows you exactly when — usually 2–4 weeks before you'd notice qualitatively.
What to do quarterly
Every 3 months, review the data and ask:
- Which platform pays the highest effective rate? Allocate more hours there.
- Which platform has consistently available hours? That's your stable primary.
- Are any platforms underperforming? Drop them or rotate down.
- What's my total trajectory? Income trending up, flat, or down.
The dashboard view
If you want more sophistication, add a summary sheet with:
- Year-to-date totals.
- Average effective rate by platform.
- Hours percentages by platform.
- Quality score trends.
This takes 30 minutes to set up once. Auto-updates as you fill weekly data.
Tracking taxes
Same spreadsheet should track:
- Cumulative gross USD earned.
- Tax rate estimate (US: ~32%, UK: ~30%, India: ~12% under 44ADA).
- Reserved tax amount auto-calculated.
Per payment received, transfer the reserved % to a separate tax account. By tax filing deadline, the money is already there.
Bottom line
A simple weekly spreadsheet (5 minutes/week to update) reveals which platform is actually best for your specific situation, catches quality-score drift early, and forces tax discipline. Most contractors who track for 12+ weeks recover 10–20% of income through reallocation.