Source code · Legacy code: COBOL, mainframe and old enterprise systems · Updated 30 Oct 2026

Do AI companies buy legacy COBOL and mainframe code, and what does it pay?

AIData.Broker represents the companies and people that hold legacy code when they sell to AI labs: we value what they hold against public prices, describe it without their name to every buyer that takes it at the same time and help negotiate the terms. Our fee is 12% of the first $250,000 a sale pays, and nothing if no sale closes.

Codebases in COBOL, old Java and .NET, with their history and the business rules they run. Labs train models to read and migrate such systems, and almost none of it is public.

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Prices on record
4

offered to holders, asking prices off the shelf, paid to the people who make it

Who holds it
Banks, insurers and payroll firms, Enterprise software vendors, System integrators with their own products
Who has paid, offered or listed
Turing, Infobay.AI, Opendatabay, Mercor

The short answer · figures from the market's records, last reviewed 30 Oct 2026

Do AI companies buy legacy COBOL and mainframe code, and what does it pay?

Yes. Turing prices a legacy private codebase (COBOL, .NET, Java) at $10K to $100K+ depending on complexity, and Mercor pays $200 per hour for experts who design migration tasks from such code for a lab. One buyer on Freelancer offered only $1,500 to $3,000 for a large COBOL codebase with its history, so a second bid matters. History, tests, a working build and the business rules the code runs raise the price; code written for a client is first the client's to license.

What buyers have paid, offered or asked for legacy code

The whole price board

Every price in the market's records about legacy code, each with its source and the day it was read. Open a row for the source's own words.

4 public prices

  • Licence to one proprietary, human-authored COBOL codebase of 500,000 to 1,000,000+ lines with Git or commit history (accounting, ERP, payroll or banking engine), for an enterprise AI code-benchmarking project

    An unnamed buyer on Freelancer (68 bids; closed). The same text and budget were posted again on 12 Oct 2026 (projects 40763746 and 40763922, the latter naming banking, insurance, airline and ERP systems), counted once. Against Turing Lazarus's $10K to $100K+ for a legacy codebase, this buyer prices a million lines of COBOL at a few thousand dollars.

    Source codeOffered to holdersOct 2026The payer's own page

    Freelancer.com project 40762274, 'Licensing Proprietary COBOL Codebases'

    $1,500 to $3,000

    per codebase of 500k to 1M+ lines

    $2,121 per repository

  • Legacy private codebase (COBOL, .NET, Java) licensed to Turing for AI training

    Turing's own published buy-side price guide for Project Lazarus; the top is open-ended and the final price depends on complexity.

    Source codeOffered to holdersMar 2026A vendor's published price guide

    Turing (AGI Advance newsletter, Project Lazarus)

    $10K to $100K

    per codebase

  • Legacy software codebases across 20+ industries (400+ codebases, 204M+ lines, 420K+ commits in the full set), price for an initial batch of 20 million lines

    Asking price on the Opendatabay marketplace (USD since 1 Oct 2026, converted from GBP at $1 = GBP 0.76); seller-stated volumes and rights, not verified by us. The repository count in the batch is not stated, so no per-repository figure. Listed 4 Aug 2026.

    Source codeAsking prices off the shelfOct 2026A catalogue or marketplace listing

    Opendatabay, 400+ Legacy Codebases Dataset (Infobay.AI)

    $196K

    per initial batch of 20 million lines of code

  • Legacy codebase migration expert designing and grading migration tasks for a frontier AI lab

    The top hourly rate on the board for code work; legacy migration (COBOL, old Java and .NET) is also what Turing pays most for as codebases.

    Source codePaid to the people who make itAug 2026The payer's own page

    Mercor job board, Legacy codebase migration expert designing and grading migration tasks for a frontier AI lab

    $200

    per hour

Where this data comes from, and who lists it

The whole supply map
Raises the price
  • Commit history and tests
  • A build that still runs
  • The business rules it runs: payroll, banking, insurance
  • Documentation and migration notes
The rights question

Code a company wrote for itself is its to license. Code written for a client is often the client's under the contract, and third-party libraries and vendor code inside it keep their own licences.

The guide on what else to settle

Who has bought, offered or listed legacy code

Buyers that take source code, and what each publishes

Kind of data
Kind of buyer

17 buyers taking source code, largest published figure first

More about source code
All source code: rates, buyers and rights

Hold legacy code? A valuation takes about two minutes: it says what buyers pay and whether we would run the sale. Prices last read 30 Oct 2026.

Value your legacy codeHow a sale works

In this topic

What sells

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  9. GuideSelling a company's email archive for AI training: exports, consent and priceYes, a company can license its own email to AI buyers. How Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 let you export a whole organisation's mail, the deadlines when a subscription lapses, the law on staff and customer messages, and what buyers pay.
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  13. GuideSelling Jira and Linear issue history for AI trainingYes, a company can license its Jira or Linear issue history to AI buyers. It is valued when each issue links to the code that closed it. What each export keeps, what buyers ask for, and what it fetches.
  14. GuideSelling design files and product history for AI training: Figma and beyondYes, a company can license its Figma files and design history to AI buyers. What buyers value, what Figma lets you export, client work, fonts and other assets that are not yours, who owns the designs, and the steps.
  15. GuideSelling IT service desk records for AI training: ServiceNow tickets, runbooks and incidentsOften yes. IT tickets, incidents and runbooks teach agents to resolve real problems, once credentials, hostnames and people are removed. What ServiceNow and Jira Service Management let you export, what buyers ask for, and what the records fetch.
  16. GuideSelling Books to AI Companies: Prices, Deals and Who Gets PaidAI companies license books by the title, mostly from publishers' backlists. What deals paid per book, how much reaches the author, and how to sell a catalogue.
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  21. GuideSelling CAD files and engineering drawings for AI trainingYes, if the company owns the designs and export rules allow it. Who buys CAD files and drawings for AI training, what they pay, and what to check first.
  22. GuideCan You Sell AI-Generated or AI-Assisted Data for AI Training?Rarely if a model made it: buyers screen generated data out. Work people made with AI tools still sells when you can show which parts a model wrote.
  23. GuideAI Content Licensing: How Publishers Get Paid, and How MuchAI companies license content to train models or to ground answers. What publishers have been paid, which platforms pay per use, and how to choose a route.
  24. PageWhere data comes fromWho holds each kind of data, how much exists and how it reaches buyers.
  25. RegisterCompanies closingCompanies closing, sold or gone dark, and the records they leave.