Neil Fox AgencyCalculator sources and method
Where the numbers come from.
Public prices for company data are still scarce. This page lists every figure the calculator relies on, what kind of evidence each one is, and exactly how the estimate is computed. Sources were last checked on October 22, 2026.
The published figures
Most of these are figures a company published about its own program, not independently confirmed sales. They're labeled that way.
| Figure | What it covers | Evidence type | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| $383K to $897K | Handshake AI's own estimate for a US company with 100 employees and 10 years in business. Its overall range is $100K to $4M+, and it says 20+ employees and 3+ years are required. | Self-reported, labeled indicative, not an offer | Handshake AI data partnerships |
| $100K+, $500K+, $1M+ tiers; $100K to $2M+ | micro1's compensation tiers for operational data, set per deal. It asks for 30+ employees, mature operations, and mostly English records, with US companies first. | Self-reported | micro1 data partnerships |
| $1.2M, $500K, $280K | Completed deals Red Deer Data lists: an industrial distributor, a 3PL, and an accounting group. | Self-reported by the broker, anonymous sellers | Red Deer Data |
| $350K | A logistics and distribution business whose records came from Google Workspace, Slack, QuickBooks, and warehouse systems. | Case study confirmed by the broker | Red Deer Data case study |
| $450K, $300K, $275K, $110K | Perpetual exclusive licenses for a roofing company, a general contractor, a solar company, and a global marketing agency. | Self-reported by the buyer, companies unnamed | Vaultfish deals tracker (Polyshares rows) |
| $10K to $100K per company | Archive deals for shut-down startups (SimpleClosure says nearly 100 deals in about a year). Troveo gives the same range for startup archives. | Self-reported ranges | Vaultfish price study |
| Up to $300K | Offers Mercor reportedly made to shuttered and acquired startups. | Press report of offers | Vaultfish price study |
| "Hundreds of thousands of dollars" | Cielo24, a defunct company, reportedly sold 13 years of Slack, email, and Jira history. | Secondary press report | Forbes |
| $10M winning bid ($7.5M and $12.5M rival offers) | Spirit Airlines' bankruptcy archive: about 100 million emails and 500 million Teams items. The sale was still awaiting court approval when we checked. | Court record plus press | Time · Court docket |
| 5% of the deal, up to $100,000 | Red Deer Data's referral reward, which shows how brokers price introductions. It also asks for 20+ employees and mostly English records. | Self-reported | Red Deer Data referral partners |
The Spirit Airlines figures are shown for scale only. They describe one of the largest corporate archives ever offered, so the calculator doesn't use them.
How the calculator works
The estimate starts from the one published example that ties a dollar range to company size and history: Handshake AI's $383K to $897K for 100 employees and 10 years. The midpoint, rounded, is $640K. Everything else scales from there.
midpoint = $640,000
× (employees ÷ 100)0.6
× (years of records ÷ 10)0.5
× record breadth (0.5 + 0.125 per record type, 0.625 to 1.25)
× region (US 1.0 · Canada or UK 0.85 · Europe or Australia 0.7 · elsewhere 0.45)
× language (mostly English 1.0 · other 0.5)
range = 60% to 140% of the midpoint, rounded
× (employees ÷ 100)0.6
× (years of records ÷ 10)0.5
× record breadth (0.5 + 0.125 per record type, 0.625 to 1.25)
× region (US 1.0 · Canada or UK 0.85 · Europe or Australia 0.7 · elsewhere 0.45)
× language (mostly English 1.0 · other 0.5)
range = 60% to 140% of the midpoint, rounded
Why these factors
- Company size and history. Handshake AI's calculator asks for exactly these two inputs, and micro1 says dataset size and volume affect pay. Value grows more slowly than headcount, so size uses a 0.6 power and history a 0.5 power. Those exponents are our own assumption. We chose them so results stay inside the published deals. With four kinds of records, 100 employees and 10 years gives $384K to $896K, which matches Handshake AI's example. A 30-person firm with 5 years gives about $130K to $310K, near the $110K agency and $275K solar deals. A 200-person firm with 15 years gives about $710K to $1.66M, around the $1.2M distributor deal.
- Record breadth. micro1's $500K+ tier is for "large-scale operational datasets or ongoing participation across multiple teams and business functions". Red Deer Data's $350K case drew on several systems. Each extra kind of record adds 12.5% to the estimate. That weight is our assumption.
- Region and language. micro1 says demand is strongest in the US, UK, and Canada and that it mostly wants English records. Red Deer Data prioritizes the US. The discount sizes are our assumption, since no source publishes them.
- Industry. No source publishes industry multipliers, so industry only picks which comparable deals appear next to your estimate.
- Small companies. Below 20 employees, the calculator switches to the $10K to $100K archive range, because most full-company programs set a 20 or 30 employee minimum.
What the calculator can't know
- Whether your records are complete, well structured, and link requests to outcomes. Red Deer Data says that, not storage size, drives a bid.
- Whether customer, employee, or vendor contracts allow licensing, and what has to be removed during de-identification.
- Exclusivity, how long the license runs, follow-up deliveries, and payment conditions. These can move an offer a lot.
- Current buyer demand, which changes month to month.
Because of all this, a real offer can be much higher or lower than the range shown, and some businesses get no offer at all. Neil Fox Agency doesn't buy data and doesn't make offers. We introduce businesses to licensing platforms, and we may receive a referral fee from the platform if a license is completed. You never pay us.