TAM

$22.9 billion (2025)

TAM is defined as the total global spend on data labeling, annotation tools and managed labeling services — i.e., the market for creating labeled training data that requires human annotators and supporting platforms. Grand View Research’s Data Labeling Solution & Services report (report update Nov 2024) explicitly estimates the market at USD 22.90 billion in 2025; that report covers both software (annotation tools) and services (managed/outsourced labeling) and is therefore the closest available public measure of total addressable spend for a vendor that supplies annotator teams, recruiting/HR and end-to-end human data ops. Independent market-research providers (MarketsandMarkets, The Business Research Company) report corroborating multi-billion-dollar market sizes and high CAGR for data annotation/labeling, which supports using Grand View’s 2025 estimate as a conservative single-year TAM baseline for this offering.

• grandviewresearch.com
• globenewswire.com
• thebusinessresearchcompany.com

SAM

$14.7 billion (2025, outsourced manual annotation & staffing portion)

SAM is the portion of TAM that is serviceable by an offering that supplies expert human annotator teams plus recruiting/HR/payroll and human-data ops. Grand View Research reports that the outsourced segment represented the dominant share of the labeling market (~84.6% in 2024) and that manual labeling accounted for the large majority of labeling types (manual segment ~76% in 2024). Applying those shares to the 2025 TAM produces a practical SAM estimate for outsourced, human-driven annotation and the staffing/HR services around it: SAM = $22.90B * 84.6% * 76% = approximately $14.72B (rounded to $14.7B). This SAM intentionally isolates the labor- and vendor-managed portion of the labeling market (the part most directly addressable by a sourcing/vetting + HR system and white-glove staffing service). Recruitment/HR outsourcing and RPO/staffing market figures (Staffing Industry Analysts / Recruit Holdings) provide an independent cross-check that HR and contingent-staffing services for technical work are a large adjacent opportunity and validate the order of magnitude.

• grandviewresearch.com
• recruit-holdings.com
• thebusinessresearchcompany.com

SOM

$250 million (North America focus; ~5% penetration of NA SAM → achievable 3–5 year target)

SOM is the realistically obtainable revenue in the near-to-medium term for a focused vendor entering the market with an API + automated sourcing/interviewing agents plus white-glove staffing. Using a region-first go-to-market (North America initial focus) gives a conservative, defensible SOM calculation. Grand View Research reports North America held ~33.9% of the global data labeling market in 2024; applying that share to the SAM yields North America SAM ≈ $14.72B * 33.9% ≈ $5.0B. A plausible early-scale penetration target for a specialized YC-stage company offering both staffing and integrated human-data ops (delivering expert teams, HR/payroll, and an embeddable API) is ~3–5% of the North American SAM within 3–5 years depending on sales execution and vertical focus. At 5% penetration: SOM ≈ $5.0B * 5% ≈ $250M. Put differently, $250M implies (for example) ~250 enterprise customers at $1.0M ACV or ~625 customers at $400k ACV; Appen’s 2023 full-year revenue (~$273M) illustrates that individual incumbents reach similar revenue scales, confirming the plausibility of a mid-hundreds-of-millions SOM for a rapidly growing specialist. The SOM number is explicitly an operational target (region-first, enterprise-white-glove focus) and should be revisited as customer win-rates, average contract values, and vertical mix become known.

• grandviewresearch.com
• appen.com
• recruit-holdings.com