$10M
Google paid $10 million for Spirit Airlines' data: 100 million emails, 500 million Teams messages and 176,000 employee records, outbidding Mercor.
(MIT Technology Review, checked 18 Oct 2026)
Record type
The market for email archives
Email is accepted by most company-data programmes, including Grepped, Mercor, Troveo, Polyshares, Pewter, Handshake AI and SimpleClosure. None prices it per message. The one disclosed bulk sale is Spirit Airlines' data, which included 100 million emails and went to Google for $10 million in a bankruptcy sale.
Page updated 19 Oct 2026. Figures checked 18 Oct 2026 at their sources.
Tools that hold it
- Gmail
Outlook- Google Workspace
Microsoft 365
Programmes
Who says they accept it
Programme
What it says
Source
What it saysEmail among the operational records it licenses.
(Polyshares, checked 18 Oct 2026)
What it saysOld email first on its list, with freight quotes and accounting files as examples.
(Pewter, checked 18 Oct 2026)
Price signals
What the record has fetched, where anyone says
$650K
A 100-person freight broker's licence listed by Pewter, whose examples include freight rate quotes. Self-reported, not independently verified.
(Pewter, checked 18 Oct 2026)
$0.001
Per word: the generic text rate Defined.ai's CEO gave Reuters in April 2024. Company email is not sold this way.
(Reuters via China Daily HK, checked 18 Oct 2026)
Full tables: AI training data prices and the disclosed deals database.
What buyers say they do with it
- Pewter's examples show what email carries in a trade business: rate quotes, dispatch records and accounting workpapers. (Pewter, checked 18 Oct 2026)
- Handshake AI names finance models and underwriting workflows, which often live in mail threads and attachments. (Handshake AI, checked 18 Oct 2026)
Notes for reading the market
Email archives come with attachments, so a single export can hold documents, spreadsheets and drawings as well as messages.
Google excludes Gmail from its Data Export tool once a Workspace subscription is cancelled or suspended, so the export window closes earlier than the deletion date.
Keep reading
Related pages
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FAQ
Frequently asked questions
01Which programmes accept company email?
Grepped, Mercor, Troveo, Polyshares, Pewter, Handshake AI and SimpleClosure all list email or Gmail and Outlook among accepted sources.
02What is a company email archive worth?
No programme prices email on its own. The only disclosed bulk sale is Spirit Airlines' data (100 million emails among other records), bought by Google for $10 million in bankruptcy.
03Can Gmail still be exported after cancelling Google Workspace?
No. Google says core service data such as Gmail, Drive and Chat is excluded from the export once the subscription is cancelled or suspended.
04How long does Microsoft keep mailboxes after a subscription ends?
After a lapse: 30 days expired, then 90 days disabled with admin-only access, then deletion. Customer content is kept at most 180 days.
05Is email priced per word?
Generic text has a reported rate of $0.001 per word, but company-data programmes price whole records per company, not email per word.
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