Deal terms
Selling a book of business is a different deal from licensing data
Insurance agents, accountants and advisors hear "sell your data" and think of their book. These are two separate transactions. Selling the book moves your client relationships, and the income they bring, to someone else. Licensing data gives an AI company a scrubbed record of how your office works, with each client swapped for a code.
In this guide
01
What each deal transfers
What moves
Book of business sale
Clients, policies or engagements, and their renewals or fees
Data license to an AI buyer
A cleaned copy of internal records
Buyer's goal
Book of business sale
Keep serving those clients
Data license to an AI buyer
Train and test AI agents on real work
Priced on
Book of business sale
The income the book produces
Data license to an AI buyer
Volume, depth and how well records connect
Client names
Book of business sale
Essential to the deal
Data license to an AI buyer
Removed or swapped for codes
You keep
Book of business sale
Nothing from the sold book
Data license to an AI buyer
Your originals and your clients
| Book of business sale | Data license to an AI buyer | |
|---|---|---|
| What moves | Clients, policies or engagements, and their renewals or fees | A cleaned copy of internal records |
| Buyer's goal | Keep serving those clients | Train and test AI agents on real work |
| Priced on | The income the book produces | Volume, depth and how well records connect |
| Client names | Essential to the deal | Removed or swapped for codes |
| You keep | Nothing from the sold book | Your originals and your clients |
02
Why AI buyers do not want your client list
The AI data buyers we track filter out the very thing a book buyer pays for. Some refuse data you hold on behalf of clients. The rest strip personal and sensitive details before anything moves on.
They are after your in-house know-how: procedures, templates, the internal emails where staff worked out what to do with a claim or a notice from the IRS, ticket logs, knowledge bases and task lists.
03
Doing both
Sequence matters. Whoever buys your book may expect the files that come with it, so each buyer should know about the other. Before either deal closes, get both buyers and your lawyer to agree how the two fit together.
Data buyers still have size rules, and they count your staff, not your clients. The usual bar is 20 to 30 people, though Mode sets 10 for accounting firms. A one-person agency with a large book will usually not qualify for a data license.
04
How the money compares
Book prices follow revenue multiples familiar in your industry. Data licenses for trading firms come with self-reported bands of roughly $100K to $2M. Pewter cites an unnamed 60-person accounting practice that received $350,000, on its own say-so.
FAQ
Questions, answered
Is a data license just another way of selling my book?
No. Selling the book means your clients, and their fees, go to someone else. Licensing data shares a scrubbed copy of your working methods while every client stays with you.
Would an AI company pay for my client list?
Not the buyers we follow. Client lists hold no interest for them, and they strip client identities out of anything they take.
Which records from an agency or practice interest AI buyers?
Written procedures, templates, staff emails about working through cases, ticket logs and knowledge bases.
Do professional rules or carrier contracts limit licensing?
They can. Check your carrier agreements, engagement letters and professional rules with your own lawyer before you sign anything.
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Sources
Every number on this page links back to one of these.
- 1Mode, company data programdata.mode.inc
- 2Pewter, company websitepewterdata.com
- 3micro1, company referral program pagemicro1.ai
- 4BERI, micro1's enterprise data partnerships: terms and risksberi.net
- 5WG CPAs, licensing or sale of intellectual propertywgcpas.com
Spot something wrong? See our corrections policy. Some buyers pay us a referral fee. How we make money.