Sell a side project, even an abandoned or unfinished one: license the code to AI labs, keep it, and get paid each time it is licensed again.
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Yes, abandoned and unfinished side projects can be licensed to AI labs if the code is yours and the history is real. You sell a license and keep the code, so it can earn again. A small repo earns about $400 to $700 per license, and a typical one about $1,000 to $1,500.
Yes, and it does not have to be finished. Most developers have a few side projects that ran out of evenings: the bot that served a few hundred Discord servers, the browser extension with a handful of users, the app that was ninety percent done when the new job started. Those repos are worth something to AI labs, because they are real code written by a real developer over months or years.
Labs do not care whether a side project found users or made money. They care that the code is genuine and that its history shows how it was built: the first rough version, the rewrites, the bugs found and fixed. An abandoned project still has all of that.
There is one thing to check first. If you built the project while employed, read your employment contract. Some contracts claim anything you write, even at home on your own laptop. Many do not, or only claim work related to your job. If the code is yours, you can license it.
Find it first. Old side projects tend to be scattered across GitHub, GitLab and Bitbucket, and sometimes across two or three accounts. Gather them into a list, check each one is yours, and leave the history as it is. Then request access, connect your Git accounts read-only and pick the repos to include. You see a real per-repo estimate within minutes. If a project shares code with something you still sell or run, that is fine: licensing it leaves you free to keep using every line.
If you wrote the project with a friend, both of you need to agree before it is licensed, and the person who signs should hold the rights for both.
Less than a startup’s codebase, usually, but more than nothing, and it adds up across several repos. Value per license is source tokens at $100 per million plus history tokens at $40 per million. Side projects tend to be small with a modest history, so they often sit in the light band.
A light repo earns about $400 to $700 per license. A side project you worked on steadily for a few years can reach the typical band, about $1,000 to $1,500 per license. Five light repos come to about $2,000 to $3,500 if each is licensed once. Licenses are non-exclusive, so each repo can be licensed again and you are paid each time.
Unfinished is fine. The code does not need to build or run, and you do not need to write a README or tidy the history first. For the full method, read how much is my code worth. For why labs want code like this, read sell code for AI training. If the project lives on GitHub, the sell GitHub repository page covers the specifics.
| Depth | Looks like | Per repo, per license | 5 repos | Log scale, $100 to $10k |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Light | Short history, small repo | $400 to $700 | $2,000 to $3,500 | |
| Typical | A real product, a few years of commits | $1,000 to $1,500 | $5,000 to $7,500 | |
| Deep | Long-lived, deep history, tests | $2,500 to $4,000 | $12,500 to $20,000 |
Illustrative, conservative · What you take home, per license · Verified 2026-10-10
$100/M
per million tokens
$40/M
per million tokens
Value per license = source tokens × $100/M + history tokens × $40/M
Rates can change on 30 days' notice, never retroactively · Paid within 15 days of the buyer paying
Illustrative, conservative · Last verified 2026-10-10
Free to join. No public listing. A real estimate in minutes once Git is connected.
And it is yours, which is exactly what makes it licensable. You decide what is shared: only the repos you choose, only code you hold the rights to. Secrets, customer data and third-party code stay out. Within the repos you submit, secrets and personal data are stripped from the review copy before anything reaches a buyer.
No clean-up needed. Submit the repos as they are. Secrets and personal data are stripped from the review copy for you.
Say who you are. You get set up and sent everything you need. Once you connect Git, you see a real per-repo estimate.
Read the agreement and sign once. Give read-only access to GitHub, GitLab or Bitbucket and pick only the repos you want to license. Submit them as they are.
Your code is scrubbed and graded on the review copy, then taken to buyers in batches. Each time a license closes and the buyer pays, you are paid within 15 days.
Yes. You grant a non-exclusive license and keep ownership. You can keep using, changing and shipping it.
No. Shelved, unfinished and abandoned code qualifies if it is real and yours.
That is fine. Third-party code is excluded from what is licensed. Your own code and history are what count.
No. There is no listing. Buyers see a scrubbed review copy.
Request access. Connect Git. See a real per-repo estimate in minutes, then decide.
Free to join. Nothing upfront. You can withdraw a codebase at any time.