[D] LF Data annotators for machine learning

Hey everyone! I’m working on a computer vision project that’s giving me a bit of a headache. I’m building a custom object detection model for a pretty niche use case: identifying and classifying industrial machine parts (screws, bolts, and custom components) in low-light factory environments. It’s not something I can just pull off the shelf from a public dataset, and automated labeling tools are struggling because the parts are often overlapping, partially obscured, or look super similar to each other.

After wrestling with this for a while, I’ve come to the conclusion that I need to go the manual labeling route. But I don’t want to just hire a cheap workforce that’s going to need a crash course in what a hex bolt looks like or deliver inconsistent annotations. I’d rather work with a team that knows their stuff and can handle the complexity of the task without me having to micromanage every step.

So, I’m turning to you all for help. Has anyone here had a good experience with a data annotation team or service like that? I’m looking for teams that:

• Have experience with computer vision datasets, especially object detection.
• Don’t make you sign annual contracts right off the bat (I’m not a large enterprise).
• Offer pricing based on per unit (e.g., per image or per bounding box) rather than per annotation hour.
• Can handle complex labeling tasks with clear instructions and deliver consistent, high-quality results.

If you’ve worked with a team that nailed it (or even one that didn’t), I’d love to hear about your experience.