Article

What a closing company’s records are worth

By TrustPast

Updated October 23, 2026

The decision to close is made, or close to made. The next weeks are lawyers, final payroll, the lease and a list of subscriptions to cancel. Somewhere on that list are the mailboxes, the project tracker and the CRM that hold every job the company ever ran. This page settles what those records can be worth under micro1’s published figures, what moves the price, what to keep and in what order before the accounts go, and who decides.

Our page on closed companies covers WARN notices and the ways records get lost. This page is about the money and the calendar. Two questions sit behind every closing: what is this worth, and what has to happen before Friday?

The figure micro1 publishes

micro1 pays to license company records to train AI models. Its referral page lists company compensation of “$100K-$2M+ for approved data packages” (indicative, not an offer). That’s the whole published range for its Enterprise Data Partnership.

Three words in that line matter for a closing company. “Approved” means micro1 reviews the company first. “Data packages” means the price attaches to what is handed over, not to the company’s name or its revenue. And the “+” means the top of the range is open.

micro1 announced on 9 October 2026 that it will spend $1 billion over the next 12 months acquiring and licensing company operational data. The share any one company gets is decided company by company.

We, TrustPast, show a band inside that range with our estimate. It’s ours, not micro1’s, and it isn’t an offer. micro1 prices each company after its own evaluation. Our longer page on what a company’s records are worth goes through the published range in detail. Here we stay on what a closing changes.

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What moves the price, in micro1’s words

micro1 runs a payout estimator on its own site. It asks three questions: “How many employees does your company have?”, “How many years of data do you have?” and “Where is your company headquartered?” Under the years question, it adds: “Typically the number of years you’ve been in business.”

Under the result, micro1 writes: “Indicative estimate only. Final payout is determined based on data sources, volume, quality, access terms, and due diligence.”

Five factors. A running company can improve most of them slowly. A closing company can only lose them, and it can lose them fast. Here is how we read each one against a wind-down. This reading is ours, not micro1’s.

Data sources. How many systems hold the work: email, the project tracker, the CRM, chat, the shared drive. Every account cancelled before export is one source fewer.
Volume. How much of each source survives. A mailbox kept for the last three years, not the full eighteen, is a smaller pile.
Quality. Whether the record holds the whole job, from estimate to closeout. Losing the email that settled a change order leaves the job file with a gap.
Access terms. What access the company can grant, and on what terms. A company that still controls its exports can agree terms. One whose files went with the domain name can’t.
Due diligence. Someone has to answer micro1’s questions. In a closing company, the people who know where things live are leaving.

The referral page adds the requirements: “30+ employees”, “US Prioritized”, “Primarily English”. It describes a good fit as a company with “mature business operations, and high-quality operational data such as SOPs, internal documentation, knowledge bases, CRM metadata, project histories, QA processes, and operational communications.” Operational communications is the inbox and the chat. That’s the part a closing company cancels first.

Which of those five is still in your hands this week?

The calendar decides more than the company does

Here’s the uncomfortable part, as our own reading. In a wind-down, the value of the records is set less by how the company ran than by the order the accounts get shut.

Take email on Google Workspace. Google’s own help page sets out the rules for exporting a whole organisation’s data. The export needs a super administrator account that is “at least 30 days old”. It needs two-step verification on that account. And for Gmail, Drive and Chat, “your organization must have an active Google Workspace subscription.” Google says that data “is excluded from the export if your Google Workspace subscription is canceled or suspended.”

The timing is in the same page. The export is available “no earlier than 48 hours” after it starts. It “typically takes 72 hours but can take up to 14 days.” The exported data “is automatically deleted 60 days from the beginning of the export,” unless you send it to your own storage. And if the admin who started it loses super admin rights mid-run, “the export may be canceled.”

Read that as a closing owner. The admin can’t be the person who leaves on Friday. The subscription can’t be the first bill cut. And the download has a deadline of its own.

Chat has its own rules. Slack’s help page says workspace owners and admins can export messages and file links from public channels. Other export types need an application. On the Free plan, a workspace “can only export links to files from the last 90 days.”

Our step-by-step guides cover each system: exporting Google Workspace, exporting Microsoft 365 email and exporting Slack.

What to keep, in order

This order is our advice, not micro1’s. It runs from the record that is hardest to recover to the easiest.

Keep one admin account alive. One person, staying to the end, with full admin rights on email, chat and the CRM. Check the account’s age now. Google wants 30 days; a brand-new admin account started next week may be too late.
The mailboxes, all of them. Estimators, project managers, the office manager, the shared inboxes. Email is where a price was argued and a change order agreed. Google ties the Gmail, Drive and Chat export to a live subscription.
The project history. The project tracker or the job-management system, with every status change, comment and attachment. Our page on project history explains why the line through a job matters more than any one document in it.
The CRM. Leads, call notes, quotes sent, and the reason each deal was lost. The notes are the part a migration usually drops.
The chat. Slack or Teams, every channel your plan lets you export. Apply for the rest early if your plan needs an application.
The shared drive. SOPs, the knowledge base, templates, checklists, the QA forms. These are small files and slow to rebuild.
The paper. Boxes of job files, signed estimates, inspection sheets. Don’t scan them. Count them, label the years, and keep them somewhere dry.
A one-page map. Each system, the years it covers, where the export sits and who knew it best. Write it while those people still answer the phone.

Then cancel. Seats can go once the export is downloaded and checked. Paying for one admin seat an extra month is cheaper than finding out the export was empty.

Count the years you can still open

The years question on micro1’s estimator is where a closing company most often over-answers. Twenty years in business is not twenty years of records if the old server went in a skip in 2016.

Our advice is to count from the oldest record you can open today, not from the founding date. Our page on how many years of records count gives the method. In a closing company, do the count before the exports, not after. It tells you which old archives are worth chasing while someone still remembers the password.

The cornerstone page on what data buyers actually want from a trade business shows why the long run matters. Records are de-identified before use. Customer names and payments are never what is wanted. What is wanted is how the work was done: how an estimate became a job, how a change order was settled, how a repair was diagnosed.

Count the people at the peak

micro1’s published requirement is “30+ employees”. The pages we read today say nothing about companies that have already closed. They don’t rule them in, and they don’t rule them out. micro1’s referral page says its team “reviews the company and determines whether it’s a fit.”

Our estimate counts a closing company at its peak, not its last week. A company that ran 45 people for ten years and has 9 on the payroll now enters 45. The records were written by the 45.

How many companies close after a long run is on the public record in some states. How many companies dissolved in the Colorado and Connecticut registries since January 2025, and how long they had been in business, is in our table of company dissolutions.

Who decides what

Four parties, four decisions. It helps to keep them apart.

micro1 decides the price and the fit. It evaluates each company. Its data partnerships page lists four steps: get started, evaluation, discovery, partnership. The figure comes at the end, not the start.

We show a band. Our estimate is a range inside micro1’s published figures, worked out from the answers you give. It isn’t an offer and it can’t be one. micro1 prices each company; we can only show you the band.

Your counsel decides who signs. A company in a formal wind-down usually has someone with authority. A company sold in pieces may have handed its files to the buyer of the name or the customer list. Ask counsel what the sale or wind-down papers say about the records before you sign anything else. Our page on whether licensing company records is legal lists the questions to bring.

You decide what to keep. Nobody else will. The accountant keeps what the tax return needs, and the lawyer keeps what the claims need. The project history is nobody’s job unless it’s yours.

micro1 also says “Companies retain ownership of their underlying data.” A licence is not a sale. Our page on whether you keep ownership of your records covers retention and deletion.

What this means for a closing trade company

Take a commercial electrical contractor with 52 people at its peak, closing after 19 years. This picture is ours, not a case micro1 publishes.

The records it can still keep, if it acts before the accounts go:

Estimates and quotes, with every revision and the note on why the number moved.
Job files and work orders, from the walk-through to the final inspection.
Change orders, and the email threads where each one was argued and settled.
Service histories on the buildings it maintained, visit by visit.
The estimators’ and project managers’ mailboxes, sent folders included.
The CRM, with bids won and lost and the reasons.
The Slack or Teams channels where crews and the office sorted out the day.
The safety manual, the QA checklists and the onboarding binder.

Now run the same company two ways. In the first, the office manager cancels Google Workspace in week one to save the seat fees. The mailboxes are gone, and with them every change-order thread. In the second, one admin stays, the export runs, and the cancellation waits three weeks. Same company, same 19 years. The second one has something to show at a discovery call. The first one has a very tidy invoice folder.

Our page on email archives explains which threads carry the most of the work.

What is never included

micro1’s payout page says that before any participation, the two sides define “Approved data scope and clear boundaries” and “Anonymization and redaction requirements”. It says every partnership has “clear controls over what is shared, how it is handled, and what is never included.” micro1 settles the list with each company.

On personal details, micro1’s data partnerships page says “Personally identifiable information (PII) is removed when relevant.” It says some data may undergo “synthetic rewrites that preserve workflow structure while reducing direct ties to original records.” Companies can review representative samples before the prepared data is used. Its October announcement says it “uses de-identified company data.”

Our advice, which is ours and not micro1’s, on what stays out of the export you offer:

Customer names, addresses and phone numbers. They were never the point.
Payments: card slips, bank details, deposits, finance paperwork.
Payroll, HR files, final-pay records and anything on an employee’s health. A closing company has a lot of these this month. Keep them for the accountant and the lawyer, not for this.
Anything you hold for a client under contract, such as drawings or specs the client owns.
Legal files on the closing itself.

Keep those records as the law requires; just leave them out of scope. Our How it’s safe page sets out what leaves your systems and when.

Before the last day

Our suggested order, as our own advice:

Name the admin who stays, and check the account is old enough.
Start the email export first. It takes the longest and depends on a live subscription.
Export the project tracker, the CRM and the chat, and download each file.
Write the one-page map of systems, years and owners.
Ask your counsel who signs, and whether any sale papers cover the records.
Run our estimate with your peak headcount and the years you can actually open.
Then cancel the seats.

micro1 decides what the records are worth. The order you shut things down decides how much of them is left to price.

TrustPast

Questions and answers

What does micro1 pay for a company’s records?

micro1’s referral page lists company compensation of “$100K-$2M+ for approved data packages” (indicative, not an offer). micro1 prices each company after its own evaluation. Our estimate is a band inside that range, not an offer.

What moves the price, according to micro1?

micro1’s payout page says: “Indicative estimate only. Final payout is determined based on data sources, volume, quality, access terms, and due diligence.” Its estimator asks three things: how many employees, how many years of data, and where the company is headquartered.

Does micro1 take companies that have closed?

The pages we read on 23 October 2026 don’t say. micro1’s referral page lists “30+ employees”, “US Prioritized” and “Primarily English”, and says every company goes through its evaluation. Our estimate counts a closed company at its peak headcount. micro1 decides at application.

What should we keep first when the company is closing?

Our advice: keep one admin account alive, then export the mailboxes, the project history, the CRM and the chat, in that order, before any subscription is cancelled. Google says a Workspace export leaves out Gmail, Drive and Chat if the subscription is cancelled or suspended.

Do customer names and payment records go to micro1?

They aren’t what is wanted. micro1 says personally identifiable information is removed when relevant, and the anonymization and redaction requirements are defined together before any participation. What is wanted is how the work was done.

Who can sign for a company that is winding down?

That depends on how the company is closing and on the state. Ask your counsel before you apply. We don’t give legal advice.