Clay vs Lusha

Clay is a go-to-market data platform from a New York company that works like a spreadsheet for prospecting and enrichment. You import or source lists of companies and people, and each column can call an external data provider, an AI agent or a formula, so a row fills itself with firmographics, contact details, technology data and custom research.

Its best-known feature is waterfall enrichment: Clay queries more than 100 providers in sequence until one returns, for example, a verified email, and you spend credits only on results. Claygent is an AI research agent that visits websites and answers custom questions, such as whether a company sells to enterprises or has a free trial. Signals track job changes, hiring and funding, and results sync to CRMs such as HubSpot and Salesforce and to sequencing tools. Plans are tiered by monthly credits, starting with a limited free plan, and credit consumption is the main cost driver.

Clay fits revenue operations teams, outbound sales teams and agencies that work at volume and can invest time in building tables. The learning curve is real, poorly designed tables burn credits, and for a simple lead list it is overkill. Apollo combines a contact database with sequencing in a simpler package, ZoomInfo is the enterprise data incumbent, and Cognism is strong for European contact data. An ecosystem of Clay agencies and consultants has grown around the product because setup skill matters so much.

Lusha is a B2B contact data platform founded in 2016 in Israel, with offices in Tel Aviv and New York. It is best known for its browser extension: on a LinkedIn profile, a company website or inside Gmail, a salesperson can reveal a prospect's business email and direct or mobile phone number with one click, paying with credits.

Beyond the extension, Lusha provides a prospecting platform with filters on company size, industry, location, seniority and technologies, saved lists, and enrichment that fills missing fields in Salesforce, HubSpot and other CRMs. Intent signals and job-change alerts help prioritize accounts. The free plan gives a small monthly credit allowance; Starter, Professional and Premium are priced per plan with a set number of seats, larger credit pools and more features, and Enterprise adds custom credits, seats and controls on a quote.

Lusha fits sales and recruiting teams that rely on phone outreach and want quick, accurate direct dials without a heavy platform. It emphasizes GDPR and CCPA compliance, and its coverage is strongest in North America and Western Europe and thinner in other regions. Credit limits shape how much data each rep can pull, and costs rise with seats. Apollo offers a larger all-in-one prospecting and sequencing tool at a lower entry price, ZoomInfo provides deeper enterprise data at a much higher cost, and Cognism is a common alternative for European phone data.