Clay vs Needle
Clay and Needle are both sales engagement & outbound tools. Clay is aimed at small businesses and enterprise, while Needle is aimed at agencies and small businesses. Needle costs less, from $69/mo versus $185/mo for Clay. Both have a free plan.
Data enrichment and research automation for GTM
Outbound engine you run from Claude, ChatGPT or Slack via MCP
| Pricing | Freemium · $185 | Paid · $69 |
| Starting price | $185/mo | $69/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | 14 days | 7 days |
| Built for | Small businesses, Enterprise | Agencies, Small businesses, Freelancers |
| Platforms | web | web |
| Country | US · 2017 | DE |
| Rating | — | — |
Choose Clay if
GTM operations and outbound teams with volume and a willingness to learn.
- Dramatically better enrichment coverage via waterfalls
- AI research personalization at scale
- Flexible, spreadsheet mental model
Look elsewhere if: Solo founders who need a simple list (Apollo) or teams without ops capacity.
Choose Needle if
Founders, small sales teams and agencies that want to run multichannel outbound by prompting the AI assistant they already use.
- No lead credits or per-lead charges
- Works from the AI assistant your team already uses
- Human approval step before messages go out
Look elsewhere if: Teams that need a large verified B2B contact database or mature email deliverability tooling (Apollo, lemlist, Instantly).
Clay vs Needle pricing
Clay
- Free$0500 actions and 100 data credits per month
- Launch$185/mo$167/mo billed annually; 15K actions, 2.5K data credits
- Growth$495/mo$446/mo billed annually; 40K actions, 6K data credits
- EnterpriseCustom100K+ data credits, 200K+ actions, annual contract
Needle
- Free Trial$07 days, 1 connected account, no card required
- Pro$69/account/mo1 to 10 accounts; unlimited campaigns, inbox and API
- Agency$34/account/moFor accounts 11 to 50; first 10 at $69; white-label
- EnterpriseCustom51+ accounts, custom rates, dedicated deployment
Clay · Key features
- Waterfall enrichment across 100+ data providers
- Claygent AI agents for custom web research
- Formulas, conditional logic and scoring
- CRM and sequencer integrations with two-way sync
- Signals: job changes, hiring, funding, tech installs
- Templates and shared workspaces
Cons
- Credit costs add up quickly
- Steep learning curve
- Easy to build fragile tables
Needle · Key features
- MCP server that runs outbound from Claude, ChatGPT, Codex or Cursor
- Lead lists from LinkedIn, Instagram and Places business listings
- Finds people engaging with competitors' posts
- Multichannel sequences across LinkedIn, Instagram and email with branching
- Per-account daily limits, human-like pacing and sender warm-up
- Suppression of customers, open deals and recently contacted leads
Cons
- WhatsApp and SMS channels are not live yet
- No named CRM integrations on the website
- LinkedIn and Instagram automation can risk account restrictions
Clay vs Needle: FAQ
Which is cheaper, Clay or Needle?
Needle starts at $69/mo and Clay at $185/mo. Both prices are checked on the vendors' own pricing pages.
Do Clay and Needle have a free plan?
Yes, both Clay and Needle have a free plan; paid plans add more usage and features.