Happy Valley

Clay

Data enrichment and research automation for GTM

Clay is a sales engagement & outbound tool for Small businesses and Enterprise, offered as freemium ($185/mo). Founded in United States in 2017. Popular alternatives include Common Room, ZoomInfo.

About Clay

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.

Key features of Clay

  • 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

Pros and cons

Pros

  • Dramatically better enrichment coverage via waterfalls
  • AI research personalization at scale
  • Flexible, spreadsheet mental model
  • Integrates with the whole GTM stack

Cons

  • Credit costs add up quickly
  • Steep learning curve
  • Easy to build fragile tables
  • Overkill for simple prospecting

Clay pricing

Clay uses a freemium model. A 14-day free trial is available.

PlanPriceIncludes
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

Source: www.clay.com · checked on Oct 20, 2026

How Clay compares in Sales engagement & outbound

Rank by votes
#1 / 22

0 votes from members

Starting price
$185

271% above the category median ($50/mo)

Free alternatives
1

Free or open-source tools in Sales engagement & outbound

Clay ranks #1 of 22 sales engagement & outbound tools by community votes and is priced above most tools in the category.

Common use cases

  1. 1Enriching inbound leads with firmographics and intent
  2. 2Building hyper-personalized outbound lists
  3. 3Account research with AI reading company sites
  4. 4Keeping CRM data fresh automatically

Best for

GTM operations and outbound teams with volume and a willingness to learn.

Not ideal for

Solo founders who need a simple list (Apollo) or teams without ops capacity.

Integrations

  • 100+ data providers (Apollo, Clearbit, People Data Labs, etc.)
  • OpenAI
  • Anthropic
  • HubSpot
  • Salesforce
  • Outreach
  • Salesloft
  • lemlist
  • Smartlead
  • Webhooks

Our take

Clay is the most powerful GTM data tool available and worth it once outbound is a real channel. Start with templates and set credit budgets.

FAQ

What is Clay?
Clay is a Sales engagement & outbound tool: Data enrichment and research automation for GTM.
How much does Clay cost?
Clay uses a Freemium model; paid plans start at $185 per month.
What are the best alternatives to Clay?
Community-listed alternatives to Clay include Common Room, ZoomInfo.
Does Clay have a free trial?
Yes, Clay offers a 14-day free trial.
What does Clay integrate with?
Clay integrates with 100+ data providers (Apollo, Clearbit, People Data Labs, etc.), OpenAI, Anthropic, HubSpot, Salesforce, Outreach and more.
Which platforms does Clay support?
Clay is available on web.
Who is Clay for?
GTM operations and outbound teams with volume and a willingness to learn.

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