Clay

Clay is a spreadsheet-style platform that brings prospect research, data enrichment and workflow automation together. It is best suited to sales and growth teams and small agencies building customer-finding workflows. Its breadth is compelling, but the Free plan’s row cap and lack of phone enrichment make plan limits worth weighing early.

Overview

Clay’s central strength is combining information from many sources in one workflow: enrichment spans more than 150 providers, with multi-provider waterfalls, while Claygent can research the web and produce custom data points. That range can help teams assemble prospect and company context without relying on a single provider. Signals—including job changes, promotions, new hires, company news, social activity and web intent—add timely context, though availability depends on plan.

Clay also reaches beyond prospect research. Its Salesforce integration can manage data, create or update records, and access reports and views. The integrations directory includes HubSpot, Snowflake and Google BigQuery, among others. Teams can centralize audience data and sync ad audiences to LinkedIn, Meta and Google. The trade-off is a usage model with separate measures for platform actions and vendor data or AI credits, which teams need to track independently.

Key features

• Broad enrichment: Contact, company, people, email, phone, social, financial, job, technology, news and online-content enrichment give teams multiple ways to build records. Multi-provider waterfalls make Clay a strong fit when coverage across sources matters.
• AI research: Claygent can use web research to generate custom data points, extending work beyond preset enrichment fields.
• Signals: People and company changes can inform prospecting, but signal access varies by plan, so teams should match the tier to the signals they need.
• Business-system connections: CRM and warehouse connections can support workflows beyond a standalone spreadsheet; Growth includes CRM and data warehouse sync, while Salesforce supports record management and access to reports and views.
• Audience activation: Audience centralization and syncing to LinkedIn, Meta and Google make Clay relevant to teams coordinating prospect data with ad audiences.

Pricing

Clay is freemium, with a Free plan and a 14-day trial. Actions measure platform usage; Data Credits pay for data and AI from marketplace vendors. Those are distinct budgets, so a team should consider both its workflow volume and enrichment demand when choosing a plan.

Free is a useful starting point for trying basic workflows, and unlimited seats avoid a seat-count ceiling, but 200 rows per table and no phone enrichment constrain prospecting. Launch is aimed at small teams automating prospecting and adds phone data and signals alongside substantially larger monthly allowances. Growth is the more suitable tier for CRM-based workflows and growth campaigns that need sync, API integrations and priority support. Enterprise is for organizations needing custom usage allowances and access controls. The paid starting price is $167 a month; Enterprise has custom pricing.

Clay states that it is SOC 2 Type II compliant and displays GDPR, CCPA, ISO 27001 and ISO 42001 on its pricing page. It says customer data is not used to train its AI models or those of its AI providers.

Platforms

Clay is available on Linux, macOS and the web. API access is also supported.

Who it's for

Clay is a strong choice for salespeople, growth teams and small agencies that need enrichment, research and prospecting automation in connected workflows. It is less suitable for someone seeking only a small, narrowly scoped enrichment quota: the platform’s separate action and data-credit budgets add planning overhead, while its paid entry tier starts at $167 a month.

Pros and cons

• Pro: More than 150 enrichment providers and multi-provider waterfalls offer broad source coverage for building customer records.
• Pro: Claygent, signals, CRM and warehouse connections, and audience syncing bring research and activation into a shared workflow.
• Pro: Free includes unlimited seats and tables, making it possible to start without a seat cap.
• Con: Free stops at 200 rows per table and excludes phone enrichment, limiting its usefulness for larger or phone-led prospecting.
• Con: Actions and Data Credits track different kinds of usage, so estimating and monitoring consumption takes attention.
• Con: Launch starts at $167 a month, a substantial step up from Free for teams that need paid capabilities.

Alternatives

For a self-hosted, open-source option, OpenGTM costs nothing on its self-hosted plan, though third-party provider costs may apply. Choose it when running software on your own infrastructure matters more than Clay’s integrated workflow scope.

Coresignal offers a free tier with 2,000 credits and a Mini plan at $49 a month with 2,500 credits/month; it is worth considering when a credit-based data option is a better fit than Clay’s combined actions-and-credits model. TargetWise has a free tier with 20 work emails and five business-phone results, plus a $49 a month Core plan with a $49 usage balance included; consider it for a smaller, explicitly bounded email-and-phone allowance. BetterContact starts at $15 a month for 200 credits, which can suit a reader focused on a lower-cost email or phone credit allowance.

The name Clay also refers to a separate free website builder with a free site on a name.clay.site address and a Pro plan at €29 a month. For API-based person-data access, People Data Labs is another option. B2BEnrich and Diffbot are additional alternatives.

Browse Data Enrichment Software, AI Lead Generation Software, Lead Enrichment Software, Account Enrichment Software, Sales Prospecting Software or Reverse ETL Tools to compare category options.

Verdict

Choose Clay if your sales or growth team wants prospect research, enrichment and automation connected to CRM, warehouse or audience workflows. Its breadth and provider range are the main reasons to choose it; the separate usage budgets and $167 a month paid entry point are the main reasons to look elsewhere if your needs are narrow or price-sensitive.