Clay
Clay is an AI tool that allows users to scale their creative outbound ideas by combining the power of 50+ data providers, real-time scrapin...
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What is Clay?
Clay is a go-to-market (GTM) platform that helps sales, marketing, and growth teams unify data enrichment and automate personalized outreach. It combines 150-170+ data enrichment tools into one marketplace, providing superior data coverage and quality on contact information, company firmographics, intent signals, and more. Customers report tripling data coverage compared to providers like Zoominfo while cutting costs by 10-20x.
The platform enables AI-led research through Claygent, which can read and analyze webpages, PDFs, and Google searches for specific information—doing research that previously required manual SDR work. After enriching data, users can leverage AI to craft relevant, compelling messaging based on that data. Everything syncs back to CRM systems, allowing teams to go from campaign idea to execution in seconds.
Clay is designed for GTM teams of all sizes, from large enterprise companies to SMBs, startups, solo founders, and outbound agencies. It serves GTM leaders who define lead enrichment criteria, GTM operations teams who implement workflows, and SDRs who benefit from pre-curated enriched leads. Common use cases include automating outbound lead generation campaigns, CRM enrichment, inbound lead scoring, building lists from multiple prospecting sources, and tracking intent signals like job changes or website visits.
Key features include multi-provider waterfalls for data enrichment, dynamic audience building, conditional workflow execution without engineering, HTTP API for custom integrations, native Clay Sequencer for email campaigns, Chrome extensions for lead scraping, and SOC 2 Type II/GDPR/CCPA/ISO 27001+ISO 42001 compliance for enterprise security.
Clay pricing
Pricing model: Free
Free plan: Unlimited seats and tables, multi-provider waterfalls, Claygent enrichment, Clay Sequencer for email, up to 200 rows per table, includes 100 Data Credits and 500 Actions/month. Launch plan: Starting at $185/month (or $149/month with 10% annual discount), includes everything in Free plus phone number enrichment, job change/signal tracking, email campaign integrations, up to 50,000 rows per table, 2,500 Data Credits and 15,000 Actions/month. Growth plan: Starting at $495/month, includes everything in Launch plus CRM auto-sync/enrichment, HTTP API integrations, webhook automation, web intent signal tracking, audience pushes to ads platforms, priority support, 6,000 Data Credits and 40,000 Actions/month. Enterprise plan: Custom pricing with annual commitment, includes everything in Growth plus unlimited Audiences, unlimited row bulk enrichment, Clay API access, data warehouse syncs, SSO, RBAC permissions, dedicated Growth Strategist, 100,000+ Data Credits and 200,000+ Actions/month. Data Credits start at $0.05 each and Actions start at <$0.01 each, both get cheaper with scale. 14-day free trial gives Pro Plan access ($800 value) with 1,000 credits.
Clay pros
- Combines 150-170+ data enrichment tools into one marketplace
- Trips data coverage vs. providers like Zoominfo while cutting costs 10-20x
- Claygent AI performs web research previously requiring manual SDR work
- Multi-provider waterfalls only charge once when data is found
- Unlimited seats and tables on all plans including Free tier
- Phone number enrichment available on Launch plan and above
- CRM auto-sync and two-way enrichment keeps data live and accurate
- HTTP API enables custom integrations without engineering
- Native Clay Sequencer for email campaigns built-in
- Intent signals track job changes, website visits, and company news
- AI drafts personalized email messages based on enriched data
- Chrome extensions scrape leads from any website in one click
- SOC 2 Type II, GDPR, CCPA, ISO 27001, and ISO 42001 compliant
- Bring your own API keys to avoid Data Credit costs entirely
- Actions and Data Credits reset/top-up without forced plan upgrades
- Clay University provides structured learning with core lessons
- 4.9/5 rating with 40K+ GTM community members
Clay cons
- No scheduling for automatic data enrichment re-runs
- Free tier limited to 200 rows per table
- Trial and free accounts limited to 50 rows per table
- Actions reset each billing cycle and do not roll over
- Data Credits rollover capped at 2x monthly amount on Launch/Growth
- Enterprise plan requires annual commitment with custom pricing
- Variable AI models charge based on token consumption with no markup
- Cannot access some data without paying Data Credits
- CRM enrichment requires Pro plan features for full functionality
- Clay Creators Program paused until Q1 2026
Frequently asked questions about Clay
What is Clay?
Clay helps go-to-market teams up level their data enrichment and automate personalized outreach. You start with a list of leads (either prospected through Clay or from your CRM), then perform basic data enrichment using 170+ tools in one marketplace, use AI for research that previously required manual SDR work (reading webpages, PDFs, Google searches), and finally use AI to craft relevant messaging. Everything syncs back to your CRM, allowing teams to go from campaign idea to execution in seconds.
What kinds of companies use Clay?
Clay serves GTM teams of all sizes, ranging from large enterprise companies to SMBs, startups, solo founders, outbound agencies, and more. They have thousands of users and hundreds of paying customers, including Ramp, Pave, Verkada, Hex, Rippling, Pump, Merge, Harmonic, Intercom, Anthropic, and others.
Who on my team should use Clay?
At enterprise companies: GTM leaders decide criteria for lead enrichment and segmentation, GTM operations team members implement criteria into Clay as the enrichment layer that syncs to CRM, and SDRs benefit from pre-curated enriched leads without directly interfacing with Clay. At startups, a growth lead often implements Clay and runs all outreach single-handedly. At outbound agencies, one founder often sets up and runs Clay campaigns for multiple clients.
What tools does Clay replace?
Clay can replace prospecting, data enrichment, and AI message drafting tools. It does not replace email sending tools or CRMs—it integrates with them. Many people run successful campaigns using just Clay, an email sending tool, and a CRM. You can continue using any tools you already have subscriptions to.
How does Clay give better data coverage than Zoominfo?
Clay often doubles or triples data coverage rates at 1/5th or less of Zoominfo's cost. The reason is multiple providers waterfalled—you search multiple enrichment tools in order for any field and only pay once a result is found. Large providers like Zoominfo buy and whitelabel small providers then charge massive premiums. Clay is transparent about which providers your data comes from and gives access to wholesale rates.
What are Actions and Data Credits?
Data Credits are used when purchasing data from Clay's marketplace—finding emails, phone numbers, company data across 150+ data partners. Credits get cheaper as you grow. Actions measure orchestration—enriching data, running tables, calling AI models, sending/exporting data to third-party systems. Actions cost less than 1 cent each and get cheaper with scale. If an enrichment returns no result, you're not charged either.
Do unused Data Credits or Actions roll over?
Actions reset each billing cycle and don't roll over since they reflect platform capacity. Data Credits work like currency and do roll over. On Launch and Growth plans, unused credits accumulate up to 2x your monthly credit amount (e.g., 10,000 credits can bank up to 20,000). Enterprise customers can roll over up to 15% of prior year's purchased credits if they renew at equal or higher commitment.
How does AI usage work in Clay?
Customers have two pricing options: Fixed-price where 80% of models (including all native Clay models) cost flat Data Credits per task, ideal for classification, summaries, templated content. Variable pricing for token-intensive models (GPT-5.1, Claude 4.6 Sonnet) based on actual token consumption with no markup—best for multi-step research, complex Claygent prompts, detailed account analysis. AI runs are 2x faster using Clay's API keys due to higher negotiated rate limits.
Can I use my own API keys in Clay?
Yes, customers can use their own API keys for data enrichment or AI in Clay. Each run counts as one Action but no Data Credit is used. AI runs are 2x faster using Clay's API keys compared to customers using their own because of higher rate limits Clay has negotiated with AI vendors.
Which CRMs does Clay integrate with?
Clay integrates with Hubspot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, Close, Loxo, and more. You're never limited by native integrations—you can use webhooks and Clay's HTTP API feature to connect to any tool with API access, including 6Sense, G2 intent data, Cognism, Wappalyzer technographics, Zapier workflows, and others.