Clay Pricing 2026

Clay offers five pricing tiers: Free ($0 with 100 credits/month), Starter at $167/month ($167/month annually with 2,000 credits), Explorer at $446/month ($314/month annually with 10,000 credits), Pro at $800/month ($720/month annually with 50,000 credits), and Enterprise with custom pricing. All plans include unlimited users -- pricing is based on credit volume, not per-seat. Annual billing saves approximately 10% across all paid plans. Higher-tier plans offer significantly better per-credit economics, with Pro being up to 7x cheaper per credit than Starter.

Yes, Clay offers a free forever plan with 100 credits per month, unlimited users, up to 5,000 people and company searches, AI/Claygent access, and access to 100+ data integration providers. The free plan also includes Clay's Chrome extension and credit rollover up to 2x your monthly allocation (200 credits max). However, the free plan does not include phone number enrichments, CRM integrations, or webhooks. The 100-credit limit is very restrictive for meaningful prospecting -- a single contact enrichment can cost 8-12 credits.

Clay is a data enrichment and workflow automation platform that helps go-to-market teams build, enrich, and activate prospect lists at scale. Unlike traditional sales databases (ZoomInfo, Apollo), Clay doesn't maintain its own contact database. Instead, it uses a 'waterfall' enrichment method -- searching across 100+ data providers in sequence until it finds the information you need. The spreadsheet-like interface lets you build custom prospecting workflows with conditional logic, AI-powered research (via Claygent), and automated personalization, all without writing code. Clay is trusted by 300,000+ GTM teams including OpenAI and HubSpot.

Clay uses a credit-based system where different actions consume different amounts of credits. Basic people and company searches are free (counted separately), but data enrichments cost 1-25 credits depending on the action and provider. Typical contact enrichments cost 8-12 credits per lead. Unused credits roll over to the next month, but only up to 2x your monthly allocation. For example, the Explorer plan (10,000 credits/month) can accumulate a maximum of 20,000 credits. When credits are exhausted, top-ups are available at 1.5x your plan's unit price (50% markup).

Clay and Apollo serve different purposes despite both being in the sales tools category. Apollo is an all-in-one platform with its own 210M+ contact database, built-in email sequences, and a dialer -- it's designed for direct prospecting and outreach. Clay is a data enrichment and orchestration platform that aggregates data from 100+ providers using waterfall enrichment but doesn't send emails or make calls. Clay is better for technical RevOps teams building custom workflows, while Apollo is better for SDRs who want a complete prospecting-to-outreach solution. Clay starts at $167/month (credit-based), while Apollo starts at $49/user/month (per-seat).

Clay provides excellent value for technically savvy GTM teams that can fully leverage its workflow automation and waterfall enrichment capabilities. The Pro plan at $720/month offers the best credit economics at $0.016/credit. However, Clay's value depends heavily on operational discipline -- teams that optimize workflows, use filters efficiently, and avoid unnecessary enrichments see strong ROI, while those that run unoptimized workflows can burn through credits 2-5x faster than expected. Clay is most cost-effective when you have a dedicated Clay owner and clear enrichment strategies.

Native CRM integrations with Salesforce and HubSpot are only available on the Pro plan ($800/month or $720/month annually) and above. Lower-tier plans (Free, Starter, Explorer) do not include direct CRM integrations, though you can export data manually or use webhooks on the Explorer plan to connect with other tools. The Pro plan enables bi-directional CRM sync, allowing you to enrich existing CRM records and push enriched data back automatically. Enterprise plans add Snowflake integration for data warehouse connectivity.

Waterfall enrichment is Clay's core technology that searches multiple data providers in sequence to maximize data coverage. When you request an enrichment (like finding someone's email), Clay tries Provider A first. If it fails, Clay automatically tries Provider B, then Provider C, and so on across its 100+ integrated sources. This approach typically yields higher match rates than any single provider, but each attempt in the waterfall consumes credits regardless of success. You can customize the waterfall order and select which providers to use for each enrichment type, optimizing for cost vs coverage.