Clay Review 2026: Features, Pros & Cons, Pricing

What is Clay?

Clay is a data enrichment and sales automation platform designed to help B2B teams simplify their prospecting efforts. Instead of juggling multiple data providers and manually transferring information between tools, Clay creates a unified workspace where you can access, enrich, and act on prospect data.

Think of Clay as a supercharged spreadsheet that connects to over 100 different data sources. The platform aggregates information from providers like Apollo, People Data Labs, Clearbit, and Crunchbase to give you a comprehensive view of your prospects.

Clay’s core approach revolves around data orchestration. Rather than maintaining its own database like traditional providers, it pulls live information from multiple sources simultaneously. This aggregation model aims to provide more comprehensive data coverage than any single provider could offer.

The platform operates on a credit-based system where different enrichment actions consume varying amounts of credits. Basic contact verification might use 1 credit, while detailed profile enrichment could consume 5-10 credits. This model allows teams to optimize spending based on their specific needs.

Clay key features

Clay offers a comprehensive set of features designed to streamline your prospecting workflow. Let’s explore what makes this platform stand out.

Data sources and import options

Clay provides multiple ways to import prospect information. When creating a new table, you can access LinkedIn company and people searches with advanced filtering capabilities, Google Maps business discovery for location-based prospecting, Sales Navigator integration, direct CRM imports from platforms like HubSpot, CSV file uploads, and webhook connections for real-time data capture.

The platform maintains relationships between data points during import, creating a more structured database than basic spreadsheet uploads.

Data enrichment capabilities

Clay’s enrichment features add valuable insights to your initial prospect information. The platform organizes enrichments into several categories including company firmographics (revenue, employee count, industry), contact information (emails, phone numbers, social profiles), technographic data (technology stack information), intent signals (funding news, job postings, company updates), and social media activity.

Clay’s waterfall enrichment feature checks multiple providers sequentially when searching for data. If one provider can’t find an email address, it automatically queries the next provider in line. This approach achieves higher match rates than single-provider solutions.

AI-powered features

Clay incorporates several AI capabilities to save you time. The AI Formula Generator lets you describe desired outcomes in plain English, and Clay creates the appropriate formula. Claygent, Clay’s AI research agent, can scrape publicly available web data to find specific information like office locations, founder backgrounds, or company initiatives.

The platform also includes ChatGPT functionality for generating personalized email copy, categorizing data, or creating custom fields based on existing information.

Integration ecosystem

Clay connects with most major sales and marketing tools through native integrations or API connections. You can integrate with CRM platforms like Salesforce, HubSpot, and Pipedrive, email automation tools like Lemlist, Instantly, and Smartlead, and general automation platforms like Zapier and Make.

These integrations allow you to push enriched data to your preferred tools, though the setup process can be complex for advanced workflows.

Clay pricing

Clay uses a credit-based pricing model with several tiers to choose from:

Free Plan: $0/month

• 100 credits monthly
• Access to all data sources
• AI features (Claygent, GPT)
• Basic integrations
• Community support

Best for platform evaluation and very light use.

Starter Plan: $149/month ($134 if billed annually)

• 2,000 credits (3,000 annual)
• 5,000 results per search
• API key support
• Phone enrichments
• Email support

Supports roughly 200-400 fully enriched prospects monthly. Note that this plan doesn’t include CRM integrations.

Explorer Plan: $349/month ($314 annually)

• 10,000 credits (up to 20,000)
• 10,000 results per search
• Webhook support
• Email tool integrations
• Advanced filtering

The most popular tier, supporting 1,000-2,000 enriched prospects monthly.

Pro Plan: $800/month ($720 annually)

• 50,000 credits (up to 150,000)
• 25,000 results per search
• Full CRM integrations
• Unlimited table rows
• Advanced AI features

Supports 5,000-10,000 enriched prospects monthly and includes Salesforce/HubSpot sync.

Enterprise Plan: Custom pricing

Includes unlimited credits (or very high limits), custom AI models, SLA guarantees, dedicated success manager, and security certifications.

All paid plans include unlimited team members, and unused credits can roll over to the next month.

Clay pros and cons

Understanding both the strengths and limitations of Clay helps you make an informed decision.

User Ratings:

• G2: 4.8/5 (based on 178 reviews)
• Capterra: Limited reviews available

Pros ✅

Extensive data coverage: Clay’s ability to aggregate data from 100+ providers delivers more complete prospect profiles than single-source solutions. The waterfall enrichment approach significantly improves match rates.

Powerful AI capabilities: Claygent can automate research tasks that would normally take hours of manual work. The AI-powered personalization features help create more relevant outreach messages at scale.

Flexible integration options: Clay connects with most major sales and marketing tools, allowing you to build custom workflows that fit your existing tech stack.

Customization and control: Advanced users appreciate the ability to create custom waterfalls, use their own API keys, and tailor the platform to specific needs.

Strong community support: Clay has built a vibrant user community through Slack, providing helpful resources and peer support for troubleshooting.

Cons ❌

Steep learning curve: New users consistently report that Clay takes significant time to master. The spreadsheet interface seems approachable but hides considerable complexity, especially for multi-step workflows.

Complex pricing model: The credit-based system can be difficult to predict and budget for. Running comprehensive enrichments on large lists without understanding consumption patterns leads to unexpected costs.

Not beginner-friendly: Several reviews mention that non-technical team members struggle to get up to speed quickly. One user noted: “It feels like you need to be a spreadsheet expert to get the full worth of your investment.”

Interface can become cluttered: As workflows grow more complex with many columns, the interface becomes harder to navigate and troubleshoot.

Limited standalone outreach: Clay isn’t a full email sequencing tool, so you’ll need to integrate with other platforms for multi-step email campaigns.

Have you thought about multichannel outreach?

At La Growth Machine, we believe that great data enrichment is just the beginning. Once you’ve identified and enriched your ideal prospects with Clay, the next question is: how do you reach them effectively?

This is where multichannel prospecting becomes essential.

Clay excels at finding and enriching prospect data, but it’s designed primarily as a data orchestration layer rather than an outreach execution platform. While you can push enriched leads to email tools, you’re still limited to a single channel.

La Growth Machine complements Clay perfectly by taking those enriched leads and reaching them across multiple channels including LinkedIn, email, X (formerly Twitter), phone calls, and voice messages. Our platform allows you to create sequences that combine these channels strategically, dramatically improving your response rates.

Here’s how they work together:

1. Use Clay to build and enrich your lead lists with comprehensive data from multiple sources
2. Export those enriched leads to La Growth Machine via our native integration
3. Launch multichannel campaigns that reach prospects where they’re most active
4. Track all conversations in one unified inbox across LinkedIn, email, and other channels

Multichannel outreach generates 3.5x more replies than email-only campaigns. By combining Clay’s powerful data enrichment with La Growth Machine’s multichannel execution, you create a complete prospecting system that identifies the right people and reaches them in the right way.

La Growth Machine also offers features that complement Clay’s data focus:

• LinkedIn intent signals (import people who liked or commented on posts)
• Lookalike search to find similar prospects after successful conversations
• Social warming through automated likes and follows before outreach
• One-click lead qualification directly from your inbox

The combination gives you the best of both worlds: Clay’s comprehensive data enrichment and La Growth Machine’s proven multichannel engagement strategies.

Conclusion

Clay is a powerful data enrichment and automation platform that delivers on its promise of consolidating multiple data sources into one workspace. For teams that invest the time to learn its capabilities, Clay offers extensive customization, strong AI features, and impressive data coverage through its waterfall enrichment approach.

Clay is best suited for:

• Data-savvy sales and growth teams comfortable with spreadsheet logic
• Organizations that need to aggregate data from multiple sources
• Teams with the time and resources to invest in learning the platform
• Companies running high-volume prospecting campaigns

Consider alternatives if:

• You need quick implementation with minimal learning curve
• Your team lacks technical aptitude or bandwidth for training
• You want built-in multichannel outreach capabilities
• Predictable pricing is a priority

The platform’s steep learning curve and credit-based pricing model mean it’s not the right fit for every team. However, for those who master it, Clay becomes an invaluable part of their sales stack.

If you’re using Clay or considering it, remember that data enrichment is just the first step. To maximize your prospecting results, consider pairing Clay’s data capabilities with La Growth Machine’s multichannel outreach platform. Together, they create a complete system for identifying, enriching, and engaging your ideal prospects across the channels that matter most.