Clay pricing in 2026 starts with a free plan, then Launch from $167 a month and Growth from $446 a month on annual billing, but the plan price is only the entry ticket: what you really pay depends on how many data credits your enrichment workflows burn. Clay is one of the most powerful prospecting tools on the market. It is also a spreadsheet you program, and waterfall enrichment can eat credits quickly if you do not plan for it.
This guide explains Clay's plans and credits, works out a realistic cost per enriched lead, compares Apollo vs Clay, and covers lighter alternatives. We make one of those alternatives, Find leads inside KissMySkills. We say where it fits and where it does not, and Clay is far more flexible than our tool.
Prices checked October 2026 on clay.com/pricing and apollo.io/pricing.
What Clay is and who it's for
Clay is a data enrichment and workflow platform. You start with a table of companies or people, then add columns that pull data from 150+ providers, run AI research with Clay's own agent (Claygent), score leads with formulas, and push the results to your CRM or email tool.
Its signature feature is waterfall enrichment: if provider A has no email for a contact, Clay tries provider B, then C, until one returns a result. That raises match rates well above any single database.
Clay is built for growth engineers, RevOps people and agencies who enjoy building systems. If you like spreadsheets, formulas and APIs, Clay is a playground. If you just want a list of 50 good prospects by Friday, it can feel like buying a workshop to hang one picture.
Clay pricing plans and credits
Clay charges for two things: actions, which measure platform usage such as running enrichments and workflows, and data credits, which pay for data and AI from vendors in Clay's marketplace. As of October 2026:
| Plan | Price | Data credits | Actions | Key limits and features |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 100 a month | 500 a month | Up to 200 rows per table, waterfalls, Claygent, no phone enrichment, no CRM sync |
| Launch | From $167/mo annual, $185/mo monthly | 2,500 a month | 15,000 a month | Phone enrichment, job-change signals, email sending, up to 50,000 rows per table |
| Growth | From $446/mo annual, $495/mo monthly | 6,000 a month | 40,000 a month | CRM auto-sync, HTTP API, webhooks, web intent signals, priority support |
| Enterprise | Custom, annual commitment | 100,000+ a year | 200,000+ a month | SSO, role-based access, bulk enrichment, dedicated strategist |
A few rules matter for your bill:
- Seats are unlimited on every plan, so the price does not grow with team size.
- The plan price is made of two parts. On Launch, the $167 is roughly $54 for actions plus $113 for 30,000 data credits a year. You can scale each part separately.
- Rollover is limited. Paid plans roll over up to 15% of annual credits.
- Top-ups cost more. Extra data credits on Launch and Growth are sold at a 30% premium.
- Bring your own API keys. If you already pay a data provider, you can plug in your own key and skip Clay's data credits for that provider.
Real cost per enriched lead (our estimate)
Clay does not charge per lead. It charges per data lookup, and each provider costs a different number of credits. So the honest way to estimate cost is to model a typical workflow. The figures below are our estimate, not Clay's prices. Our assumptions:
- Plan: Launch on annual billing, using the data-credit part of its price: about $113 a month for 2,500 data credits a month (30,000 a year). That is $1,356 a year divided by 30,000 credits, or roughly 4.5 cents per data credit.
- List size: 1,000 rows of companies.
- Credits per row: 2, 5 or 8 depending on the workflow. These counts are our assumptions; check each provider's credit cost in Clay before you run a column.
- Not included: the $54 a month actions part of the plan, and the 30% premium on top-up credits if you go beyond your monthly allowance.
| Workflow per row | Assumed data credits per row | Credits for 1,000 rows | Our estimated data cost (at about 4.5 cents per credit) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Light: find one work email and verify it | 2 | 2,000 | About $90 |
| Standard: company data, decision-maker, email waterfall, verification | 5 | 5,000 | About $225 |
| Heavy: standard plus AI research and a personalised first line | 8 | 8,000 | About $360 |
Two things change these numbers a lot. Phone numbers usually cost more credits than emails, so adding mobiles can multiply the cost. And waterfalls help here: Clay says it does not charge data credits when an enrichment returns no result, so you pay mainly for hits.
The practical takeaway: by the same assumptions, Launch's 2,500 data credits a month cover roughly 300 to 1,250 enriched rows (2,500 divided by 8 or by 2 credits per row). For a 1,000-lead campaign every month with a standard workflow (about 5,000 credits), budget for Launch plus top-ups at the 30% premium, or plan your columns carefully.
Lead enrichment explained (waterfall vs single source)
Lead enrichment means adding missing information to a lead: company size, industry, location, decision-maker names, work email, phone number, technologies used, recent news. There are two ways to do it:
- Single source. One database, such as Apollo or ZoomInfo, fills in what it has. Fast and simple, but coverage is limited to that database. If it does not know a contact, you get nothing.
- Waterfall. Several providers are tried in order until one returns a result. Coverage goes up, especially for small companies and non-US markets. The trade-offs are setup time, cost control and data consistency across providers.
A third, simpler route is enriching from the company's own website: reading the homepage, contact and about pages for the details a business publishes itself. It will not find a VP's personal mobile, but it is free of data-provider costs and always reflects what the company says about itself.
Apollo vs Clay
Apollo vs Clay is a common comparison, but they solve different problems. Apollo is a database with sequencing built in. Clay is a workflow engine that sits on top of many databases.
| Apollo | Clay | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | B2B database plus sequencing and dialer | Enrichment and workflow builder over 150+ providers |
| Entry price | Free; Basic $49 per seat/mo annual | Free; Launch from $167/mo annual, unlimited seats |
| Credits | Email 1 credit, phone 8 credits | Varies by provider; actions plus data credits |
| Setup | Search, filter, export | Build tables, columns and formulas |
| Best for | Outbound teams that want one tool | Growth engineers who want full control |
Clay wins on flexibility: 150+ data providers, custom formulas and AI columns. For growth engineers it is unmatched. Apollo wins on having a built-in database and sequencing in one place, at a lower entry price for one or two users. Many teams use both: Apollo for the base list and sending, Clay to fill the gaps. Our Apollo pricing guide covers Apollo's credit math.
Clay alternatives
If Clay feels like too much setup, these are the main Clay alternatives, from most to least control. The right Clay alternative depends on whether you want a database, enrichment inside your CRM, or an AI prospecting tool that does the searching for you.
Apollo
The simplest step down. You get a large database, filters, enrichment, sequences and a dialer with no workflow building. Free plan with 75 credits a month; paid plans from $49 per seat per month on annual billing. Best if you want one tool for finding and emailing leads.
Clearbit / Breeze Intelligence
Clearbit is now part of HubSpot and sold as Breeze Intelligence. It enriches contacts and companies inside HubSpot and helps with buyer intent and shorter forms. It needs a paid HubSpot subscription and uses HubSpot's credit system; we could not confirm current per-credit prices on HubSpot's own site, so check HubSpot's pricing page. Best if your CRM is already HubSpot and you mainly want cleaner records.
KissMySkills Find leads
Find leads is the opposite of Clay: less control, much less setup. You describe your ideal customer in plain English. Your own AI assistant, Claude or ChatGPT connected through the KissMySkills MCP connector, searches the web for matching companies and saves them as leads in your KMS AI CRM, skipping duplicates. Each lead is enriched from the company's own website, using only contact details the company publishes, with a check that its email domain accepts mail. Then your AI drafts a first email for each lead. Nothing is sent for you.
What it does not do: no 150-provider waterfall, no personal mobiles, no custom formulas, no bulk runs of 50,000 rows, and no sending. It works best for tens of leads at a time, not thousands. Pricing: the CRM is free for up to 300 deals and 1 user; the KissMySkills All-Access subscription at $15 a month or $129 a year removes the limit and includes all 7 KissMySkills tools. You use it with your own Claude or ChatGPT account.
| Tool | Setup effort | Data sources | Cost per 1,000 enriched leads | Outreach drafts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clay | High: build tables and columns | 150+ providers, waterfalls, Claygent | About $90 to $360 in data credits at Launch rates (our estimate, 2 to 8 credits per row), plus the plan | Yes, with AI columns you set up |
| Apollo | Low to medium | Apollo's own database | 1,000 emails = 1,000 credits; a Basic seat includes 2,500 a month for $49 (annual) | Yes, AI writing in sequences |
| Breeze Intelligence | Low if you use HubSpot | HubSpot's data (formerly Clearbit) | Depends on your HubSpot plan and credits | Via HubSpot's AI tools |
| KissMySkills Find leads | Low: describe your ICP | Open web and company websites | Free up to 300 deals; unlimited on $15/mo All-Access | Yes, a draft per lead, you send |
How to build a lead list in an afternoon
Whatever tool you use, this routine gets you a usable list in about three hours:
- Write your ICP (30 minutes). Industry, location, company size, the role you sell to, two buying signals, and who to exclude.
- Pull 50 to 100 companies (45 minutes). From a database filter, a Clay table, or an AI assistant searching the web.
- Enrich only what you need (30 minutes). A decision-maker or a published contact, a working email, one fact you can mention.
- Remove the bad fits (20 minutes). Wrong size, wrong region, existing customers, competitors.
- Write first emails (45 minutes). Short, specific, one question. Use AI for the draft, then edit.
- Put everything in a CRM (10 minutes). So follow-ups actually happen.
For more detail, see our guide to building a complete B2B lead gen system with an AI agent, how to use Claude for lead generation, and how Airtable AI can automate your business database if you prefer to build your own.
FAQ
How much does Clay cost?
As of October 2026, Clay has a free plan with 100 data credits and 500 actions a month. Launch starts at $167 a month on annual billing ($185 monthly) with 2,500 data credits a month, and Growth starts at $446 a month on annual billing ($495 monthly) with 6,000. Enterprise is custom. Seats are unlimited on all plans.
How to build a lead list?
Write a short ideal customer profile, pull 50 to 100 matching companies from a database or an AI web search, enrich only the contact details you need, remove bad fits, write a short personal first email for each, and track everything in a CRM. You can do it in an afternoon.
How to find B2B leads?
Start from your ideal customer profile, then use a source that matches your volume: a contact database such as Apollo, an enrichment workflow such as Clay, or an AI lead finder such as KissMySkills Find leads that searches the web for matching companies and saves them with first-email drafts.
How to generate B2B leads?
Combine a steady outbound routine, a small targeted list and personal emails every week, with at least one inbound channel such as referrals, content or partnerships. Use a CRM so every lead gets a follow-up.
Summary
Clay pricing is fair for what it is: a powerful, flexible enrichment engine with unlimited seats, where the real cost is data credits. If you have someone who enjoys building workflows, it is hard to beat. If you just need a well-matched list and good first emails, skip the workflow building: describe your ICP and let Find leads do the enrichment.
