Clay: enrich your prospect lists as a freelancer
Enrich your prospect lists by combining several data sources and AI agents
Clay is a data enrichment and sales workflow platform. You start from a list of prospects, complete it by querying several data providers and AI agents, then send it to your sales tools. It's a powerful tool, but it's built for sales teams, so take a close look before subscribing on your own.
Who is Clay for?
Freelancers who specialize in growth, prospecting or sales automation, who sell this work to clients and can pass on the cost of the tool. For finding your own clients on a small scale, it's usually overkill.
Features
- Data marketplace: buy data from many providers from inside Clay.
- Waterfall enrichment: several sources tried in turn to complete a contact.
- Claygent: AI agents that do research on the web.
- Workflows: account and lead scoring, signal tracking, CRM enrichment.
- Audiences: sync to LinkedIn, Meta and Google Ads.
- Your own API keys: according to Clay, they let you avoid data credit costs.
Clay pricing in 2026
Clay charges for two things: actions (what you orchestrate) and data credits (the data you buy).
- Free: 500 actions and 100 data credits per month, 200 rows per table, no phone number enrichment.
- Launch: $185 per month billed monthly ($60 of actions and $125 of credits), or $167 per month billed annually, with 15,000 actions and 2,500 data credits per month.
- Growth: $495 per month billed monthly ($205 of actions and $290 of credits), or $446 per month billed annually, with 40,000 actions and 6,000 data credits per month.
- Enterprise: on request.
Higher tiers cost more, and the price grid lets you buy actions separately, from $60 per month on Launch. Prices checked on clay.com in October 2026.
Why we recommend Clay
We recommend it to freelancers whose job is prospecting: centralizing sources and enriching a list in a waterfall allows for more targeted campaigns than a plain export. The weak point to know about: the price. Even the Launch plan is a real budget for an independent, usage depends on your workflows, and it takes time to get something out of it.
Clay or something else?
For a contact database with email sequences, look at Apollo. For simpler LinkedIn and email campaigns, look at La Growth Machine and Waalaxy, or all the Clay alternatives.
Strengths and weaknesses
Strengths
- Several data providers queried from a single tool
- Waterfall enrichment to try several sources on the same contact
- AI research agents (Claygent) to gather information from the web
- Free plan to discover the tool
Weaknesses
- Very high entry price for a solo freelancer
- Hard-to-predict cost: actions and data credits burn according to your workflows
- Long learning curve: it helps to have mastered prospecting already
Frequently asked questions about Clay
Clay is a data enrichment and sales workflow platform. You start from a list of prospects, complete it with data providers and AI agents, then send it to your sales tools.
The Launch plan starts at $185 per month billed monthly, or $167 per month billed annually, with 15,000 actions and 2,500 data credits per month. Growth starts at $495 per month, or $446 billed annually.
There is a limited free plan: 500 actions and 100 data credits per month, 200 rows per table and no phone number enrichment.
Rarely for your own prospecting, given the price. It makes sense if you sell prospecting or growth services to clients and can pass on the cost. Otherwise, a tool like La Growth Machine or Waalaxy will be simpler.
Look at Apollo for a contact database with email sequences, or La Growth Machine and Waalaxy for multichannel campaigns. Compare them on our Clay alternatives page.
Alternatives to Clay
What we would use instead, in the same category.
Compare all the alternatives to Clay
See our full comparison of the 4 alternatives to Clay in 2026: prices, features and strengths, in detail.
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