Clay Data Enrichment: How It Works and What It Actually Costs

Clay has become the go-to data enrichment platform for RevOps teams who want to stitch together multiple data sources without managing a dozen different subscriptions. It's powerful, flexible, and genuinely useful when you know how to use it.

But here's the reality: Clay isn't a simple plug-and-play tool. It's built for ops people who like building workflows, and its credit-based pricing system can get expensive fast if you're not careful about how you configure enrichments.

I'll break down exactly how Clay's data enrichment works, what it costs, and whether it's worth the investment for your team.

What Is Clay Data Enrichment?

Clay data enrichment takes incomplete contact or company records and fills in the gaps by pulling data from over 150 different providers. You upload a list with basic information (like a name and company domain), and Clay automatically finds emails, phone numbers, job titles, company size, tech stack data, and other firmographics.

The key difference from traditional data providers: Clay doesn't maintain its own database. Instead, it acts as a middleware layer that connects you to providers like Apollo, Clearbit, People Data Labs, ZoomInfo, and dozens of others - all through one interface.

You're essentially getting wholesale access to multiple data vendors without paying full retail price for each one separately. Clay aggregates information from various sources and uses a waterfall approach to maximize data coverage while minimizing cost.

Unlike single-database solutions like ZoomInfo or Apollo that rely on their proprietary data, Clay's marketplace model lets you choose which providers to check and in what order, giving you unprecedented control over data quality and cost efficiency.

How Clay's Waterfall Enrichment Works

The most powerful feature in Clay is waterfall enrichment. Instead of relying on a single data source, Clay checks multiple providers sequentially until it finds what you're looking for.

Here's how it works: Let's say you need to find a work email. Clay checks Provider A first. If Provider A doesn't have the email, it automatically moves to Provider B, then Provider C, and so on - until it finds a valid, verified email address. Once it finds a match, it stops and you only pay for the successful result.

This approach routinely triples data coverage compared to single-provider solutions. Where ZoomInfo might find 30% of your list, a properly configured Clay waterfall can hit 80%+ match rates. In comparative tests, Clay's waterfall enrichment delivers approximately 3x higher enrichment rates than traditional single-provider solutions.

You can customize the order of providers in your waterfall, typically arranging them from cheapest to most expensive. Clay displays the credit cost next to each provider, so you can optimize for both coverage and cost efficiency. For example, you might set up a waterfall that checks Prospeo (2 credits), then DropContact (3 credits), then Datagma (4 credits), and finally Apollo (6 credits) until a valid email is found.

The waterfall stops once it finds valid data, which saves credits. If a provider charges for the API call even when they don't return valid data, you get charged credits. Clay refunds credits when providers refund them, but not all providers do. This means you need to understand each provider's charging policy when building your waterfall.

Setting Up an Effective Waterfall

Creating an efficient waterfall requires strategic thinking. Start by arranging providers from lowest to highest cost - this is shown directly in the enrichment panel. For company enrichment, you might use Clay Enrich first (if available), then LeadMagic, Datagma, and finally providers like Clearbit or PitchBook that cost more credits.

For work emails, popular waterfall sequences include providers like Prospeo, DropContact, Hunter, People Data Labs, Nimbler, Apollo, and Lusha. The pre-arranged order Clay suggests is optimized for coverage, but you can reorder based on your budget priorities.

Clay also lets you add conditional logic to your waterfalls. You can set enrichment to only run if certain criteria are met, such as company size, industry, or geographic location. This prevents wasting credits on prospects that don't match your ideal customer profile.

What Data Can You Enrich with Clay?

Clay enriches several categories of data:

Company Firmographics

Industry classification, employee count, annual revenue, headquarters location, company type (public or private), and founding year. This helps you segment accounts and prioritize based on company size and revenue potential. You can also pull funding data including total amount raised, most recent round, and investor names - valuable for targeting companies with fresh capital.

Contact Information

Work email addresses (the most common use case), phone numbers and mobile numbers, LinkedIn profiles and social media URLs, job titles and seniority levels, and department information. The email waterfall includes built-in validation through services like ZeroBounce to ensure deliverability.

Clay defaults to ZeroBounce for validation due to its high accuracy, but you can select another validator if preferred. By default, catch-all emails are treated as valid, though this setting can be adjusted based on your deliverability strategy.

Technographic Data

Clay pulls technology stack information showing what CRM, marketing automation, cloud services, and other software a company uses. This is valuable for SaaS companies who want to target businesses using specific technologies. You can identify companies using HubSpot, Salesforce, particular marketing automation platforms, or specific development tools.

Intent Signals

Recent funding rounds and investment activity, new job postings indicating growth, leadership changes, product launches, and company news. These signals help you reach out at the right moment when companies are most likely to need your product. Clay can monitor for job changes among contacts in your CRM, alerting you when champions or decision-makers move to new companies.

Custom Data Points with Claygent

Beyond standard enrichment providers, Clay's AI research assistant Claygent can find virtually any publicly available information. This includes certifications, podcast appearances, case study mentions, SOC-2 compliance status, free trial availability, benefit packages, and other niche data points that traditional providers don't track.

Understanding Claygent: Clay's AI Research Assistant

Claygent is Clay's AI-powered research agent that sets it apart from traditional data enrichment tools. While standard enrichment pulls from fixed databases, Claygent actively searches the web, analyzes websites, and extracts contextually relevant information.

Claygent uses large language models (including GPT-4, Claude, and Clay's proprietary Neon model) to understand and process information. It can visit websites, read pages, scrape content, analyze PDFs, and answer arbitrary questions about companies or people. Approximately 30% of Clay customers use Claygent daily, generating around 500,000 research and outreach tasks per day.

How Claygent Works

Unlike basic web scrapers, Claygent uses intelligent navigation to find information efficiently. When scraping a website, instead of sending the entire site content to the AI model, Claygent first asks which section is most likely to contain the desired information. For example, it knows that compliance information is typically found in website footers, while pricing details are usually on dedicated pricing pages.

Claygent employs a binary search approach, progressively narrowing the search space until required information is found. This reduces token usage and improves efficiency while maintaining accuracy. You can customize output formats (text, numbers, URLs, boolean responses) and Claygent provides source details for all retrieved data, allowing manual verification.

What You Can Do with Claygent

Common Claygent use cases include:

The Claygent Builder interface lets you build prompts, connect data, test outputs, and switch between versions without spending credits - making it easy to refine your research approach before running it at scale.

Choosing the Right Claygent Model

Clay offers multiple AI models for Claygent tasks:

Simple yes/no questions work well with the 1-credit model, while deeper analysis requiring context and reasoning benefits from 2-3 credit models. The cost difference is significant at scale, so testing with small batches helps identify the right model for each use case.

Clay Pricing: The Credit System Explained

Clay uses a credit-based pricing model where different enrichment actions consume different amounts of credits. This is where things get complicated and potentially expensive.

Here's the current pricing structure:

Free Plan: 100 credits per month (1,200 annually). Good for testing but not viable for actual campaigns. Phone number enrichments aren't available on the free plan. Maximum 100 results per individual people or company search.

Starter Plan: $149/month or $134/month annually for 2,000 credits per month. This covers roughly 200-400 fully enriched contacts depending on how many data points you pull. Includes phone number enrichment and the ability to use your own API keys. Maximum 5,000 results per search. Does not include CRM integrations.

Explorer Plan: $349/month or $314/month annually for 10,000 credits per month. Adds webhooks, HTTP API integration, and email sequencing integrations. Supports about 1,000-2,000 enriched prospects monthly. Maximum 10,000 results per search. Still no CRM integration at this tier.

Pro Plan: $800/month or $720/month annually for 50,000 credits per month. This is where you get CRM integrations with Salesforce and HubSpot. Supports 5,000-10,000 enriched prospects monthly. Credits cost roughly $16 per 1,000 at this tier, compared to $75 per 1,000 on the Starter plan. Maximum 30,000 results per search.

Enterprise Plan: Custom pricing starting around $30,000 annually. Includes unlimited features, dedicated support, custom credit allocations, unlimited rows (Passthrough Tables), up to 40 action columns per table, Snowflake data engineering, AI prompting support, dedicated Slack support, credit reporting analytics, and SSO. Maximum 50,000 results per search.

All plans include unlimited users, and unused credits roll over to the next month (up to 2x your monthly allocation). For example, if you're on the Explorer plan with 10,000 monthly credits, you can accumulate up to 20,000 credits total.

Annual vs Monthly Pricing

Clay offers a 10% discount when billed annually instead of monthly. For teams committed to using the platform long-term, annual billing reduces the effective monthly cost and all credits are granted upfront, giving you more flexibility in how you use them throughout the year.

The Real Cost: How Credits Get Consumed

Here's what people don't realize until they're already using Clay: credit consumption varies wildly based on which providers you use and what data you're enriching.

Finding a basic email might cost 2-3 credits with a cheap provider, but if that provider doesn't have it and the waterfall moves to a premium source, the same email could cost 8+ credits. Phone numbers are more expensive - mobile numbers can cost anywhere from 2-25 credits depending on the provider.

A typical lead enrichment pulling email, phone number, job title, and company firmographics can easily consume 8-12 credits per contact. That means the $149 Starter plan with 2,000 credits might only enrich 150-200 leads, not 2,000.

Here are actual credit costs for common enrichment actions:

Failed enrichments can also burn credits. If a provider charges for the API call even when they don't return valid data, you get charged credits. Clay refunds credits when providers refund them, but not all providers do. Understanding which providers charge for API calls versus successful results is crucial for budget management.

The waterfall stops once it finds valid data, which saves credits. But if you're enriching contacts with multiple data points, those credits add up fast. Running comprehensive enrichments on large lists without understanding consumption patterns leads to unexpected costs and mid-campaign credit shortages.

One user reported that Clay's estimates for per-row credit cost can vary significantly from stated amounts, occasionally by 100% or more. A lookup operation communicated to average 11 credits per row for successful runs might cost 25+ credits per row when running over large data sets, leading to misalignment between credit allocation and returned data.

Managing Credit Consumption

Teams using Clay effectively in 2026 implement strict governance around credit spending. Best practices include:

Clay pricing only works well when paired with strong operational discipline. Teams that treat credits casually often experience friction, unexpected upgrades, and inflated costs.

Clay Integrations: Connecting Your Tech Stack

One of Clay's major strengths is its extensive integration ecosystem. The platform connects with 150+ data providers and integrates with major CRMs, email tools, and sales engagement platforms.

CRM Integrations

Clay integrates natively with HubSpot and Salesforce (available on Pro plan and above). These integrations allow you to:

The HubSpot integration enables seamless data sync between platforms, automating lead management and improving sales team efficiency. You can pull filtered, up-to-date contact records using real HubSpot IDs, enrich them in Clay, then push clean updates back using ID-matching and blank-field protection to avoid overwriting existing clean data.

For Salesforce, Clay offers lookup actions, create actions, update actions, and upsert functions (create if doesn't exist, update if it does). Enterprise users get access to SOQL queries for complex data relationships.

Email and Outreach Tool Integrations

Clay integrates with email sequencing and sales engagement platforms including:

These integrations let you push enriched contacts directly into outreach campaigns, ensuring your emails feel personal because all the research work was done beforehand in Clay.

Data Provider Integrations

Clay's marketplace model means you can access data from 150+ providers through a single interface, including:

You can use Clay's managed accounts (using their pre-negotiated rates) or bring your own API keys from providers you already subscribe to. When using your own API keys, you don't pay Clay credits for those enrichments.

What Clay Does Really Well

Despite the complexity and cost concerns, Clay genuinely excels in several areas:

Data coverage: The waterfall approach delivers significantly higher match rates than any single provider. Teams report 2-3x improvement in email discovery rates. Companies have tripled their enrichment rates compared to previous solutions by combining multiple data providers through Clay's waterfall system.

Flexibility: You can build custom workflows, set conditional logic, and create sophisticated enrichment sequences. If you need to enrich only leads that match specific criteria or trigger enrichment based on certain events, Clay handles it. The visual, spreadsheet-like workspace makes complex automations more accessible than traditional coding.

Integration ecosystem: Clay connects with 150+ data providers and integrates with major CRMs, email tools, and sales engagement platforms. Once you're on the Pro plan, you can sync enriched data directly to Salesforce, HubSpot, Instantly, Smartlead, and other tools. This creates end-to-end workflows from finding leads to enriching data to triggering personalized outreach.

AI capabilities: Claygent, Clay's AI research assistant, can scrape websites, analyze PDFs, search Google, and find information that traditional data providers don't have. This is useful for finding niche data points specific to your use case. With Claygent, a single person can handle work that previously required an entire research team.

No-code automation: Clay enables sophisticated automation without engineering effort. You can auto-enrich leads as they come in, trigger updates based on CRM changes, or run large enrichment jobs without writing code. This makes powerful data operations accessible to RevOps and growth teams.

Real-time enrichment: Unlike static databases that become stale, Clay can continuously re-enrich records based on triggers, keeping your data fresh. This is particularly valuable for maintaining accurate contact information as people change jobs or companies evolve.

What Clay Doesn't Do Well

Let's be honest about the limitations:

Steep learning curve: Multiple users report it takes weeks to understand how Clay works. The interface is powerful but overwhelming for non-technical users. You need to understand concepts like conditional logic, data flows, and API functionality. One user noted: "It feels like you need to be a spreadsheet expert to get the full worth of your investment."

While Clay positions itself as more intuitive than enterprise tools, it still takes time to master, especially if you want to move beyond basic tasks. The sheer number of features and customization options can be challenging, and teams often need dedicated training or support to fully utilize Clay's potential.

Phone number coverage: Clay's weakest area is mobile phone numbers, with match rates typically between 40-60%. If cold calling is a priority, you'll need to supplement with a specialized phone data provider. Clay doesn't specialize in finding mobile numbers the way dedicated phone intelligence providers do.

Unpredictable costs: The credit system is difficult to budget for. Running comprehensive enrichments on large lists without understanding consumption patterns leads to unexpected costs and mid-campaign credit shortages. Credit costs can vary significantly based on waterfall configuration and provider availability. Teams need to carefully track credit burn rates and have clear governance policies.

Data quality inconsistency: Since Clay pulls from multiple third-party providers, accuracy varies. You're dependent on the quality of whatever source happens to have your data. Data accuracy depends on the sources you connect - Apollo and Clearbit generally return solid results, but less reliable sources can produce outdated or incorrect information. The quality of contact data can vary wildly even after expensive credit spend.

Not a standalone solution: Clay handles enrichment and automation, but you still need separate tools for CRM, email sequencing, and other parts of your sales stack. Unlike all-in-one platforms like Apollo or ZoomInfo that bundle database access with engagement tools, Clay requires you to piece together multiple systems.

Complex setup required: Getting value from Clay requires significant upfront investment in learning the platform and building workflows. For teams wanting to hit the ground running immediately, the setup time can be a barrier. The hands-on support during the ramp period may not be as extensive as the sales process suggests.

Clay vs Traditional Data Providers

Understanding how Clay compares to traditional single-database providers helps clarify when it makes sense.

Clay vs ZoomInfo

ZoomInfo maintains one of the largest proprietary B2B databases with over 420 million contact profiles and 110 million company profiles. It offers comprehensive data with 300+ attributes per record, built-in intent data, conversation intelligence, and deep native integrations with sales tools.

Clay, in contrast, doesn't own any data - it aggregates from multiple providers. While ZoomInfo offers structured, high-volume data for broad outreach and global coverage, Clay offers flexibility and freshness through real-time enrichment from multiple sources.

ZoomInfo typically costs $15,000-18,000+ annually with enterprise minimums and requires talking to sales. Clay starts at $149/month with transparent pricing. However, ZoomInfo's all-inclusive pricing can be more predictable than Clay's credit system.

For teams needing deep data and structured systems with the budget to invest in a full-scale go-to-market engine, ZoomInfo fits large sales organizations. Clay leans into flexibility and is a better match for startups and lean teams wanting to build enrichment workflows without heavy overhead.

Clay vs Apollo

Apollo offers an all-in-one solution combining a B2B database with sales engagement tools. Starting at $49-99/user/month, Apollo provides contact data plus sequences, dialer, and CRM functionality in one platform. This makes it significantly more affordable than ZoomInfo and simpler than piecing together multiple tools.

Apollo's database contains comparable data to ZoomInfo but at a fraction of the cost. However, Apollo's data coverage for any single provider is lower than what Clay achieves through waterfall enrichment. Where Apollo might find 40-50% of contacts, Clay's multi-provider approach can reach 80%+.

The key trade-off: Apollo is an all-in-one platform optimized for simplicity and cost, while Clay requires more technical setup but delivers higher data coverage and customization. Teams doing high-volume SMB outbound with budget constraints often prefer Apollo. Teams wanting maximum enrichment rates and willing to invest in setup prefer Clay.

Clay vs Clearbit

Clearbit (recently acquired by HubSpot) specializes in B2B data enrichment with reliable contact data and company intelligence. It's known for data accuracy and seamless HubSpot integration, making it strong for teams already in the HubSpot ecosystem.

Clay can access Clearbit as one provider in a waterfall alongside many others. This means Clay users get Clearbit's data quality while also pulling from other sources when Clearbit doesn't have a match. If Clearbit alone covers 35% of your list, adding it to a Clay waterfall might get you to 80% by supplementing with other providers.

Clearbit works well as a focused solution for HubSpot users wanting simple enrichment. Clay works better when you need maximum coverage and don't want to be limited to a single data source.

Who Should Use Clay for Data Enrichment?

Clay makes sense if you're a RevOps engineer or technically-minded growth person who enjoys building workflows and wants maximum flexibility. It's especially valuable if you need high email match rates and you're willing to invest time learning the platform.

Clay is ideal for:

Clay probably isn't the right fit if you want a simple, plug-and-play enrichment tool, your team lacks technical expertise, you need predictable monthly costs, or phone numbers are your primary enrichment need.

For most B2B sales teams, the Starter plan won't be enough. You'll realistically need Explorer ($349/month) or Pro ($800/month) to run consistent campaigns with CRM integration. That puts Clay in the same price range as enterprise data providers like ZoomInfo, but with more setup complexity.

If you're already committed to building sophisticated data workflows and you value the flexibility to choose your own data sources, Clay is genuinely powerful. Just make sure you understand the credit economics before you scale up your enrichment volume.

Best Practices for Clay Implementation

If you decide to move forward with Clay, these practices help maximize ROI while controlling costs:

Start Small and Test

Begin with the Free plan or a single month of Starter to understand how credits are consumed for your specific use cases. Run small batches (10-50 rows) to test waterfall configurations before scaling. This helps you understand actual credit costs versus estimates.

Build Efficient Waterfalls

Arrange providers from cheapest to most expensive within your waterfall. Use conditional logic to prevent enrichment on records that don't match your ICP. Test which providers deliver the best data quality for your target market and prioritize those. Consider using your own API keys for providers you already subscribe to, which don't consume Clay credits.

Implement Data Hygiene First

Use Clay's formulas to catch duplicates, fix formatting issues, and exclude entries that don't match your profile before enrichment. This prevents wasting credits on unusable records. Run verification and deduplication before triggering credit-heavy actions.

Track Credit Economics

Calculate your cost per enriched contact and cost per meeting booked. Set up monitoring to alert when credit consumption exceeds expected rates. Review which enrichments deliver the most value and eliminate low-ROI data points. Understand that credits are reserved for accounts showing real buying signals to improve ROI.

Integrate Properly with Your CRM

When pushing data back to HubSpot or Salesforce, use ID-matching to prevent duplicates. Enable "ignore blank values" settings to protect existing clean fields. Tag every enriched contact with a campaign name to enable attribution tracking. This creates a closed-loop system that tracks performance from first touch to closed-won revenue.

Leverage Claygent Strategically

Use Claygent for unique data points that traditional providers don't offer, not for standard information available in databases. Test prompts in the Claygent Builder without consuming credits before running at scale. Choose the appropriate AI model based on task complexity - simple extractions don't need the most expensive model.

Getting Started with Clay

Ready to explore Clay? Start with their free plan to test the waterfall enrichment features before committing to a paid subscription. The Free plan gives you 100 credits per month and access to all basic features, letting you understand the platform and test enrichments on small lists.

When you're ready to scale, most growing teams find the Explorer plan ($349/month) provides enough credits and features for consistent use. The Pro plan ($800/month) becomes necessary when you need CRM integrations with Salesforce or HubSpot.

Take advantage of Clay University, their comprehensive learning resource with step-by-step tutorials covering everything from basic enrichment to advanced automation. The Clay Slack community is also valuable for connecting with other users, sharing workflow ideas, and troubleshooting issues.

If you need expert help implementing Clay, consider working with a Claygency - agencies that specialize in building Clay workflows and integrations. These former SDRs and RevOps professionals can help you set up efficient enrichment systems faster than learning everything from scratch.

Try Clay's free plan to test the waterfall enrichment features before committing to a paid subscription.

Alternatives to Consider

While Clay is powerful, it's worth understanding alternatives that might better fit your needs:

For teams wanting an all-in-one solution with built-in database and engagement tools, Apollo offers better value and simplicity at $49-99/user/month. If you need a simple, turnkey data solution without complex setup, Apollo's integrated approach eliminates the need to connect multiple systems.

For enterprises with large budgets needing comprehensive data coverage, ZoomInfo provides deeper proprietary data with built-in intent signals and conversation intelligence. If data accuracy and compliance are critical (especially for regulated industries), ZoomInfo's 400-person research team and quality guarantees may justify the premium cost.

For teams focused specifically on email enrichment and deliverability, Findymail specializes in verified B2B email data with strong accuracy rates and simpler pricing than Clay's credit system.

For CRM-native enrichment without leaving your workflow, HubSpot's native enrichment tools or Salesforce integrations with providers like Clearbit offer simpler implementation for teams already embedded in those ecosystems.

Final Verdict on Clay Data Enrichment

Clay represents a fundamentally different approach to B2B data enrichment. Instead of buying access to a single database, you're buying a platform that orchestrates multiple data sources intelligently. For the right team, this delivers unmatched data coverage and flexibility.

The waterfall enrichment model genuinely works - teams see 2-3x higher match rates compared to single providers. The ability to combine 150+ data sources through one interface eliminates the need for managing multiple subscriptions. Claygent adds unique AI-powered research capabilities that traditional providers can't match.

However, Clay demands technical sophistication and operational discipline. The credit-based pricing requires careful monitoring and optimization. The learning curve is real, and the platform rewards those who invest time in mastering it.

For GTM engineers, RevOps professionals, and technically-minded growth teams building sophisticated prospecting systems, Clay is a game-changer. For teams wanting simple, predictable enrichment or lacking technical resources, simpler alternatives like Apollo or traditional providers like ZoomInfo may be better fits.

The key question isn't whether Clay is good - it's whether your team has the capability and commitment to use it effectively. If you do, the data coverage and automation possibilities are worth the investment. If you don't, the complexity and unpredictable costs will frustrate more than empower.

Looking for more tools to power your sales stack? Check out our guides on best cold email tools, best sales intelligence tools, and best CRM software to round out your go-to-market tech stack.