Wondering how to find information for each of the 1,000 records in your database with just one click? Clay can do that.
Clay.com is a tool that allows for automatic searching, updating, and filtering of data, helping sales teams focus on the right contacts. With integrations with other sales tools and the use of AI, Clay.com optimizes the prospecting process, significantly increases response rates in outbound and inbound campaigns, and helps maintain order in our CRM system.
In this article, you'll find answers to questions:
- What is Clay.com and how does it work?
- What does prospecting look like before and after Clay?
- How to define your ICP before touching Clay?
- What are Clay's key features and input sources?
- How to build an enrichment waterfall and score leads?
- What tools can Clay replace - and at what cost?
- How to push verified leads to your engagement stack?
- What are the main advantages, mistakes, and limitations?
- FAQ: Clay vs Apollo, pricing, integrations, and more.
What is Clay?
Clay is an all-in-one platform for searching, enriching, and qualifying data. Think of it as a powerful integrator for all sales and marketing tools.
All departments within a company's structure will find their application here - especially sales and marketing teams whose main goal is to deliver the right message exactly when a specific client's purchasing need arises.
Clay does not send emails. It prepares leads. You push verified, enriched data into your engagement stack - tools like Instantly or Smartlead handle the sending.
What prospecting looks like without Clay - and with it
Most teams don't realize how much manual work sits between "finding a company" and "sending an email." Here's the same process, side by side.
Without Clay - 16 steps:
- Company research via Sales Navigator
- Research people in those companies
- No export option without an external tool
- Export and upload data to Google Sheets
- Analyze data in Google Sheets using OpenAI API (which often can't handle data load)
- No possibility to enrich company data in real time from their media
- Export data
- Upload data to email-finder tool #1
- Export data
- Filter out records with found data
- Upload remaining records to another tool
- Export data
- Merge data
- Export data
- Upload to mailing tool
- Upload to CRM
With Clay - 7 steps:
- Company research with much broader selection criteria
- Research people in those companies
- Add column for categorization analysis
- Add AI-powered column to find real-time online information
- Add waterfall function to find email addresses using 3 sources based on name, surname, and domain
- Export data directly to mailing tool
- Export data directly to CRM
Shorter, faster, fewer errors. And every one of those 7 steps runs inside one table.
Before you open Clay: define your ICP
Clay amplifies whatever targeting decisions you've already made. If your ICP is vague, your Clay tables will produce a lot of irrelevant data at real credit cost.
An Ideal Customer Profile is not just demographics - it's a detailed picture of companies and people most likely to buy your product or service.
Start by analyzing your current customer base:
- Which industries bring the best results?
- How do analyzed companies describe themselves?
- Who is the decision-maker or influencer?
- What specific problems does the customer solve with your product?
- Why will they choose you over competitors?
- When will companies enter the buying process?
- What triggers the start of a buying process?
Write this down. It becomes the schema for your Clay table columns - company-level filters, contact-level filters, and exclusions (company types you don't want: agencies, one-person shops, nonprofits, etc.).
What are Clay's key features?
Data searching in Clay
Clay allows you to search for data about companies, people, job offers, and local businesses - in tabular form, directly from sources like LinkedIn, Google, GitHub, and 10+ others.
Companies can be filtered by:
- Industry categories and keywords
- Company size and type (LLC, joint-stock, etc.)
- Location and number of LinkedIn followers
- Exclude keywords - crucial for precision (e.g., you want medical e-commerce, not hospitals or pharmacies)
People can be filtered by:
- Job title, seniority, and department
- Experience, location, certifications, and language
- Keywords in their LinkedIn BIO
- Number of contacts or followers
Data enrichment in Clay
Clay operates on a table that allows you to:
- Search for additional data based on already collected information
- Manage and model data using the Function module
- Analyze data in Waterfall form - checking all available sources sequentially
- Scrape data in real time from websites using the Claygent module
When adding a new column, you can choose from 5 action types:
- Collect additional data from an external source via native integrations
- Use AI to analyze or manipulate collected data
- Use Claygent to check data in real time on the web based on a specific query per record
- Create personalized messages for each prospect using AI and enriched data
- Use the Waterfall function to check all possible sources (FindyMail, Prospeo, LeadMagic, Apollo, etc.) until one returns a verified result
Where does your data come from? Input sources
Before enriching anything, you need a list. Clay can pull from multiple sources - the right one depends on your use case.
Best for: volume prospecting, broad ICP matching, initial list building. Treat Apollo outputs as a starting point for enrichment, not a final list.
LinkedIn Sales Navigator (via CSV + waterfall)
Best for: high-precision targeting, senior decision-makers, account-based lists. Sales Navigator doesn't integrate directly with Clay - export as CSV, import into Clay, then run email enrichment through Prospeo, Findymail, or FullEnrich.
CSV import
Best for: existing CRM data, event attendee lists, manually built target account lists. Straightforward import - map your columns, then build enrichment flows on top.
Clay's native scraping
Best for: finding contacts at specific companies, scraping public directories, speaker pages, or company team pages.
Webhooks and real-time sources
Best for: intent-based triggers and inbound leads. If someone downloads a lead magnet on your site, the data can hit Clay instantly. Clay enriches the lead and can alert an SDR in Slack within seconds - drastically reducing response time for high-intent contacts.
How to build your enrichment waterfall?
The enrichment waterfall is the core of how Clay works. You run multiple providers in sequence, stopping when one returns a verified result. This maximizes coverage while minimizing credit usage.
Recommended email enrichment order:
- Prospeo - high accuracy for LinkedIn-sourced contacts
- Findymail - strong for Sales Navigator exports
- FullEnrich - multi-provider waterfall, charges only on success
- Apollo email finder - broader coverage, lower accuracy
- Hunter.io - domain-level fallback
If Prospeo finds a verified email - stop there. Don't run all providers on every row.
Company-level enrichment sources:
- LinkedIn Company Scraper: headcount, recent posts, job openings
- Clearbit (now part of HubSpot): strong for tech companies
- Crunchbase: funding data
- BuiltWith or Wappalyzer: tech stack detection
AI enrichment
Clay integrates with Claude and GPT-4 for AI-driven enrichment:
- Generating personalized opening lines based on LinkedIn data
- Classifying companies into ICP segments from website descriptions
- Scoring leads based on multiple enriched data points
- Writing short custom intro lines per prospect
AI enrichment is one of the highest-leverage uses of Clay for outbound. It's also where you can burn credits fast if not structured carefully.
Best practices:
- Test different enrichers on a small sample of 5-10 records first
- Start with cheaper enrichers - move to premium only if needed
- Pre-filter rows before enriching - don't enrich a company with 5 employees if your ICP starts at 50
Score leads before you push them anywhere
Once you have enriched data, don't push everything to your sequencer. Score leads first using Clay's formula columns or AI columns.
Push only leads above a threshold score (e.g., 7+) to your sequencer. Lower-scoring leads go to a secondary list for manual review or a different campaign.
Skipping lead scoring means your SDRs are working unqualified leads and your deliverability takes hits from poor-fit contacts.
What tools can Clay replace?
Clay can completely cover the process of:
- Data research from LinkedIn (Sales Navigator, Premium, Recruiter)
- Data enrichment from Apollo, LeadMagic, Snov.io, Hunter
- Email and phone number finding from Prospeo, Findymail
Practically all tools listed within integrations can be replaced - although it's not always cost-effective.
The cost of finding an email through Clay and Prospeo integration uses 2 credits:
- Starter plan: 149 USD / 2,000 credits = $0.0745/credit
- Cost per email: 2 credits × $0.0745 = $0.149
- Cost directly in Prospeo: $0.039 per email
The difference is more than fourfold. At 2,000 emails, that's a significant difference in acquisition cost.
The good news: within paid plans, you can connect your own API keys to reduce this cost.
How much does Clay cost?
You can find current Clay pricing on their website. The annual plan is 10% cheaper than monthly.
There's also a custom Enterprise version covering unlimited rows, dedicated Slack support, SSO, and credit usage reporting.
For serious outbound work, start with at least the Starter plan. Most agencies and growth teams end up on Pro or above once they're running own API keys and webhooks.
How to save significantly on credits?
Clay credits are consumed per enrichment action per row. The difference between using Clay's built-in integrations vs. connecting your own APIs is dramatic.
Example 1 - AI company descriptions:
- Clay cost (1 action = 1 credit = $0.0745): 1,000 records × $0.0745 = $74.50
- OpenAI API cost (~$0.00001 per action): 1,000 records = $0.10
Example 2 - Business email finding:
- Clay cost (1 action = 2 credits = $0.149): 1,000 records × $0.149 = $149
- Prospeo API cost ($0.039 per action): 1,000 records × $0.039 = $39
At scale, these savings are significant. The Explorer and Pro plans allow you to connect your own API keys to external tools - this is where Clay's real cost efficiency kicks in.
Integrations: pushing verified leads to your engagement stack
Clay is a gatekeeper, not a sender. Only qualified, enriched, verified leads go into your sequencer. This protects your deliverability and improves campaign performance.
Cold email platforms
- Instantly: native integration, push leads directly to a campaign with field mapping
- Smartlead: similar native integration
- Lemlist, Woodpecker: via webhook or Zapier
Set up the integration so only leads with verified emails and above your score threshold get pushed. Never push raw enrichment output directly to your sequencer.
CRM
For HubSpot, Salesforce, or Pipedrive:
- Use Clay's native CRM integrations
- Map Clay fields to CRM properties
- Add a deduplication check before pushing - avoid creating duplicate records from different table runs
Slack notifications for high-intent leads
For high-priority leads (score 9+, or from a named target account list), configure Clay to send a Slack notification. Useful both for outbound and inbound: when a target account fills out a form or hits a product usage threshold, Clay can enrich the contact and alert the AE before the lead goes cold.
Example logic: if Employee_Count > 100 and Job_Title contains "VP" or "Head of" - the lead is instantly flagged in Slack for follow-up within 5 minutes.
How to start using the Clay tool?
1. Logging in is standard:
- by adding an email address and creating a password,
- using a Google account.
2. Then you need to go through a short survey.
3. A board screen will appear, which will be your space for managing tables.
4. To add a new table, click +New and select the "Workbook" option. This interface will appear before you:
5. Define what you need in the context of your research and choose the appropriate option from the panel on the left:
- find people,
- find companies,
- find job offers,
- find local businesses,
- import your data,
- play with a clean table.
6. When purchasing the Clay tool, you can add any number of users to a given account at no additional cost.
- Click the icon in the upper right corner.
- Select settings.
- In the left panel, select "Team" and add the email addresses of the people to be added to your workspace.
7. If you already have tools for searching email addresses, automation, or data enrichment, you can connect them via API to your workspace and use their functionalities directly in Clay
- Click the icon in the upper right corner.
- Select settings.
- In the left panel, select the "Connections" tab.
- Click the "+ Add connection" button
- Enter the tool name in the search engine or find it manually and add the connection.
8. If you need help with implementation and team training — write to us.
Main advantages and 5 things you need to watch out for when using Clay.
Certainly, the main advantage of using Clay is its simplicity of use. A simple interface, based on a table, should be understandable to anyone who has ever worked on Excel or Google Sheets. However, the functionalities are much greater.
The biggest advantages of Clay — time savings:
- no need to manually export and import data to use the functionalities of other tools,
- the tool is a canvas where you can do literally anything related to data searching and processing while maintaining data order,
- the tool makes great use of AI, providing analysis capabilities per each record at the level of available variables,
- the tool's filtering function also allows limiting the amount of data exported to csv. based on specific variables,
- the operation of subsequent columns can be programmed based on specific criteria to be met,
- data flow visualization and enrichment function operation conditions can be seen as an automation canvas in the form of a workflow diagram. This is a separate view available in addition to the tabular view.
- Clay has an auto deduplication function - it does this automatically based on LinkedIn profile URLs
5 things you need to watch out for when using Clay:
- Credit consumption - it's very easy to burn credits on an accidental "play" click.
- Before you start using integrations for data enrichment, try to limit the number of records analyzed based on qualification criteria e.g., target group.
- Test your processes on smaller data ranges e.g., 10 records.
- Turn off the "auto update" option when using the "enrichment" function - any data change will trigger automation - you don't want this when you're still working on your initial database and testing the system.
- Check which tools are more cost-effective to connect to Clay via API than using the available integration through Clay. If you're searching for a lot of email addresses, consider purchasing an additional tool that will relieve credit consumption and save money.
Example templates to implement in Clay
- Searching for prospects and automatically finding a personal email address and detailed company information.
- Automatic analysis of target customers and the company's USP based on information available online.
- Searching for websites on the web based on keywords and analyzing the keywords of a given website.
- Automatic search for key decision-makers in the company.
- Enriching information about people who sign up through a form.
- Automatically scraping publicly available contact data on the website.
- Automatic verification of the company's technology stack based on the website.
- Identification of tools and platforms used by companies in their internet domains.
If you want to create similar scenarios for your company but need help, write to us at contact@vanderbuild.co
We will implement Clay for your team
Your team bought Clay. Now it sits half-configured, burning credits. We build the workflows, connect your CRM, and train your team to run it solo.
FAQ
What's the minimum Clay plan I need for B2B outbound?
The Free plan lets you test with limited credits. For serious outbound work, you need at least the Starter plan. Most agencies and growth teams end up on Pro once they're connecting own APIs and using webhooks.
What's the difference between Clay and Apollo?
Apollo is a contact database with built-in sequencing. Clay is an enrichment and automation layer that can connect to Apollo (and dozens of other providers) as a data source. They're complementary, not interchangeable. Most serious outbound teams use both.
Can I use Clay without LinkedIn Sales Navigator?
Yes. Clay works with Apollo, CSV imports, scraped lists, and webhook sources. Sales Navigator gives better filtering precision for targeted campaigns - but it's one input option, not a requirement.
How do I integrate Clay with my CRM?
Clay has native integrations for HubSpot, Salesforce, and Pipedrive. Go to the Integrations tab in your workspace, authenticate your CRM, then add an "Update CRM" action to your table. Map the fields and set conditions for when a push should trigger.
How do I avoid burning through credits?
Use conditional waterfall logic (stop at the first successful result), pre-filter rows before enriching, connect your own API keys for high-volume actions, and always test on 10-20 rows before scaling.
Example templates to implement in Clay
- Searching for prospects and automatically finding personal email addresses and company information
- Automatic analysis of target customers and company USP based on publicly available information online
- Searching for websites based on keywords and analyzing their keyword structure
- Automatic search for key decision-makers in target companies
- Enriching data about people who sign up through a form - with Slack notification for your AE
- Automatically scraping publicly available contact data from company websites
- Automatic verification of a company's technology stack based on their domain
- Real-time inbound enrichment: when a high-fit lead fills in a form, Clay enriches and routes them before your team has time to check their inbox
Do you want to learn how to implement outbound sales in your company?
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