Clay vs Apollo: Pricing, Data and How to Use Both (2026)

Prices checked October 30, 2026, on Clay's and Apollo's pricing pages. We make Cleanlist AI and publish this comparison, so our product appears below as a third option for one specific segment. We have never run Clay on a test file, so no accuracy figure on this page is a Cleanlist AI measurement of Clay.

Clay vs Apollo at a glance

Which is better, Clay or Apollo?

Apollo is better for sales teams that want to find contacts and email them from one place. A rep can sign up, filter Apollo's database, and start a sequence the same afternoon. Clay is better for teams with a technical owner who wants control: which providers run, in what order, with which AI prompt, and where the result goes. Clay does nothing useful until someone builds the table, and that build is where its value comes from. Many mid-market RevOps teams evaluate the two on one question: who will own the tool? If the answer is the reps, Apollo. If the answer is a GTM engineer with time to maintain workflows, Clay.

How much do Clay and Apollo cost in 2026?

Apollo.io prices per user and bills annually by default. Clay prices per workspace with unlimited seats and two usage meters.

For a five-rep team on Apollo Basic, that is $245 a month on annual billing. The same team on Clay Launch pays $167 to $185 a month however many people log in, plus top-ups if the data credits run out. Clay's top-ups cost a 30% premium, and Clay caps rows per table at 200 on Free and 50,000 on Launch. An Apollo email costs 1 credit and a phone number 8, and unused Apollo credits expire at the end of each billing cycle. For the full math, read our Clay pricing breakdown and our Apollo pricing guide.

What do Clay and Apollo cost at volume?

The seat price matters less than the cost per enriched record once volume grows. Both meters are published, so the math can be run from the pricing pages alone. Clay's docs put a fully enriched record at 6 to 20 data credits, and Clay's own worked example finds emails at 0.5 data credits each. Apollo charges 1 credit per email and 8 per phone number, and every seat's credits are pooled across the team.

Our arithmetic, on prices read October 30, 2026. Clay's Launch price is the action tier ($60 a month for 15,000 actions) plus the data credit tier ($290 for 6,000 a month, $880 for 20,000). Apollo also sells add-on credits in the app, at a price its pricing page does not list, so the seat math above is the published route.

Three things move these numbers. On Clay, bringing your own provider API keys skips data credits entirely, and Clay charges no data credits or actions when an enrichment returns nothing. On Apollo, the price assumes Apollo's own database has the record. Rows Apollo misses need a second source, which is the job Clay is built to run. So Apollo wins on cost per record while its database covers your market. Clay wins once you need sources Apollo does not have.

Is Clay or Apollo better for list building?

Apollo is better for building a list from scratch: filter its 240M+ person database by title, company size, industry and location, then export or sequence the result. Clay starts from a source (a company search, a CSV, a CRM view or a scraped page) and enriches and filters row by row. That suits a narrow TAM with criteria a database filter cannot express, like companies hiring for a role. For TAM builds that also need enterprise depth, our Clay vs Apollo vs ZoomInfo comparison adds the third option.

Which has more accurate data, Clay or Apollo?

On our own 1,000-lead test in March 2026, Apollo's email match rate was 78%, and on a separate 100-lead test Apollo returned about 80% email and 45% phone. Clay publishes no single accuracy figure, because Clay's data is whatever the providers in your waterfall return. A Clay table that calls several email providers and ends with a verifier can beat any single database on coverage. A table with no verification step can pass bad emails straight through. Nothing in our tests measured Clay, so we make no claim about which returns more on the same list.

How do you use Clay and Apollo together?

The usual split: Apollo for broad prospecting and rep-run sequences, Clay for high-value accounts that need research, scoring or a deeper waterfall before anyone reaches out. Clay ships an Apollo.io integration for exactly this. These steps follow Clay's Apollo.io integration doc, read October 30, 2026:

1. Connect Apollo. In a Clay workbook, click + Add at the bottom, search for Apollo.io and select it. In the modal, pick your account under Select Apollo.io account, or click + Add account and complete the sign-in.
2. Pull people from Apollo. The Find People from Apollo source builds a table from job titles (required, comma-separated), optional company domains, and a limit of 1 to 1,000 people.
3. Or enrich rows you already have. In an existing table, click Add enrichment, search for Apollo.io, and under Integrations pick an action. Enrich Person takes a name, email, company name or domain, or an Apollo ID, and returns contact details, title, employment history and LinkedIn URL. Enrich Company takes a domain. Find People at Company By Job Title returns up to 10 people per company.
4. Fill what Apollo misses. Add other providers after the Apollo column, then a verification step. Set Only run if on each later column so it runs only on rows that are still blank, which keeps you from paying twice for the same field.
5. Send the finished rows back. Find or Create Contact writes each row into Apollo, with Run Dedupe on by default. Add Contact to Sequence then enrolls it, given a Sequence ID, the Contact ID and the sending email account ID. Update Contact Status in Sequence removes, pauses or finishes a contact later.

Two caveats from the same doc. A contact must already exist in Apollo before it can join a sequence, and the overrides Add Without Email and Add Unverified Email are off by default, so unverified rows stay out unless you switch them on. The doc does not say whether these lookups draw Apollo credits, Clay data credits or both, so run 50 rows and watch both counters before a full table.

The cost is two bills and two places where contact data lives. If Clay only fills the emails and phones Apollo missed, a dedicated waterfall tool can do that one job for less. If reps barely use Apollo's sequences, Clay plus your existing sequencer may be enough.

Can Clay replace Apollo's sequencer?

Partly. Clay's Launch plan lists sending email via Clay or via sequencer integrations, so a Clay table can push straight into outreach. Apollo goes further for a sales team: unlimited sequences from Basic, a US dialer on every paid plan, unlimited Google and Microsoft mailboxes on Professional, and an Advanced Dialer add-on for international and parallel calling at $119 a team a month on annual billing. Phone-heavy teams still get more from Apollo. Teams that build their own outbound engine usually pair Clay with a dedicated sending tool.

Who should pick Clay, and who should pick Apollo?

See pricing

Where Cleanlist AI fits

Disclosure. We make Cleanlist AI. Its 98% verified email and 85% direct dial figures come from our own 500-lead benchmark, which named no other vendor.

Cleanlist AI: Best for lean GTM teams that want the list built, verified and sequenced without building a table. Cleanlist AI gives you AI agents that run your GTM. Clu, Cleanlist AI's GTM agent, finds buyers across 1B+ profiles, gets verified emails and direct dials from 25+ providers, writes and sends sequences, and syncs to HubSpot or Salesforce. Starter is $49 a seat a month, and always-on agents and CRM sync start on Pro at $89.

Some teams look at Clay only for its email and phone waterfall, and at Apollo only for its contact data. Cleanlist AI runs that waterfall across 25+ providers in sequence, with Sequences sent from your own inbox and the Research and Qualification skills on every lead. It has no dialer, so it does not replace Apollo's calling, and it does not replace a custom research table you build yourself in Clay.

Plans and credits are on our pricing page. For other options, see our lists of Clay alternatives and Apollo alternatives.

FAQ

Is Apollo cheaper than Clay?

For one to three users, yes: Apollo Basic is $49 a user a month on annual billing against Clay Launch at $167. At four users Apollo Basic costs $196 a month, because Apollo charges for each seat and Clay's seats are unlimited. Clay gets more expensive with volume, Apollo with headcount.

Do I need an Apollo account to use Apollo in Clay?

Clay's Apollo.io integration asks you to select a connected Apollo.io account, or add one, before any Apollo action runs. Sequence actions also need the contact to exist in your Apollo account first. Plan for both tools' seats and credits if you run them together.

Who is Apollo's biggest competitor?

ZoomInfo is Apollo's most direct competitor as a contact database, at enterprise prices, and our Apollo vs ZoomInfo guide compares the two on a 1,000-lead test. Clay competes for the enrichment budget, and tools like Unify compete on signals plus sequencing. Our Apollo alternatives page sorts them by use case.

Sources

• Clay, pricing page, checked October 30, 2026; Actions and Data Credits docs and Apollo.io integration doc, read October 30, 2026.
• Apollo.io, pricing page, checked October 30, 2026, and Apollo vs ZoomInfo page for database size, checked October 30, 2026.
• Cleanlist AI's own enrichment tests: a 100-lead test, the 500-lead Enrichment Benchmark (2026), and a 1,000-lead test in March 2026. These are our tests, not third-party audits.