The short version
Clay's MCP server puts Clay's people search, waterfall enrichment and your team's prebuilt Functions inside Claude, ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Glean, Cursor and other MCP clients. Search is free. Clay says a typical interaction uses 20 to 100 credits, the same rates as inside Clay, and new users get 500 free credits on first connect. Admins set monthly credit limits per rep and choose which Functions reps can run. Results stop at 100 per query, so it is built for a rep's daily research, and bulk work stays in Clay tables. We make Cleanlist, which also ships an MCP server, so read this as a vendor's review.
Facts checked October 1, 2026. Every Clay fact below comes from clay.com/mcp, Clay's MCP guide, Clay University's MCP docs and FAQ, and Clay's pricing page, each read on October 1, 2026. We did not run a prospecting project through Clay's MCP for this review, so there are no accuracy numbers here.
What is the Clay MCP server?
Clay's MCP server is a hosted connector that lets sales reps use Clay from an AI assistant. Clay's MCP page describes it as a way for reps to find contacts, get emails and phone numbers, and push them to sequences in natural language. The server's OAuth metadata names its endpoint as https://api.clay.com/v3/mcp, which we confirmed on October 1, 2026.
Clay pitches it at two audiences. Reps use it for ad-hoc research on 1 to 20 contacts at a time, according to Clay's guide. RevOps teams use the workspace settings to decide what reps can spend and which workflows they can run. For anything above 20 contacts, complex automation or deep CRM syncs, Clay's guide points you back to the Clay app.
What can Clay's MCP server do?
Clay's pages describe what the server can do and publish no named tool list. From clay.com/mcp and Clay's docs, the server can:
- Find people by job title, seniority, department, company and location, and find companies by industry, funding, size and technology. Search runs against Clay's own database.
- Enrich contacts with verified emails, phone numbers, work history and profiles, through Clay's waterfall across its data providers. Clay's MCP page says 200+ providers; its June 2026 guide says 150+.
- Research accounts for tech stack, funding and hiring trends, with Clay's research agents.
- Run Functions: prebuilt workflows your ops team has enabled for MCP, such as lead scoring or account prep.
- Check the CRM for duplicates and push enriched contacts to Salesforce and other CRMs, through Functions.
- Draft outreach and push it to a sequencer, again through a Function your ops team builds.
The Function model is the point. A rep types a sentence, and Clay runs the same vetted workflow the RevOps team would run in a table.
How do you connect Clay to Claude or ChatGPT?
Clay is listed in Claude's connector directory at claude.com/connectors/clay. In Claude you open Connectors, add Clay and sign in. Clay's docs say it works on free Claude accounts, and on Claude Enterprise an admin must add the connector first. In ChatGPT you call it with @Clay in the browser or /Clay in the desktop app, and Clay says a free ChatGPT account is enough.
Clay's FAQ lists Claude, ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Glean, Cursor, VS Code and Claude Desktop, plus any client that registers itself over OAuth at connection time. Users with Clay's Viewer role cannot complete the OAuth sign-in.
How much does Clay MCP cost?
Clay MCP has no surcharge. Clay's docs say an action through MCP costs the same credits as it does inside Clay. A Function that costs 12 credits in a table costs 12 credits from Claude. People and company search are free. Clay's ChatGPT guide says each interaction typically uses 20 to 100 credits, depending on the enrichments you request, and its pricing FAQ gives the same range for MCP.
New users get 500 free Clay credits the first time they connect, and Clay says a trial account adds 2,000 more. At Clay's own 20 to 100 range, 500 credits cover roughly 5 to 25 interactions. When credits run out, search still works, without enrichment.
Clay's plans, from its pricing page (figures unchanged on our October 1, 2026 re-read): Free with 500 actions and 100 data credits a month; Launch at $185 a month ($167 on annual billing) with 15,000 actions and 2,500 data credits; Growth at $495 a month ($446 annual) with 40,000 actions and 6,000 data credits; Enterprise on quote. Every plan includes unlimited seats. Our Clay pricing breakdown explains how actions and data credits interact.
What admin controls does Clay MCP have?
Clay's MCP admin controls are the most complete of any sales-data MCP server we have read about. Clay's docs say credit controls and usage monitoring are on all modern paid plans (Launch, Growth and Enterprise) and Legacy Enterprise. Admins can:
- Set a default monthly credit budget for every MCP user, and override it per rep (setting a rep to 0 blocks them).
- Hard-block further AI-tool actions once a rep hits the cap, until the monthly reset on the 1st at midnight UTC.
- Give reps the Sales Rep role, which allows MCP access only and no access to Clay tables.
- Choose which Functions appear in MCP, with a name and description the AI reads.
- Sync Audiences (Enterprise only), so reps can ask questions about synced data. Clay says those questions consume actions, not credits.
The assistant only reaches Clay tools and Functions an admin has enabled. It cannot browse raw workspace tables.
What are the limits of Clay's MCP server?
Clay's docs name the limits plainly:
- 100 results per query. Results come in pages of 20, up to 5 pages. Clay says to use Clay directly "for results beyond 100, or for true bulk processing."
- Writes need ops work. To send through a sequencer such as Outreach, "your ops team needs to build a Function that includes the sequencer column." Without Functions, a rep gets search, enrichment and drafts.
- Credits are harder to predict than a fixed per-email price, because the cost depends on which enrichments and Functions a prompt triggers.
- No published rate limit and no published per-tool list on the pages we read.
- Viewer-role users and ChatGPT workspaces with admin restrictions can be blocked from connecting.
Who is the Clay MCP server good for?
Clay's MCP server is the best pick for a team that already runs Clay and has a RevOps owner. That owner builds the Functions once, sets a credit budget per rep, and every rep gets the same scoring, enrichment and CRM rules from inside Claude or ChatGPT. Nothing else in this category gives an ops team that much control over what an AI assistant can do and spend. Its directory listing in Claude and the 500 free credits also make it easy to try.
It fits less well for a solo founder or a small team without anyone to build Functions, because the strongest features depend on that setup. It is also the wrong tool for large list builds, which Clay itself routes back to tables.
Can Claude Code replace Clay?
Claude Code can replace part of what reps do in Clay, if you connect it to MCP servers for data. A GTM engineer can search, enrich and write results to files from the terminal with any of the servers in this review. Clay's own MCP caps at 100 results per query, and Clay says bulk work and automated workflows belong in Clay tables, so teams that depend on tables, scheduled runs and CRM write-back rules still need Clay or another table tool. Price both stacks with real volumes: Clay Launch is $185 a month on monthly billing, and the MCP servers below bill per action or per result.
How does Clay MCP compare to Apollo, ZoomInfo and Cleanlist MCP?
The four servers below are the ones B2B buyers ask about most. Facts come from each vendor's own docs, read October 1, 2026.
| MCP server | Data source | Writes back | Search cost | Enrichment cost | Admin controls | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clay | Own database plus a provider waterfall (150+ or 200+, Clay's pages differ) | Through Functions your ops team builds | Free | 20 to 100 credits per interaction (Clay's estimate) | Per-rep budgets, Function allowlist, MCP-only role | RevOps-governed custom workflows |
| Apollo.io | Apollo's own database | Contacts, accounts, deals, sequences, tasks, emails | Free for people; company search uses credits | Apollo credits (app rates: 1 per email, 8 per phone) | Apollo account permissions | Teams that sequence from Apollo |
| ZoomInfo | ZoomInfo's own database | Audiences and GTM context only | Free | 1 data credit per new record, up to 10 per call | Per-user enablement | Enterprise account research |
| Cleanlist (ours) | 25+ provider waterfall | Lead lists and export | Free | 1 credit per verified work email, 10 per direct dial | Shared org credit pool | Verified emails and direct dials paid per result |
Our Apollo MCP server review and ZoomInfo MCP server review cover the other two in the same depth, and the best MCP servers for sales and GTM covers CRM and sequencer servers too.
Where does Cleanlist's MCP server fit next to Clay?
Cleanlist publishes this page, so treat this section as a disclosed vendor entry. Cleanlist's MCP server at mcp.cleanlist.ai/v1/mcp exposes 30+ tools for people and company search, enrichment (verified work email and direct dial), lead lists and export, with names such as search_people, estimate_cost and enrich_list. Like Clay, it runs a waterfall: 25+ data providers in sequence, stopping at the first verified hit. Search is free, a verified work email is 1 credit and a direct dial 10, and a miss costs nothing, so the price of a session is known before it runs. Our own 500-lead benchmark measured 98% verified work email and 85% direct dial.
MCP is included from Starter at $79 a month; the 14-day trial and the Free plan do not include it. Cleanlist has no Functions, no per-rep MCP budgets and no built-in sequencer today, and it is not yet in Claude's directory: you add it as a custom connector and paste the OAuth client ID Cleanlist gives you into the advanced settings.
Pick Clay if a RevOps team wants to govern what reps run from their AI tools. Pick Cleanlist if you want verified emails and direct dials at a fixed credit price per result, without building workflows first. The Cleanlist MCP product page shows the setup, and our plans are on the pricing page.
Frequently asked questions
Is Clay MCP free?
Connecting is free, and new users get 500 Clay credits on first connect. Searches are free; enrichment and Functions spend Clay credits at the same rates as inside Clay.
Does Clay MCP return phone numbers?
Yes. Clay's docs say it enriches contacts with verified emails and phone numbers. The credit cost depends on which providers the waterfall uses.
Can Clay MCP push contacts to Salesforce or a sequencer?
Yes, through Functions. Clay's MCP page lists pushing enriched contacts to Salesforce and other CRMs, and Clay's FAQ says sending through a sequencer needs a Function built by your ops team.
What is the Sales Rep role in Clay?
It is a Clay permission that gives a user MCP access only. A Sales Rep cannot view, edit or create tables in the Clay web app.
Sources
- Clay, Clay MCP, read October 1, 2026
- Clay, What Is Clay MCP? Clay in Claude and ChatGPT, published June 14, 2026, read October 1, 2026
- Clay University, MCP in Clay, MCP troubleshooting and FAQs, Using Clay in Claude and Using Clay in ChatGPT, read October 1, 2026
- Clay, Pricing FAQ and pricing page, read October 1, 2026
- Clay, OAuth protected-resource metadata naming
api.clay.com/v3/mcp, requested October 1, 2026 - Apollo.io, Apollo MCP developer docs, read October 1, 2026
- ZoomInfo, ZoomInfo MCP docs, read October 1, 2026
Run your own contacts through Cleanlist
Take the contacts you would hand any other vendor, run them through the multi-provider waterfall, and compare the match rates yourself. 250 credits, 3 seats, 14 days.
250 credits, 3 seats, 14 days.