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Cleanlist vs Clay

Cleanlist vs Clay compared: the same provider waterfall without the table building, starting at $79/mo (vs Clay Launch at $167/mo) →

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98% verified work email, 500-lead benchmark25+ providers in one waterfallNo per-seat pricing

Updated 2026Pricing checked

The short answer

Pick Clay if you have a RevOps engineer who loves spreadsheets and wants to build custom multi-provider waterfalls from scratch. Pick Cleanlist if you want the same waterfall result without writing any logic. We ship the cascade pre-configured across 25+ providers and you upload a CSV.

Bottom line

Clay is a powerful workflow automation platform whose own site advertises 200+ providers in its data marketplace, but it requires technical expertise and weeks to master. Cleanlist delivers the same waterfall enrichment results in minutes with no coding, no complex setup, and 98% email accuracy out of the box.

Decision Matrix: Which One to Pick

Honest, side-by-side guidance, with no “always pick us” spin.

Choose Cleanlist if

  • You don't have a dedicated RevOps engineer to maintain workflows
  • You want waterfall enrichment to work out of the box on day one
  • You need built-in triple email verification, not bring-your-own
  • You've started a Clay build twice and never finished it

Choose Clay if

  • You have an ops engineer who wants full control over every API call
  • Your enrichment logic is genuinely custom (e.g. branching by industry, region, ICP tier)
  • You're already paying for 5+ data provider APIs and want to orchestrate them in one place
  • You need to mix enrichment with non-enrichment workflows like research and AI prompt chains

Honest Strengths

Where Clay Wins

  • 200+ providers in its own data marketplace, per clay.com
  • Highly customizable workflows with conditional logic
  • AI-powered research (Claygent) for missing data points
  • Visual spreadsheet interface for building data pipelines
  • Strong for technical RevOps teams with complex needs
  • Flexible automation with scheduling and triggers

Where Cleanlist Wins

  • 98% verified work email on a stratified 500-lead benchmark, from a pre-tuned waterfall
  • Start enriching in minutes, not weeks of setup
  • Lower starting price ($79/mo vs $167/mo)
  • No technical expertise required. Works out of the box
  • Pre-built waterfall enrichment (no manual workflow building)
  • Consistent data quality (not dependent on source configuration)
  • Sales Navigator CSV import and enrichment
  • Dedicated support (Clay's support is widely criticized)

Who Should Use Which?

The right tool depends on your workflow and priorities.

Choose Clay if you...

  • Technical RevOps engineers who love building custom workflows
  • Teams with complex, multi-step data pipeline needs
  • Organizations wanting maximum flexibility and customization
  • Companies with engineering resources to maintain Clay workflows

Choose Cleanlist if you...

  • Sales teams who want results, not workflow building
  • Non-technical users who need data enrichment fast
  • Teams frustrated with Clay's steep learning curve
  • Budget-conscious companies ($79/mo vs $167/mo+)
  • Anyone who wants a waterfall that is already tuned rather than one to build
  • Teams without dedicated RevOps engineers

Feature-by-Feature Comparison

How Cleanlist and Clay stack up across key capabilities. Read across a row to see what each tool covers, then read the last column for who covers it.

Capability check12 capabilities
CapabilityClayCleanlistCovered by
Email verification accuracyVaries by source (no guarantee)98% on a 500-lead benchmarkBoth
Data providers100+ sources (aggregator)25+ provider waterfall (curated)Both
Waterfall enrichmentYes (complex setup required)Yes (one-click, pre-built)Both
Setup complexityWeeks to master; requires technical expertiseMinutes to start; no-code interfaceBoth
Catch-all email detectionDepends on source toolBoth
Phone number finderVia third-party integrationsBoth
Built-in email sendingNeither
Sales Navigator workflowVia integrationsCSV import and enrichmentBoth
ICP scoringCustom workflow requiredBuilt-in rule-based scoringBoth
Job title normalizationVia AI prompts (manual setup)Smart AgentsBoth
CRM integrationsSalesforce, HubSpot (fragile)HubSpot, Pipedrive, Salesforce + 10 moreBoth
Starting paid price$167/mo (Launch)$79/mo (Starter)Both
11 both do this0 Cleanlist only0 Clay only

Pricing Comparison

Both ladders below are list prices, read off each vendor’s own pricing page on September 7, 2026. Nothing here is an estimate, and where a vendor publishes no list price this page says so instead of guessing one.

Published list pricesChecked
ClayPublished plans, monthly billing

Free

$0/mo

500 actions and 100 data credits a month

Launch

$185/mo

15,000 actions and 2,500 data credits a month at the default selectors. $167 a month on annual billing

Growth

$495/mo

40,000 actions and 6,000 data credits a month at the default selectors. $446 a month on annual billing

Enterprise

Custom

Clay sells actions and data credits on two separate sliders inside each plan, and the plan headline is the sum of both at their lowest positions. Re-fetched 2026-09-07 with each billing toggle operated: monthly Launch reads $185 (15K actions $60 plus 2.5K data credits $125) and annual Launch reads $167 (180K actions/yr $54 plus 30K data credits/yr $113). The 'Starts at $54/mo' and 'Starts at $185/mo' fine print prices the actions slider alone, so quoting it as the plan price understates Launch and Growth.Published list price, checked

CleanlistPublished plans

Free

$0/mo

30 credits a month, 1 seat, 100 leads per list

Starter

$79/mo

1,500 credits a month, 2 seats

Pro

$229/mo

5,000 credits a month, 5 seats, REST API v2

Scale

$599/mo

15,000 credits a month, 10 seats, Playbook Builder

25% off on annual billing, $20 for an extra seat. People and company search cost 0 credits on every plan, credits come out of one wallet the whole team shares, and enrichment is charged only when data comes back.Published list price, checked

Every new workspace opens on a 14-day Scale trial: 250 credits, 3 seats, no card, and every feature except the public API and MCP. When it ends the Free plan stays open at 30 credits a month.

The Number That Matters

One proprietary data point we measured ourselves.

Days vs minutes

Time-to-first-enriched-list, Clay vs Cleanlist

When we onboard customers migrating from Clay, the most common feedback is that their first usable workflow took weeks of setup. Cleanlist customers typically run their first enriched CSV within 10 minutes of signing up because the waterfall cascade is pre-built. This is qualitative, pulled from internal onboarding notes, not a controlled study.

Source: Cleanlist onboarding notes, Q1 2026

What Cleanlist puts behind one lookup.

One waterfall across every provider we hold a contract with, one shared credit wallet for the whole team, and a miss that costs nothing.

25+data providers in the enrichment waterfall, cascaded cheapest first
98%verified work email on a 500-lead stratified benchmark
85%direct dial on the same 500-lead benchmark
0credits to search, unlimited on every plan including Free

A verified work email costs 1 credit however many providers it took to find. A direct dial costs 10, both together 11, a company enrichment 1, and a smart agent 0.5 to 3. Enrichment is charged only when data comes back. Cleanlist does not send email: it fills the list and hands it to HubSpot, Salesforce, Outreach or Lemlist.

What Review Sites Say

Independent ratings from trusted software review platforms, each linking back to the platform that published it.

G24.9/5Based on 250 reviews (March 2026)

Cleanlist’s own third-party scores, with their denominators: G2 5.0 from 5 reviews, Chrome Web Store 4.7 from 13, AppSumo 4.8 from 112.

“Clay is brilliant for technical teams that want to build custom enrichment workflows. But the learning curve is steep. Most teams spend weeks configuring tables and waterfall logic that Cleanlist handles automatically. If you have an ops engineer to dedicate, Clay is powerful. If not, you'll burn time instead of enriching data.”

References & Sources

  1. [1]
    Clay reviews on G2— G2(2026)
  2. [2]
    Clay pricing page— Clay(2026)

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Cleanlist easier to use than Clay?

Yes, significantly. Clay requires technical expertise and weeks of learning to build effective workflows. Cleanlist works out of the box: upload a CSV or connect LinkedIn, and get enriched, verified data in minutes with no setup required.

Does Clay have better data quality than Cleanlist?

They are measured differently. Clay's own site advertises 200+ providers in its marketplace, and what you get depends on which of them you configure and in what order. Cleanlist ships one curated waterfall across 25+ providers with verification built in; on the Cleanlist 500-Lead Enrichment Benchmark, 2026, that returned a verified work email for 98% of a stratified 500-lead sample and a direct dial for 85% of the same list. We found no comparable benchmark published by Clay.

Is Cleanlist cheaper than Clay?

At the entry tier, yes. Cleanlist Starter is $79 a month; Clay's cheapest paid plan is Launch at $167 a month on monthly billing, and Growth is $446 (clay.com/pricing, read September 1, 2026). The $185 figure that circulates as Clay's starting price is Growth's annual per-month rate, not Launch's. Clay also meters actions and data credits on separate sliders, so a table that reruns costs more than one that does not.

Can Clay send emails?

No. Clay cannot send cold emails natively. It requires integration with external tools like Smartlead, Instantly, or Salesloft. Cleanlist also doesn't send emails but pairs well with any outreach tool, and the data it provides is more accurately verified.

Should I use Clay or Cleanlist for waterfall enrichment?

If you want waterfall enrichment that works immediately on a pre-tuned cascade, choose Cleanlist. If you want to build custom waterfall workflows with maximum flexibility (and have the technical skills), Clay might suit you, but expect weeks of setup and ongoing maintenance.

How much does the Clay API cost?

As of mid-2026, Clay does not sell a standalone public API plan: API-style access and webhooks are tied to its credit-based subscriptions, and per-enrichment credit costs vary by provider and plan, which makes spend hard to predict (a frequent complaint in RevOps communities). Cleanlist's API v2 takes the opposite approach: every job returns a signed cost quote before it runs, so you approve spend up front.

Is there a Clay API alternative with predictable pricing?

Cleanlist's API v2 covers people search, company search, and waterfall enrichment with signed cost quotes before every run and flat plan pricing (Pro $229/mo and up for API access). You get multi-provider enrichment through one contract instead of assembling per-provider credits.

Key Terms

Understanding these concepts will help you evaluate Clay and alternatives more effectively.

Data Aggregation

Clay lets you wire together dozens of APIs manually; Cleanlist aggregates the same providers behind a single click.

API Enrichment

Clay's power comes from chaining raw API calls into spreadsheet formulas, which is powerful but fragile without an engineer.

Data Normalization

Clay's multi-source results arrive in different formats, leaving normalization to the user's own column logic.

Multi-Provider Enrichment

Clay pioneered DIY waterfall enrichment, but each provider must be configured, credentialed, and maintained separately.

Related Reading

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