Three-way comparison
Apollo is one tool for contacts, buying signals and email, with a free plan and paid plans from $49 a seat a month. Clay is infrastructure for data and AI workflows across 150+ providers, from $167 a month. Both billed annually, as of 2026-10-06.
Book a demoLast updated October 6, 2026
The short answer
Clay vs Apollo comes down to who does the work. Apollo puts 240M+ contacts, buying signals and email campaigns in one tool, from $49 a seat a month. Clay gives a builder data from 150+ providers, an AI research agent and email sending, from $167 a month. Both billed annually, as of 2026-10-06. Clean sits outside that choice: companies with a real reason to buy.
Apollo is the better pick if you want one tool that holds the contacts, flags buying signals and sends the email, starting free. Clay is the better pick if someone on your team will build workflows that pull data from many providers and run AI research on each row. That split comes from how each vendor describes and prices itself, as of 2026-10-06.
Apollo calls itself an AI sales platform that joins data, intelligence and execution in one system, and says over 600,000 companies use it. Clay calls itself infrastructure to get any data and run agentic workflows, says more than 500,000 teams use it, and its homepage speaks to the engineers who build on it.
The old shorthand, Clay as a data canvas and Apollo as a contact database, is out of date. Clay now sends email on paid plans, and Apollo sells buying signals, AI scoring and AI agents.
Clay bills in two units: actions for the platform work Clay does, which start at less than a cent each, and data credits for data and AI bought from its marketplace, which start at $0.05 each. Clay says that marketplace covers 150+ data providers. Every plan includes unlimited seats and tables.
Every plan, including free, gets Claygent, Clay's AI agent for web research. Launch adds search for companies and people inside Clay, so you don't have to bring a list; signals on job changes, promotions, new hires, company news and social; and email sent from inside Clay or through email tools it connects to. Growth adds web intent signals, CRM auto-sync and ad audiences for LinkedIn and Meta. Paid plans start with a 14-day trial, and the free plan needs no credit card.
Clay's homepage lists scoring as one of the workflows teams build on it. You decide what counts, and someone on your team owns the setup.
Apollo prices per seat, then meters usage in credits. An email address costs 1 credit, a phone number 8, adding data to a record 1 to 8, an AI research run 1, and the US dialer 1 credit per 30 seconds. Credits are pooled across the team and do not roll over. Apollo says annual billing saves 24%.
Apollo lists 240M+ contacts and 30M+ companies; 65+ filters, including job changes, new hires, funding rounds and company news; third-party intent topics (1 on Free, 6 on Basic and Professional, 12 on Organization); and website visitor tracking. Apollo says its AI agents learn your products, ICP, messaging and playbooks, then research, build lists, write messages, follow up and book meetings. Basic and Professional come with a 14-day trial.
Sending lives inside Apollo. Email campaigns come with every account, including free, alongside campaigns that mix email, calls and networking sites, and a built-in dialer. Apollo says it is built for companies of all sizes.
Clay can replace Apollo for a team that has a builder. On paid plans you can search for companies and people inside Clay, pull contact data from its providers, add job-change and company-news signals, and send email from Clay. What you give up is Apollo's ready-made setup, where filters, AI scoring, email and the dialer already sit together and its AI learns your ICP and product.
Apollo can replace Clay for a team whose questions fit Apollo's filters and signals. If you can describe the companies you want with job changes, new hires, funding rounds, company news, website visits and intent topics, Apollo gets you there without building anything. If every row needs a custom check, such as reading each company's site for a specific product line or trying several providers in turn to find one phone number, that is what Clay's AI agent and multi-provider waterfalls are for. Running both means two bills in two kinds of credits.
For finding the right people and getting a first message out, Apollo asks less of you: contacts, signals and sending sit in one place, and the free plan sends up to 250 emails a day from Gmail. For prospecting that depends on a research step you can't express as a filter, Clay fits better, because every row can run its own lookups and AI research before anything goes out.
Both now sell signals, and Apollo sells ranking. A job change, a funding round or an intent topic is a real event; whether it means a company has an open decision about what you sell is the thing to test. Check a sample of the top-ranked accounts by hand before you trust any ranking.
Clean starts from a different question: which companies have a real reason to buy what you sell, and who decides there. It shows the evidence behind each one and is built industry by industry. Here is how it works:
Clay and Apollo price and pitch their plans by team and workflow, not by industry, and Apollo says it is built for companies of all sizes. Point either one at a market and you work from records cut by your filters, plus the signals above.
Clean is built one market at a time, so what comes back is shaped by the buyer you sell to:
You don't have to pick one. Clean decides which companies to work and why; Clay or Apollo can stay where you send. The pages on Clay and Clean together and Apollo and Clean together show the handoff. If you are leaving one of them, the Clay alternatives and Apollo alternatives lists give prices wherever the vendor publishes them, and ZoomInfo alternatives covers the vendor that quotes instead. Side-by-side detail lives in Clean vs Clay and Clean vs Apollo. Every comparison is on the compare hub, and every alternatives list on the alternatives hub.
Take 20 accounts your team won last year and 20 in the same market it never touched, and see which tool puts the right ones on top for reasons you can check.
Clay vs Apollo vs Clean at a glance (vendor pages read 2026-10-06)
| Clay | Apollo | Clean | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Category, in its own words | Infrastructure to get any data and run agentic workflows | An AI sales platform joining data, intelligence and execution in one system | Finds businesses with a real reason to buy what you sell, shows the evidence and names who decides |
| Entry price and unit (as of 2026-10-06) | Free plan; Launch $185 a month billed monthly or $167 billed annually; bills actions (under a cent each) plus data credits (from $0.05 each) | Free plan; Basic $49 a seat a month billed annually or $65 monthly; bills seats plus credits (1 per email, 8 per phone number) | Book a demo |
| Starting point | Search for companies and people inside Clay on paid plans, or bring a list; data from 150+ providers | 65+ filters plus buying signals across 240M+ contacts and 30M+ companies | Your ICP: industry, size, region, what you sell, and who to leave out |
| Prioritization | Scoring is a workflow you set up in Clay | AI scoring listed on the Professional and Organization plans | Ranks companies against your ICP, with the records behind each one |
| Signals | Job changes, promotions, new hires, company news and social on paid plans; web intent on Growth | Intent topics, job changes, new hires, funding rounds, company news, website visits | No intent data; the evidence behind each reason to buy |
| Sending | Sends email from inside Clay on paid plans, or through connected email tools | Email campaigns on every plan, including free; a built-in dialer for calls | Your team sends; Clean never sends anything |
| Best for, in its own words | Launch: "small teams building and automating prospecting workflows" | Free: "founders and early-stage teams"; Basic: individual sellers | Teams that want companies with a real reason to buy, the evidence, and who decides |
Who each one is for
| Clay | Apollo | Clean | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who runs it day to day | Someone who builds and maintains workflows; Clay's homepage says engineers build on it | Founders, individual sellers and full-time reps, per Apollo's plan lines | The founder or seller who decides which companies to work |
| What you bring | The logic: which data, which checks, which score | Your filters and, for its AI, your products and ICP | Your ICP and who to leave out, such as current customers |
| What you get back | Tables of data, AI research per row, email you can send | Contacts, signals, AI scoring on higher plans, email and calls in one place | Companies with a real reason to buy, the evidence, who decides and who can introduce you |
| Pick it when | Your research step can't be written as a filter | You want data, signals and sending in one login | You need to know which companies to work and why, and your team writes the message |
Clay wins when you have someone to build. It says it offers data from 150+ providers and runs AI web research with its own agent. From Launch ($167 a month billed annually, as of 2026-10-06) it sends email and adds job-change and company-news signals; Growth adds web intent signals and ad audiences for LinkedIn and Meta.
Apollo wins when you want it all in one login without a builder: 240M+ contacts, buying signals, email campaigns on every plan including free, unlimited daily sends on Professional and Organization, and paid plans from $49 a seat a month billed annually (as of 2026-10-06).
Clean wins when the hard part is knowing which companies have a real reason to buy, and who to contact. It ranks them against your ICP, shows the records behind each one and who can introduce you, and never sends anything, so your team writes every message.
It depends on who does the work. Apollo puts 240M+ contacts, buying signals and email campaigns in one tool, with a free plan and paid plans from $49 a seat a month billed annually; AI scoring is listed on its Professional and Organization plans. Clay gives a builder data from 150+ providers, an AI research agent and email sending, from $167 a month billed annually. Prices as of 2026-10-06.
Apollo asks less of you: contacts, signals and sending sit in one place, and the free plan sends up to 250 emails a day from a Gmail account. Clay suits prospecting that needs a custom research step on every company before your team reaches out, because each row can run its own lookups and AI research. Either way, check a sample of the top results by hand.
Yes, if someone on your team will build and maintain the workflow. On paid plans Clay searches for companies and people itself, pulls contact data from its providers, adds job-change and company-news signals, and sends email from inside Clay. You give up Apollo's ready-made setup, where filters, AI scoring, email and a dialer already sit together. Clay bills actions and data credits; Apollo bills seats and credits.
Neither prices its plans by industry, so the answer follows your team: Apollo if you want agency contacts, signals and sending in one login, Clay if every agency needs a custom check, such as reading its site for the lines it writes. The harder part is knowing which agencies have a reason to buy. Clean finds agencies and brokerages with a real reason to buy what you sell, shows the evidence behind each one and names who decides.
It depends on seats. As of 2026-10-06, Apollo Basic is $49 a seat a month billed annually and Clay Launch is $167 a month billed annually with unlimited seats, so by our arithmetic three Apollo seats ($147) cost less and four ($196) cost more. The allowances differ too: Apollo Basic includes 30,000 credits a seat a year, Clay Launch 2,500 data credits and 15,000 actions a month.
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