Clay alternatives: 7 tools compared for 2026, with pricing

$ Set up https://www.routergrowth.com/SKILL.md, then find 25 [job title] at [type of company] in [country], get a verified work email for each, and tell me the cost per verified contact.

We make RouterGrowth, one of the tools on this list, so read it as a vendor's view. Every figure about another product was taken from that product's own pricing page on 8 October 2026 and is linked at the end. Prices change; check the source before you buy.

Clay is the reference for GTM data work: a spreadsheet where each column calls a data provider, an AI researcher, or an action. People look for a Clay alternative for three reasons that keep coming up. The bill has two meters now. The entry plan is a monthly commitment before the first row is enriched. And more of the work is moving out of tables and into AI agents that want to call a function, not fill a grid.

What does Clay cost in 2026?

Clay prices on two meters: actions, which measure platform usage, and data credits, which buy data and AI from the providers in its marketplace.

Annual billing lowers the Launch and Growth figures, and unused credits roll over for up to one month. Seats and tables are unlimited on every plan.

What that buys is real. Clay lists more than 150 data providers, multi-provider waterfalls, an AI research agent, a sequencer, CRM sync on Growth, and the largest community of GTM engineers anywhere. If your team lives in tables, the question is not whether Clay is good. It is whether you need all of it.

Which Clay alternative fits which job?

No tool here replaces all of Clay. Each one replaces the part of Clay a given team actually uses.

What are the seven alternatives, one by one?

1. RouterGrowth: for agents instead of tables

RouterGrowth is an API and MCP server that gives Claude, ChatGPT, Codex or your own agent GTM data and actions as calls: find and verify a work email, search people, enrich a company, read hiring and funding signals, then send from an inbox or a LinkedIn account you own. There is no table to build. The agent asks for the job, sees the price, runs it, and pays from one prepaid balance. An email lookup that finds nothing is not billed.

The email step is a waterfall in one call: contact.find tries its providers in order and charges only the one that delivers. The mechanics are in the waterfall enrichment guide, and the full contact row is in lead enrichment.

• Choose it when an agent does the work, volume is uneven, or you want enrichment, signals, SEO and outreach on one key without a monthly minimum.
• Skip it when you want a spreadsheet interface, native CRM sync, or the widest provider marketplace. Clay lists more than 150 providers; RouterGrowth routes email finding across three live ones today (LeadMagic, Apollo and Findymail).

2. FullEnrich: waterfall contact data and nothing else

FullEnrich does one thing: it chains many vendors to find work emails and mobile numbers. Pro is $55 a month for 1,000 credits, one credit per work email and ten per mobile number. Credits are spent only when verified data is found, they roll over for three months on monthly plans, and every plan includes unlimited users.

• Choose it when the only part of Clay you use is the contact waterfall.
• Skip it when you need company data, signals, research or sending around the lookup.

3. BetterContact: the low-commitment waterfall

BetterContact aggregates more than 20 data sources and charges only for valid data, with no charge for catch-all addresses. Starter is $15 a month for 200 credits and Pro is $49 a month for 1,000, at one credit per email and ten per mobile number. You can also paste in API keys for providers you already pay.

• Choose it when you want waterfall emails at the lowest monthly commitment, inside the tools you already use.
• Skip it when you need workflow logic or data beyond emails and phones.

4. Apollo: database and sequencing in one seat

Apollo is a contact database with sequencing, a dialer and CRM enrichment attached. The free plan grants 900 credits per seat a year; paid plans are listed at $49, $79 and $119 per seat a month, the last with a three-seat minimum. It is one source rather than a waterfall, which is why people usually set Clay against Apollo as orchestration against database. The tools around Apollo are compared in Apollo.io alternatives, and the enterprise databases in ZoomInfo alternatives.

• Choose it when you want a list and a sequence from one vendor, per rep.
• Skip it when coverage on a single database is your problem, or when the work runs unattended and a per-seat price makes no sense.

5. Persana AI: the closest in shape

Persana is the most Clay-like option here: tables, more than 100 data sources and AI agents for research and messaging, on credits. The free plan has 50 credits, Starter is $85 a month for 2,000 credits, and larger plans are sold monthly or annually.

• Choose it when you like the Clay model and want to compare it at another price.
• Skip it when your reason for leaving is the model itself: credits and tables.

6. Bitscale: a grid for volume

Bitscale is another grid-based enrichment tool. Credits are spent only when a provider returns a valid result, and unused credits roll over up to three times the plan amount. There is a free plan, Growth is $349 a month, and Enterprise is custom.

• Choose it when you run large enrichment volumes in a table and want misses to be free.
• Skip it when you are an occasional user: the paid entry point is higher than Clay's.

7. Cargo: orchestration for RevOps

Cargo is built for revenue operations teams that work from a data warehouse. It bills enrichment credits at the provider's displayed cost, plus orchestration steps (100 steps are one credit) and storage. Plans start with 100 free credits, then from $165 a month for 1,500 credits and $250 a month for 2,500, with every feature on every plan.

• Choose it when a RevOps team owns the workflows and the warehouse is the source of truth.
• Skip it when you are a founder or a small team that wants a result this afternoon.

When should you stay on Clay?

Stay when a team of people builds and maintains workflows in tables every day, when CRM sync and audience pushes to ad platforms are part of the job, or when one obscure provider in its marketplace is the reason the workflow exists. Clay's breadth and its community are the product. A cheaper tool that covers 70% of the workflow is a worse deal if the missing 30% is why it worked.

Leave, or add a second tool, when the pattern is different: an agent does the research, the runs are bursty, and what you want is a price per result with nothing to pay in a quiet month.

How do you rebuild a Clay table as an agent workflow?

Most outbound tables are four columns of work, and each one is a call.

1. Source the list. people.search by title, company and location, or company.jobs for companies hiring the role you sell to. See high-intent leads.
2. Find the email. contact.find, a waterfall in one call.
3. Verify it. contact.verify, before it touches your sending domain.
4. Send. email.send from an inbox on a domain you own, or a LinkedIn invitation. See cold email infrastructure and LinkedIn automation for AI agents.

Give the agent the prompt at the top of this page and it runs the four steps, shows the price of each before it runs, and reports the cost per verified contact at the end.

Sources

Pricing pages, checked 8 October 2026: Clay, Apollo, FullEnrich, BetterContact, Persana AI, Bitscale, Cargo.

What does each call cost?#

Prices below are the starting price per successful call. /v1/inspect returns the exact figure before the run and reserves it against your balance; failures and unbilled no-matches release the hold in full.

One prepaid balance covers every row. Capabilities marked coming soon are listed but not yet executable.

FAQ#

Is there a free Clay alternative?

Several tools here have a free tier: Apollo (900 credits per seat a year), Persana (50 credits), Bitscale, Cargo (100 credits), FullEnrich (50 trial credits) and BetterContact (50 credits to start). Clay has a free plan too, with 100 data credits and 500 actions a month. RouterGrowth has no free tier, but there is no subscription either: verifying your email adds $1 of credit that runs real calls.

What is the cheapest Clay alternative?

For a fixed monthly price, BetterContact at $15 a month for 200 credits. For occasional use, a pay-per-call tool costs less than any plan because a month with no runs costs nothing. Compare on cost per verified contact at your real volume, not on the entry price.

Is Apollo a Clay alternative?

Partly. Apollo is a contact database with sequencing; Clay orchestrates many databases, Apollo among them. Teams that only need a list and a sequence can replace Clay with Apollo. Teams that left a single database because of coverage gaps usually cannot.

Does Clay have an API?

Clay's pricing page lists Clay API access under Enterprise, and HTTP API integrations and webhooks from the Growth plan. If programmatic access is the main requirement, an API-first tool starts lower.

Which Clay alternative works with Claude or ChatGPT?

RouterGrowth is built for that: one MCP server or one skill file gives the agent enrichment, lead search, signals and sending as tools, with a price before every call. Clay and several tools on this list also publish MCP servers or agent plugins for their own products: Clay MCP covers what Clay's does and what it needs.

What does Clay do that the alternatives do not?

Breadth and the table. More than 150 providers in one marketplace, a visual grid that non-developers can build in, CRM sync, and a large community sharing templates. No single tool on this list matches all four.