Pricing analysis Clay is one of the most talked-about B2B data enrichment platforms right now. But between the credit-based pricing, multiple tiers per plan, top-up markups, and required tool stack, figuring out what Clay actually costs your team is anythin
Clay ships 4 tiers. Per-seat pricing combined with a credit system for data lookups - the listed price is rarely the real cost.
Clay pricing tiers — verified May 2026 against the vendor and cross-checked with our review data:
| Plan | Price | Best for | Limits / Inclusions |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Evaluation / testing | 100 credits + 500 actions · 100 credits/month + 500 actions/month · Access to 100+ data providers |
| Launch | $167+/mo monthly (~$150/mo annual ($1,800/year)) | 2,500+ credits/mo + 15,000 actions/mo | 2,500+ credits + 15K actions · 2,500+ credits/mo + 15,000 actions/mo · Renamed from old Starter tier ($149 → $167) |
| Growth | $446+/mo monthly (~$400/mo annual ($4,814/year)) | 6,000+ credits/mo + 40,000 actions/mo | 6,000+ credits + 40K actions · 6,000+ credits/mo + 40,000 actions/mo · Renamed from old Explorer ($349 → $446) |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom credit + action pools | Custom (100K+) · Custom credit + action pools · Dedicated CSM + workflow consulting |
Clay bills actions in credits with non-equal costs. A 5,000-credit plan does NOT mean 5,000 lookups.
Clay credits are the platform’s internal currency. Every action you run — a data lookup, an AI enrichment, a workflow step — consumes credits from your monthly allocation.
The tricky part: credit consumption varies significantly depending on the data provider and the type of information you’re requesting. Clay aggregates 100+ data providers and charges their wholesale rates, which it passes through without markup. That’s a genuine advantage. But it also means the cost per action is highly variable.
Rough consumption benchmarks per action:
| Action | Credits consumed |
|---|---|
| Basic contact enrichment (name, title, company) | 1–3 credits |
| Email lookup (single provider) | 1–2 credits |
| LinkedIn profile enrichment | 1 credit |
| Mobile number lookup | 2–13 credits (provider-dependent) |
| AI/Claygent step | Variable |
| Data cleaning and formatting | Free |
The more expensive operations — mobile numbers in particular — can quickly exhaust a Starter allocation. A single mobile lookup via an expensive provider can cost up to 13 credits, meaning the $0.075 per-credit Starter rate translates to nearly $1 for one phone number.
Unused credits roll over to the following month, but only up to 2x your monthly allocation. On the Explorer plan (10,000 credits/month), you can bank a maximum of 20,000 credits. Any excess is lost.
For teams with seasonal prospecting cycles — heavy in Q1 and Q3, quiet in Q2 and Q4 — this cap frequently creates waste. Credits accumulated during slow months aren’t available when a big campaign launches.
This is one area where the contrast with tools like Derrick is sharpest: Derrick offers unlimited rollover on all paid plans, so credits never expire regardless of usage patterns.
How Clay stacks against Derrick, Hunter, and the other tools we benchmarked.
Both tools offer B2B data enrichment with a credit-based model. Here’s a direct comparison on the metrics that matter most for budget decisions:
| Clay Starter | Clay Explorer | Clay Pro | Derrick Small | Derrick Medium | Derrick Large | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Credits/month | 2,000 | 10,000 | 50,000 | 4,000 | 10,000 | 25,000 |
| Price/month | $149 | $349 | $800 | $9 | $20 | $47.50 |
| Cost/credit | $0.075 | $0.035 | $0.016 | $0.0022 | $0.0020 | $0.0019 |
| Credit rollover | 2x max | 2x max | 2x max | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| CRM integration | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | Via Zapier/Make | Via Zapier/Make | Via Zapier/Make |
| Native Google Sheets | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Sales Navigator required | Often | Often | Often | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
Important nuance on credit consumption: Derrick and Clay don’t use credits at the same rate per action. Some Derrick enrichments (notably phone finder) consume significantly more credits than Clay’s equivalent. The comparison below reflects actual per-action costs:
| Action | Clay Starter | Derrick Small | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| LinkedIn profile enrichment | $0.075 (1 credit) | $0.0022 (1 credit) | Derrick (~34x) |
| Email finder | $0.075 (1 credit) | $0.011 (5 credits) | Derrick (~7x) |
| Phone finder | $0.075–$0.975 (1–13 credits) | $0.33 (150 credits) | Clay |
For LinkedIn enrichment and email finding — the core workflow for most SDR teams — Derrick’s per-action cost is dramatically lower. Phone number lookup is the exception where Clay has an advantage.
A sales team enriching 5,000 profiles monthly, pulling email addresses for each:
Clay (Explorer, annual):
Derrick (Medium, €20/month):
Savings: ~$264/month = $3,168/year on this workflow alone, with no LinkedIn Sales Navigator requirement and no CRM export friction (Derrick lives directly in Google Sheets).
To get started with data enrichment in Google Sheets, Derrick’s approach removes the export step entirely — enriched data lands directly in the spreadsheet your team already uses.
Features bundled into Clay's plans - synthesised from the highlights of every published tier :
Not every feature ships in every tier - confirm against the plan card above before you commit.
Clay is a genuinely powerful platform for GTM teams that need flexible, multi-provider enrichment with workflow automation. For organizations with a dedicated RevOps function, mature prospecting processes, and $800+/month budgets, the Pro plan delivers strong value.
The challenge is the entry point. At $134–149/month, the Starter plan offers high per-credit costs, no CRM integration, and limited monthly volume — making it poorly suited to teams actually running outbound at scale. Many users find themselves jumping straight to Explorer or Pro once real workflows are in production.
If your team is earlier stage, budget-conscious, or simply doesn’t need Clay’s full workflow builder, there are leaner paths to quality B2B data enrichment with less operational overhead.
At minimum, a 5-person team should budget the Explorer plan ($3,768/year) plus LinkedIn Sales Navigator for each active user ($5,940/year) plus an outreach tool — totaling approximately $10,000–12,000/year before top-up overages. Clay Pro at $8,640/year includes CRM integration but the same Sales Navigator dependency applies.
Yes. The free plan includes 100 credits/month (1,200/year), unlimited users, and access to 100+ data provider integrations. It’s sufficient to test workflows and understand the interface, but not for any consistent professional use.
Unused credits roll over to the next month, but only up to 2x your monthly allocation. Beyond that cap, excess credits are lost. This rollover policy can create waste for teams with variable monthly usage.
Yes. Clay charges credits for every enrichment attempt regardless of whether data is found. If your workflow queries three providers for an email address and all return empty, you pay for all three attempts. On pipelines with stale data, this failure rate can consume 20–30% of your monthly allocation.
Clay is a standalone web platform combining 100+ data providers with workflow automation, targeting RevOps-heavy teams with $350–800+/month budgets. Derrick runs natively inside Google Sheets, enriches LinkedIn profiles, finds emails and phones, and integrates with CRMs via Zapier/Make/n8n — starting at $9/month with unlimited credit rollover. Clay has an edge on workflow complexity and mobile phone data; Derrick has an edge on price, ease of use, and LinkedIn/email enrichment cost per action.
Some workflows work without Sales Navigator, but many of Clay’s core LinkedIn enrichment features perform significantly better — or exclusively work — with an active Sales Navigator subscription. Budget for $99/month per user if LinkedIn is a primary source.
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