Clay pricing in 2026: plans, credits, real cost per record, and our review

Clay costs $0 on its Free plan, from $185 a month on Launch, from $495 a month on Growth, and a custom price on Enterprise. Every plan meters two things, Data Credits that pay for data and Actions that pay for the work Clay does. Our verdict is that Clay is the right buy for a GTM team that wants many data providers and outreach in one no-code tool. Teams that want raw people data inside their own code usually do better with a data API such as Crustdata.

Written by Crustdata, which sells a people and company data API that some teams use in place of Clay. Read this as a review from a company in the same market.

Prices checked 16 October 2026 from Clay's pricing page. Last updated 16 October 2026.

How much does Clay cost?

Clay's self-serve plans start at $0, $185 and $495 a month, and Enterprise is priced per customer on an annual contract. Annual billing takes about 10% off the two paid self-serve plans. The figures below come from Clay's pricing page, checked on 16 October 2026.

The headline price is two meters added together. Launch at $185 is $60 for 15,000 Actions plus $125 for 2,500 Data Credits. Growth at $495 is $205 for 40,000 Actions plus $290 for 6,000 Data Credits. You can raise either meter on its own, up to 200,000 Actions and 50,000 Data Credits a month on the self-serve plans.

Every plan has unlimited seats, which means that the bill grows with usage rather than headcount. Clay does not publish an Enterprise price, so larger teams have to ask for a quote.

How do Clay's Data Credits and Actions work?

Data Credits pay for the data that Clay buys on your behalf. Actions pay for the work that gets it into your table. "Clay is doing work, and Clay is buying data on your behalf," as Clay's pricing page puts it. The split arrived with Clay's new plans in March 2026, according to its legacy plans doc.

Data Credits buy contact and company data from the 150+ providers in Clay's marketplace. They start at $0.05 each, although one enrichment can cost anywhere from 0.5 to more than 10 credits depending on the data type, per Clay's Actions and Data Credits doc. Emails are cheap, whereas phone numbers are the expensive part.

Actions count the platform work that Clay does. Each enrichment step on a record uses 1 Action, whichever provider supplies the data, and so does each export. Each Action costs less than $0.01. Any step that sends a lead to a sequencer, syncs a row to your CRM or calls an AI model uses Actions.

Four rules change what you pay:

• If you connect your own key for a data provider, you skip the Data Credits for that step but still use 1 Action.

• If an enrichment returns no result, Clay charges neither Data Credits nor Actions.

• If you run out of Data Credits, you can top up at a 30% premium or move to a higher credit tier.

• If you run out of Actions, you have to move up a tier, because Actions cannot be topped up.

Most AI models cost a fixed number of Data Credits per task. Token-heavy models, which Clay's pricing FAQ names as GPT-5.1 and Claude 4.6 Sonnet, are billed on the tokens they use. The estimate that Clay shows before such a task is marked with a tilde.

What does a real job cost on Clay?

A fully enriched record typically costs 6 to 20 Data Credits on Clay, which works out to about $0.30 to $1.00 in Data Credits at the $0.05 starting rate, plus Actions for each enrichment step. The 6 to 20 range comes from Clay's Actions and Data Credits doc. The dollar amounts are our arithmetic on Clay's published rates.

The credits per record set how far each plan's included credits go:

Light enrichment is cheap. Clay's doc walks through 100 contacts enriched with a profile and an email for 95 Data Credits, about $4.75 at $0.05 a credit. But full enrichment, with phone numbers and multi-provider waterfalls, is where the bill climbs. The planning table in the same doc pairs Launch with about 1,000 records a month at 2,500 to 10,000 credits a month. At the base 2,500 credits that is 2.5 credits a record, which suits light enrichment, so a team enriching fully at that volume should budget for a higher credit tier.

The three monthly bills below use only Clay's published prices. The workloads are made up for illustration. We assume a fully enriched record takes four enrichment steps (company, profile, email, phone), which means four Actions.

A solo founder on Launch

A founder who fully enriches 150 new records a month pays $185 to about $217.50 a month on Launch, or $2,220 to $2,610 a year on monthly billing. The work uses 900 to 3,000 Data Credits, plus about 600 Actions that fit easily inside the plan. With 900 credits the work fits inside Launch's 2,500. But at the high end the founder needs 500 more credits, which cost about $32.50 as a top-up at the 30% premium on $0.05.

A sales team of three AEs and an SDR on Growth with HubSpot sync

A team like this pays $495 to $665 a month on Growth, or $5,940 to $7,980 a year on monthly billing. We assume it fully enriches 400 new contacts a month, syncs them to HubSpot, and refreshes 8,000 CRM records once a quarter.

We count each refreshed record as one profile enrichment at 0.5 credits, the rate in Clay's worked example, plus one sync, which makes two Actions a record. New contacts use 2,400 to 8,000 credits a month, and the refresh adds 4,000 in the quarter it happens. Actions stay under the 40,000 limit, at about 2,000 a month and 18,000 in a refresh month, so credits set the bill. At the low end, Growth's 6,000 credits plus rolled-over credits cover the work. At 8,000 credits a month the team needs the 10,000-credit tier, which Clay's pricing page lists at $460 a month and which brings Growth to $665, with rolled-over credits covering the refresh month. And annual billing takes about 10% off both figures.

An agency on Launch using its own provider keys

An agency that sends all its enrichment through its own provider keys pays $185 a month to Clay, plus whatever its data providers charge. We assume 2,000 records a month, four steps each, then an export to a sequencer. That comes to close to zero Data Credits and about 10,000 Actions, which fits inside Launch's 15,000 if our four-Actions assumption holds.

Clay's Actions and Data Credits doc sizes Launch's 15,000 monthly Actions for about 10,000 records a year and Growth's 40,000 for about 50,000 records a year. That works out to more than four Actions a record, so treat the Action counts in the three bills above as a floor.

How Actions count in a waterfall

Clay's doc does not say how many Actions a multi-provider waterfall uses for one record. It says each enrichment from a provider uses 1 Action, and also that each record enriched counts as 1 Action regardless of provider. Test a waterfall on 10 to 20 rows before you plan around it.

Which Clay plan fits which job?

Launch covers phone numbers and scheduled runs, Growth is the cheapest plan with CRM sync and webhooks, and Enterprise is the only plan for enriching more than 50,000 records at once. The features your workflow needs set the plan more than the number of records you enrich. Clay's plan comparison gates these features by tier.

Moving from Launch to Growth takes the starting price from $185 to $495 a month. CRM sync starts on Growth, so a team that wants enriched rows written back to HubSpot or Salesforce without a manual export should budget for Growth from the start. Clay also lists an Attio integration on Growth and Enterprise (in its directory since 22 March 2026), which needs your own Attio account.

A few billing rules are easy to miss:

• Re-running a column, turning on auto-refresh and re-enriching records you already have all charge again.

• Clay caps one-time and automatic top-ups together at 4 times your monthly allocation.

• Actions reset every billing cycle, so the ones you do not use are lost.

• Data Credits roll over, with a different cap for monthly and annual billing.

On monthly Launch and Growth plans, unused Data Credits can build up to twice your monthly amount, which Clay's comparison table calls "up to 1 month's credits". Annual plans roll over 15% of unused credits if you renew on the same or a higher plan. Free and trial workspaces keep only 100 credits when the cycle ends.

Older Starter, Explorer and Pro plans still exist for customers who signed up before March 2026. Clay's legacy plans doc says those plans keep their pricing for now, that their limited-time access to newer features (Audiences, Workflows, the newer sequencer, and MCP, CLI and API access) ends on 31 December 2026, and that any plan change after 10 April 2026 moves you to the new plans for good. Read Clay's legacy plans page before a renewal.

Where does Clay fall short?

Clay's published limits put CRM sync on Growth and bulk enrichment of more than 50,000 records on Enterprise, and a fully enriched record typically uses 6 to 20 Data Credits.

Teams we talk to have complained about Clay's cost once they enrich fully or at volume, which matches Clay's own figure of 6 to 20 Data Credits per fully enriched record. They have also raised credit charges they did not expect, and Clay's docs list re-runs and auto-refresh among the reasons credits get used up. Others have raised Clay's 2026 pricing changes, which brought in the March 2026 model with separate Actions and Data Credits.

The limits below come from Clay's pages:

• The bulk gate matters most if you refresh a large CRM in one go.

• Two meters run out separately, so a team can be short of Actions with credits to spare.

• Variable AI pricing settles after the task finishes, so the estimate can differ from the charge.

Light enrichment or your own provider keys cut most of Clay's credit spend, although the bulk-enrichment gate and the Actions limit stay in place.

Clay vs a data API like Crustdata

Pick Clay if you want to build enrichment workflows in tables without engineers. Pick a data API like Crustdata if you want people data delivered straight into your own code. Both can enrich the same list, which is why buyers compare them.

Clay wins on breadth of tooling. It connects to 150+ data providers with waterfalls that combine several providers for better coverage. Claygent does web research for custom data points no database holds. A RevOps person can build the whole workflow, then push it to a sequencer, a CRM or ad audiences. Crustdata has no built-in email sequencer, native CRM sync or ad audience sync, and no third-party provider marketplace. It connects to other tools through its API, its MCP server and integrations such as Zapier.

Crustdata sells access to its own data, which covers 1B+ people and 60M+ companies drawn from 15+ sources, through an API, an MCP server or a CLI. A batch job enriches up to 10,000 people from the indexed database in one request. There is no table to build. Credits cost $0.30 to $0.01 per credit, lower depending on plan. Per-endpoint costs are published in Crustdata's pricing docs, checked 16 October 2026. A person enrichment costs 1 to 9 credits depending on the fields you ask for, a company enrichment costs 2 to 4, and a person search costs 0.03 credits per result, plus premium field groups.

Crustdata's pricing docs put a person enrichment with a profile, business email and phone at 4 credits, against 6 to 20 Data Credits for a fully enriched Clay record. The two credits are priced differently, so compare them in dollars on your own plan. On a small Crustdata plan a comparable record can cost more than it does on Clay, and the gap reverses on larger plans.

Who is Clay for, and who outgrows it?

Clay fits GTM engineers and RevOps teams who build outbound plays themselves, usually on Growth.

Solo founders and light users can stay on Free or Launch. If you only need contact lists, a prospecting database such as Apollo may need less setup. Clay rewards people who enjoy building tables, so a founder whose real job is booking meetings may not want to build and maintain those tables.

Agencies get the most from Clay when they connect their own provider keys, because that removes most Data Credit spend and leaves only Actions.

Teams outgrow Clay when they need to refresh a large CRM in bulk, which hits the Enterprise gate. Developers who want data inside their own product outgrow it too, because a data API skips the table layer.

Our verdict on Clay: is it worth the price?

Clay is worth the price for a GTM team that will use its waterfalls, Claygent and outreach together. If you are on a legacy plan, check the 31 December 2026 date before you renew. If you mostly need raw data in your own systems, a data API usually costs less at volume, because you are not paying for tools you will not use.

Clay pricing FAQ

How is Clay priced? Clay charges a monthly or annual plan fee made of two meters, Data Credits for data and Actions for platform work. Free costs $0, Launch starts at $185 a month, Growth at $495 a month, and Enterprise is custom.

Do Clay credits roll over? Data Credits roll over, but Actions do not. On monthly Launch and Growth plans, unused Data Credits can build up to twice your monthly amount. Annual plans roll over 15% of unused credits if you renew on the same or a higher plan. Free and trial workspaces keep only 100 credits when the cycle ends.

What are actions in Clay? Actions measure the work that Clay does for you, such as enriching a record, calling an AI model or syncing to a CRM. Each enrichment step on a record uses 1 Action, which costs less than $0.01.

What are the current Clay pricing plans? Clay sells four plans. Free includes 100 Data Credits with 500 Actions a month. Launch includes 2,500 credits with 15,000 Actions, Growth 6,000 with 40,000, and Enterprise starts at 100,000+ credits with 200,000+ Actions.

What happens if I run out of Actions but not credits? You have to move to a higher Action tier, because Actions cannot be bought as one-time top-ups. If you run out of Data Credits instead, you can top up at a 30% premium or raise your credit tier.

Does refreshing a record cost credits again? Yes. Any re-run, auto-refresh or re-enrichment of an existing record uses new credits. Clay suggests enriching only when a field is empty or out of date.

Can Clay enrich more than 50,000 records at once? Only on Enterprise. Clay's plan comparison lists bulk enrichment of more than 50,000 records at once as an Enterprise feature.

Does Clay integrate with Attio? Yes, on Growth and Enterprise. Clay lists an Attio integration that can create, look up, update and import records, and it needs your own Attio account.

Can I keep my legacy Starter, Explorer or Pro plan? Yes, for now. Clay says legacy plans stay supported, their limited-time access to newer features such as Audiences and Workflows ends on 31 December 2026, and any plan change after 10 April 2026 moves you to the new plans.

Is Clay worth it? Yes, if you will use more than the data. A team that only needs enriched records still pays for Actions on every step, so it may get more for its money from a data API.

Sources and method for this Clay review

Every Clay figure on this page comes from Clay's pages, checked on 16 October 2026. Those are the pricing page and its FAQ, the Actions and Data Credits doc, the legacy plans doc and the Attio integration page. Crustdata's per-endpoint credit costs come from its pricing docs on the same date. The dollar math, the records-per-plan table and the three monthly bills are our arithmetic on those published rates, with the assumptions stated in each example. We ran no paid tests. The buyer complaints come from our own sales call transcripts from January 2025 to October 2026, summarised by theme, with no names or quotes published.