Watcher API Is live! Real-time signals on key people & accounts
NEW
Watcher API Is live! Real-time signals on key people & accounts
Track promotions, job changes, and funding rounds the moment they happen
The Best Clado Alternative for People Search & Enrichment
The Best
Clay Alternative
Built for
Automated Workflows
The Best
Clay Alternative
Built for
Automated Workflows
Built for Production Data Pipelines, Not Just Exploration
Built for Production Data Pipelines, Not Just Exploration
Crustdata
Clado
1B+ profiles
800M profiles
Clado built an agentic people search engine where users describe who they want in plain English, and AI agents would find them across 800M+ profiles. It was useful for recruiters doing exploratory sourcing and VCs scouting founders.
But Clado is sunsetting. And if you're looking for where to move your people search and enrichment workflows, the answer depends on what you actually need.
If you need a natural language "describe the person you're looking for" experience, no one replicates Clado's agentic search exactly. But if you need people data you can build on - deterministic search, verified contact data, structured filters that produce the same results every time, and a company intelligence layer Clado never offered, Crustdata is the most complete alternative.
Clado built an agentic people search engine where users describe who they want in plain English, and AI agents would find them across 800M+ profiles. It was useful for recruiters doing exploratory sourcing and VCs scouting founders.
But Clado is sunsetting. And if you're looking for where to move your people search and enrichment workflows, the answer depends on what you actually need.
If you need a natural language "describe the person you're looking for" experience, no one replicates Clado's agentic search exactly. But if you need people data you can build on - deterministic search, verified contact data, structured filters that produce the same results every time, and a company intelligence layer Clado never offered, Crustdata is the most complete alternative.
Comparison Overview
Comparison Overview
Clado was a people search engine powered by AI agents. Crustdata is a B2B data infrastructure platform where people search is one of many capabilities - alongside company intelligence, web search, and real-time monitoring.
Capability
Capability
Clado
Clado
Crustdata
Crustdata
Primary focus
Primary focus
People search via natural language
People search via natural language
People + Company + Web data via API
People + Company + Web data via API
Data Source
Data Source
800M+ unified profiles (LinkedIn, GitHub, Scholar, Twitter)
1B+ unified profiles linked to full company intelligence
Search method
Search method
AI agents interpret plain English queries
AI agents interpret plain English queries
60+ structured filters for people search with 12+ operators and nesting capability
Best for
Best for
Exploratory sourcing based on natural language
Reproducible pipelines, automated workflows where control over search logic is required
Reproducible pipelines, automated workflows where control over search logic is required
Company data
Inline basics per employment record (revenue, headcount, funding)
Inline basics per employment record (revenue, headcount, funding)
Full Company API - firmographics, headcount timeseries, funding, web traffic, job openings, competitors, news, product reviews and more
Full Company API - firmographics, headcount timeseries, funding, web traffic, job openings, competitors, news, product reviews and more
Contact enrichment
Contact enrichment
Email enrichment and phone number enrichment
Email enrichment and phone number enrichment
Email enrichment
Email enrichment
Monitoring
Monitoring
Monitors for people that match criteria
Monitors for people that match criteria
Monitors for people that match criteria and tracks individual data points across people and companies such as job changes, posts, headcount growth, and job postings
Monitors for people that match criteria and tracks individual data points across people and companies such as job changes, posts, headcount growth, and job postings
People Data
People Data: Field-by-Field Comparison
Here's the side by side comparison of fields returned by Clado and Crustdata.
Data Category
Data Category
Clado
Clado
Crustdata
Crustdata
Profile Images
Profile Images
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Location
Location
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Phone
Yes
No
No
Social Profiles
Social Profiles
Unified across 4 sources
Unified across 4 sources
Unified across 3 sources
Unified across 3 sources
Connections & Followers
Connections & Followers
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Language
Language
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Skills
Skills
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Employer data
Employer data
48 Datapoints
48 Datapoints
250 Datapoints
250 Datapoints
Department & Management Level
Department & Management Level
Department + management_level per role, with total experience breakdowns by each
Department + management_level per role, with total experience breakdowns by each
❌ Not available as structured fields
❌ Not available as structured fields
Seniority Classification
Seniority Classification
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Total Experience
Total Experience
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Decision Maker Flag
Decision Maker Flag
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Education
Education
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Certifications
Certifications
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Awards / Honors
Awards / Honors
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Salary Projections
Salary Projections
Yes
Yes
❌ Not available
❌ Not available
GitHub Profile
GitHub Profile
Yes
Yes
Yes
Patents
Patents
Structured: title, description, status, date + count/topics
Structured: title, description, status, date + count/topics
❌ Not available
Available via Web Search
❌ Not available
Available via Web Search
Publications
Publications
Structured: title, description, publisher, date + count/topics
Structured: title, description, publisher, date + count/topics
❌ Not per-profile. Available via Web Search scholar-articles source
❌ Not per-profile. Available via Web Search scholar-articles source
Projects
Projects
Structured: name, description, dates + count/topics
Structured: name, description, dates + count/topics
❌ Not available
❌ Not available
Courses
Courses
Structured: organizer, title
Structured: organizer, title
❌ Not available
❌ Not available
Interests
Interests
interests array
interests array
❌ Not available
❌ Not available
Social Posts
Social Posts
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
People Search
People Search: Exploration vs. Precision
This is where the architectural philosophies diverge most, and where neither approach is universally better - it depends on your use case.
Capability
Capability
Clado
Clado
Crustdata
Crustdata
Query style
Query style
Natural language ("senior ML engineers at Series B startups in Europe who have published papers")
Natural language ("senior ML engineers at Series B startups in Europe who have published papers")
Structured JSON filters with boolean logic
Structured JSON filters with boolean logic
Reproducibility
Reproducibility
Non-deterministic as same query may return different results
Non-deterministic as same query may return different results
Fully deterministic as same filters always return same results
Fully deterministic as same filters always return same results
Relevance scoring
Relevance scoring
✅ similarity_score + matched_criteria
✅ similarity_score + matched_criteria
❌ No scoring. All results match your filter criteria
❌ No scoring. All results match your filter criteria
Geo-radius search
Geo-radius search
❌ NLP-based location interpretation
❌ NLP-based location interpretation
✅ geo_distance - find people within X km/miles of a location
✅ geo_distance - find people within X km/miles of a location
Autocomplete API
Autocomplete API
❌
❌
✅ Dedicated autocomplete for region, title, company, school
✅ Dedicated autocomplete for region, title, company, school
Async/bulk search
Async/bulk search
Up to 200 profiles per async job
Up to 200 profiles per async job
✅ Up to 10,000 results per async job
✅ Up to 10,000 results per async job
Profile exclusions
Profile exclusions
❌
❌
✅ Up to 50,000 profiles per query
✅ Up to 50,000 profiles per query
Programmable sorting
Programmable sorting
❌ AI-ranked by relevance
❌ AI-ranked by relevance
✅ Sort by any field (experience years, employer size, etc.)
✅ Sort by any field (experience years, employer size, etc.)
Filter operators
Filter operators
NLP only
NLP only
16 operators
16 operators
Nested filtering
Nested filtering
❌
❌
✅
✅
Clado's NLP search was designed for humans exploring. Crustdata's structured search is designed for code building. If you're a recruiter typing queries into a search bar, Clado's approach probably suited you better. If you're an engineer building a pipeline that needs to run the search and produce reliable results every time, exclude profiles you've already contacted, and process thousands of results in bulk - Crustdata's approach is what you need.
Clado's NLP search was designed for humans exploring. Crustdata's structured search is designed for code building. If you're a recruiter typing queries into a search bar, Clado's approach probably suited you better. If you're an engineer building a pipeline that needs to run the search and produce reliable results every time, exclude profiles you've already contacted, and process thousands of results in bulk - Crustdata's approach is what you need.
Company Intelligence
Company Intelligence: The Layer Clado Never Had
Clado embedded some company basics inline with each employment record such as revenue, headcount, funding round date, stock ticker. But it had no company search, no company enrichment, and no company-level analytics.
Crustdata provides a full company data platform:
Data Category
Data Category
What You Get
What You Get
Firmographics
Firmographics
HQ location, year founded, employee count range, company type, acquisition status, IPO date, all office addresses
HQ location, year founded, employee count range, company type, acquisition status, IPO date, all office addresses
Headcount timeseries
Headcount timeseries
Historical headcount with growth rates (MoM, QoQ, 6M, YoY, 2Y), headcount by function, by region, by skill
Historical headcount with growth rates (MoM, QoQ, 6M, YoY, 2Y), headcount by function, by region, by skill
Funding & investment
Funding & investment
Full funding history with investors, total investment, last funding date, valuations
Full funding history with investors, total investment, last funding date, valuations
Revenue estimates
Revenue estimates
Lower/upper bound estimates in USD
Lower/upper bound estimates in USD
Web traffic
Web traffic
Monthly visitors, MoM/QoQ growth, traffic source breakdown (social, search, direct, paid, referral) with timeseries
Monthly visitors, MoM/QoQ growth, traffic source breakdown (social, search, direct, paid, referral) with timeseries
Employer Review
Employer Review
Overall rating, CEO approval %, review count, culture ratings, timeseries
Overall rating, CEO approval %, review count, culture ratings, timeseries
Product Review
Product Review
Product ratings, review counts, category rankings
Product ratings, review counts, category rankings
Job openings
Job openings
Active job postings data with detailed job descriptions
Active job postings data with detailed job descriptions
News
News
Recent articles with URL, publisher, title, publish date
Recent articles with URL, publisher, title, publish date
Competitors
Competitors
Identified competitive companies
Identified competitive companies
Taxonomy
Taxonomy
Industries, Categories, NAICS codes
Industries, Categories, NAICS codes
Founders / CXOs /
Decision makers
Full people profiles (similar depth as People API) linked to each company
Full people profiles (similar depth as People API) linked to each company
Web Search API
Web Search API
Multi-source search (web, news, scholar, social, AI) with optional content fetching
Multi-source search (web, news, scholar, social, AI) with optional content fetching
Datapoint Monitoring Infrastructure
Dimension
Dimension
Clado
Clado
Crustdata
Crustdata
Monitoring: job changes
Monitoring: job changes
Monitors for people matching a criteria
Monitors for people matching a criteria
Watcher API monitors and notifies job changes
Watcher API monitors and notifies job changes
Monitoring: social posts
Monitoring: social posts
❌
❌
Track when a person posts, with category filtering
Track when a person posts, with category filtering
Monitoring: company events
Monitoring: company events
❌
❌
Job postings, headcount growth, company posts
Job postings, headcount growth, company posts
Monitoring: delivery
Monitoring: delivery
In-app notifications
In-app notifications
Webhook to any endpoint
Webhook to any endpoint
Team UI
Team UI
Atlas platform
Atlas platform
API-first (no UI layer)
API-first (no UI layer)
The Bottom Line
Clado built a product with rich people data, that users could find with natural language.
But for teams that need to build on people data, Crustdata offers a more complete foundation. Deterministic search that scales and a production-grade API that's documented down to every rate limit, error code, and credit charge.
Products
Popular Use Cases
Competitor Comparisons
95 Third Street, 2nd Floor, San Francisco,
California 94103, United States of America
© 2026 Crustdata Inc.
Products
Popular Use Cases
Competitor Comparisons
95 Third Street, 2nd Floor, San Francisco,
California 94103, United States of America
© 2025 CrustData Inc.
Products
Popular Use Cases
95 Third Street, 2nd Floor, San Francisco,
California 94103, United States of America
© 2025 CrustData Inc.