Clay Alternatives: 4 Options for B2B Teams (2026)

The most useful Clay alternatives in this comparison serve four different jobs: Freckle for table-based research, FullEnrich for contact data, Apollo for a database with sales outreach, and Trendle for a daily LinkedIn shortlist.

Start with the work you need to keep. Moving a custom research process to a different tool is a different decision from deciding you no longer need that process. Both can be sensible. Confusing them is how a lower subscription price becomes a migration that leaves important work unfinished.

We make Trendle, which is the fourth entry below, so weigh that entry accordingly. Everything here comes from reading the four vendors' own pricing and product pages on September 18, 2026, with the Apollo figures rechecked on September 22, when Apollo's page still would not show a monthly rate. Nobody on our side rebuilt a Clay table in any of these products and timed it, so treat the four as a shortlist to test.

Clay alternatives compared

Prices below are in USD, billed monthly unless stated otherwise. Credits buy different actions across these products, so their allowances do not represent equal numbers of usable prospects.

For a baseline, Clay's current monthly Launch plan starts at $185, combining 15,000 Actions and 2,500 Data Credits. The separate $60 Actions component is not the complete plan price. Clay also offers a free plan with smaller allowances.

The comparison is not a price ranking. A contact-data plan cannot be assumed to replace a research workflow simply because its starting price is lower.

What do you need to replace in Clay?

Write down one complete workflow before choosing another product. A useful description includes:

• Research: What question must the tool answer? A contact's job title is a different requirement from finding evidence on a company website.
• Contact data: Do you need work email, mobile numbers, company details or some combination?
• Updates: Does the result need to change when a new row arrives, on a schedule, or when someone requests it?
• Destination: Is a CSV sufficient, or must the result reach a specific CRM field or campaign?
• Ownership: Who fixes missing inputs, ambiguous answers and broken steps?

Include sending if you use it. Clay's current paid plans include email campaigns. Choosing an alternative on the assumption that Clay cannot send email would compare it with an outdated version of the product.

Also distinguish a feature from an implemented process. Two platforms can both advertise AI research while differing in how they handle your question, source evidence, refresh schedule and destination. The requirement is the complete result your team relies on.

1. Freckle: for table-based research and contact lookup

Build costs $99 per month with monthly billing and 1,000 credits selected, and changing the credit allowance changes that number. The free option opens with 250 credits and 500 rows. Those credits arrive once, so do not budget as though another 250 turn up next month.

Freckle is the closest table-and-research option in this selection: web research and contact lookup in one grid, with your own API keys and an HTTP API listed on the paid plan. Your research question stays the starting point instead of collapsing into a contact search, which is the reason to look at it if tables are how you think.

The buying question is whether it preserves the particular process you built. Say a colleague needs the yes-or-no answer and the page that supports it. Confirm both reach the field they use. A good-looking grid tells you nothing about that.

Two costs sit behind the $99. Chained research steps, provider choices and CRM updates have to be rebuilt by somebody, and bringing your own API keys moves that spending to those suppliers instead of removing it. Price both before treating the subscription as the whole comparison.

2. FullEnrich: for contact-data work

Do the credit arithmetic before you look at the price. A work email costs one credit and a mobile number costs ten, so the 500 credits on the entry plan are nowhere near 500 complete records carrying both. Whether a mobile number exists at all in your market is a second question that no allowance answers.

With that in hand, the monthly Pro plan starts at $29 for 500 credits, and the same page lists $55 for 1,000 credits. Users are unlimited, but usage is not.

FullEnrich earns the shortlist place when finding people and obtaining their contact details is the main work. It offers people and company search, bulk CSV processing, an API and integrations, so it is not confined to a list you have already uploaded. It is also not a research table, and its search and API should not be read as one.

The 50-credit trial with no card required runs once and is not an ongoing free plan. Spend it on the exact integration you depend on instead of a sample of names, and remember that a capability marked coming soon cannot carry a migration.

Replacing contact lookup this way leaves the rest of the process where it was. Custom answers, scheduling and downstream updates still need an owner, and for plenty of teams that owner is still Clay.

3. Apollo: for a database with sales outreach

Apollo fits the person who wants one product for the whole run: find people, research them, then write to them, without stitching three subscriptions together. Apollo's pricing page lists AI research and workflows alongside its contact search and advanced filters, so calling it a static database understates what you would be buying.

Its price moves with the billing term you select, and the page shows no figure until you pick one. Basic is $49 per seat per month billed annually, a twelve-month commitment with 30,000 credits granted upfront for the year. Billed monthly it costs more, and the credits arrive as 2,500 a seat each month. We could not read a monthly figure off Apollo's own page on September 22, 2026, and the published third-party numbers contradict each other, so take that one from the checkout and not from any comparison article, this one included.

The credit definitions matter as much as the rate. Apollo lists one credit for an email, eight for a phone number and one for an AI research run, so a single person researched and then contacted can cost several. Seats are the other multiplier, and the figure to compare is the number of users you need, not the one-seat headline.

Before treating this as a complete Clay replacement, take your hardest research question and your CRM update rule and test both. A workflow feature on a pricing page is not your table running unchanged. For a different angle on the same choice, see our Apollo alternatives article.

4. Trendle: for a daily LinkedIn shortlist

A consultant who built three Clay tables, uses one of them, and spends most of the week deciding who is worth a message would lose nothing by retiring the other two. That is who this fourth option is for.

Trendle's capacity promise is: A fresh ranked list every day, with the reason to contact each name. It is organized around one audience and one list, reviewed daily, and that is the whole output. It reproduces no custom CRM process, no email sequence and no arbitrary research question.

The free promise is: Three free runs. No card, no count to chase. Contact details depend on availability and credits, so a daily list is not a fixed quantity of reachable people, and nothing here promises replies. Read the current plan and contact-data allowances before you move to paid usage.

Our LinkedIn prospecting guide covers the wider work of deciding whom to approach and how to open. If the real question underneath is LinkedIn search itself, the Sales Navigator buying guide is the decision to read instead.

If you still need a custom research answer, a particular destination update or a table-based process, nothing above reaches that work. Removing those requirements can be a sensible simplification, but it is a change of scope rather than a migration.

Check your workflow before migrating

Use this worksheet for one process that your team actually depends on. Add another row for each output that matters. The example below is fictional and illustrates requirements, not a customer result.

Suppose an agency uses company websites to establish whether a business offers a specific service. It wants the answer and the supporting page in its CRM so a colleague can check the claim before contacting the company.

Before switching, establish how the candidate handles each row. If it answers the question but cannot put the source URL into the required field, there is still work to account for. If it finds contacts but does not address the question at all, it is solving a different part of the process.

For every requirement, mark preserved, handled elsewhere, or intentionally removed. Give anything handled elsewhere an owner and a cost. Do not mark an advertised integration as preserved until you have confirmed the specific action and fields you need.

A founder who only needs a daily LinkedIn shortlist may intentionally remove the agency's website-research requirement. That can be a reasonable simplification. It would not demonstrate that the shortlist tool reproduced the agency workflow.

Compare the complete monthly cost

Use the same required outputs and billing period for each option:

Monthly cost = subscription + additional data or usage + remaining tools + staff time.

For example, if a hypothetical workflow needs two hours of maintenance per month and you value that time at $50 per hour, add $100. This is an illustration, not a measured cost for Clay or any alternative. Your process may need more time, less time or none during a particular month.

Count the tools you will retain. A cheaper contact-data subscription may still need a sender or a separate research step. A more expensive subscription may replace something you already pay for, but only count that saving when you can actually retire it.

Do not compare raw dollars per credit across unrelated suppliers. An email lookup, a mobile number, a research run and a workflow action are different units. Compare the cost of obtaining the complete output you need, including unresolved records and any manual review.

Finally, separate monthly billing from annual equivalents. A lower monthly number attached to an annual commitment changes the cash outlay and flexibility of the decision. Record both before comparing plans.

When keeping Clay makes more sense

Keep Clay when your workflow is reliable, its custom questions matter and the outputs already reach the right destinations. Its current offering includes multiple data providers, Claygent research and paid email campaigns. A credible replacement decision has to account for the parts you use.

You may still reduce costs without a full migration by reviewing unnecessary steps, unused outputs or a plan that exceeds your requirements. If you use your own API keys, include outside supplier costs alongside Clay Actions rather than assuming usage becomes free.

Switch when another product meets the requirements that matter at a cost and level of effort you prefer. A lower entry price alone is not enough evidence.

If your remaining requirement is specifically a daily LinkedIn shortlist, review Trendle's plan or start free. Three free runs. No card, no count to chase.