The most confusing pricing in the outbound stack, broken down clearly -- credits, plans, waterfall math, and real-world cost examples.
Rees Bayba
Founder, Astra GTM
TL;DR
Clay is the most powerful enrichment and workflow tool in modern outbound -- and it has the most confusing pricing. The credit system trips up almost everyone when they first use it. This guide explains exactly how credits work, what the March 2026 overhaul changed, and how to estimate costs before you commit.
Clay restructured their pricing in March 2026. The previous four-tier model (Free, Starter, Explorer, Pro) collapsed into two paid plans. Data costs dropped 50-90% across most providers. The credit system itself stayed the same, but the amount you get per dollar improved significantly.
| Plan | Monthly price | Credits included | Credit overage cost | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Launch | $185/mo | 10,000 credits | $0.03/credit | Solo operators, small teams, testing workflows before scaling |
| Growth | $495/mo | 25,000 credits | $0.02/credit | Full outbound teams, multi-provider waterfalls, regular bulk enrichment |
Annual billing saves approximately 20% on both plans. Clay does not offer a team or agency tier separate from Growth -- agencies managing multiple clients typically run Growth with credit top-ups as needed.
Every action you take in Clay costs credits. This is the part that confuses people: credits are consumed per attempt, not per result. If you search a provider for an email address and nothing comes back, you still pay the credits for the attempt. This is the source of most Clay billing surprises.
Think of credits like API calls. You pay for the request regardless of whether the data exists. The provider has to do the lookup either way -- Clay passes that cost to you.
As of March 2026, after the data cost reduction:
| Action type | Credits per attempt | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Basic enrichment (company info, firmographics) | 0.5-2 credits | Clearbit, Clay native data sources. Cheapest actions. |
| Email finding | 2-5 credits | Apollo, Hunter, Snov. Varies by provider. Charged per attempt even if no email found. |
| LinkedIn data (profile, company) | 3-5 credits | LinkedIn scraping via Clay's native integrations. Profile views cost more than company lookups. |
| AI Claygent research | 5-10 credits | GPT-4o-powered agent that browses the web. Costs depend on research complexity and how many pages it visits. |
| Phone number finding | 3-8 credits | Mobile enrichment via providers like Datagma. Higher per-credit than email. |
| Intent data | 5-15 credits | Bombora, G2, and similar. Most expensive enrichment category. |
A waterfall in Clay means: try Provider A, and if it returns nothing, try Provider B, and if that returns nothing, try Provider C. This is how you maximize email find rates -- but it multiplies credit costs when all providers fail.
Example: you run a 3-provider email waterfall (Apollo at 3 credits, Hunter at 4 credits, Snov at 3 credits). On a contact where all three providers return nothing, you spend 10 credits and get no data. On a list of 1,000 contacts where 40% are not findable by any provider, that 40% costs you 4,000 credits in failed attempts alone.
Rule of thumb: budget 50% more credits than you think you need when running waterfalls. The hit rate on any given provider is 40-70% -- misses are a normal part of enrichment, not an exception.
At Growth plan pricing with 25,000 credits, basic enrichment for 1,000 contacts (email + LinkedIn) costs roughly 5,000-8,000 credits depending on waterfall depth and hit rates. The plan covers 3-5 full batches of 1,000 contacts per month, or more if your hit rates are high.
Scenario: you want to enrich 1,000 contacts with verified email, LinkedIn profile data, and AI research on each company. Here is the math at Growth plan pricing.
Bottom line: enriching 1,000 contacts with email + LinkedIn + AI research costs approximately 10,000-12,000 Clay credits, which is $200-360 at Growth plan overage rates, or fits inside the plan's monthly credit allowance. The exact cost depends heavily on your waterfall depth and the quality of your list.
Six concrete ways to stretch your Clay credits:
Clay's free trial gives you 100 credits. That is enough for approximately 20-30 enrichments with a simple single-provider workflow, or 10-15 enrichments with a 2-provider waterfall. It is enough to validate that your data sources return usable results for your ICP -- not enough to run a full enrichment batch. Upgrade to Launch or Growth before running any production workflow.
How many credits do I need per month?
Depends entirely on your workflow. A simple single-provider email lookup on 500 contacts per month needs 1,000-2,500 credits -- Launch plan covers it. A full waterfall (email + LinkedIn + AI research) on 1,000 contacts needs 10,000-15,000 credits -- Growth plan covers it. Run your expected workflow on a 20-contact test batch first and multiply by your expected monthly volume.
What happens if I go over my plan's credit limit?
Clay charges overage rates: $0.03/credit on Launch, $0.02/credit on Growth. Overages are billed at the end of the month. There is no hard cap -- Clay does not stop your workflows when credits run out, it charges the overage. Keep an eye on your usage dashboard, especially when running a new workflow for the first time.
Is Clay worth it compared to just buying a list from Apollo?
Different tools, different use cases. Apollo sells you contacts from its database with whatever data it has. Clay enriches contacts from any source using 50+ data providers, applies your custom logic, and lets you run AI research that no static database can match. Clay is worth it when you need signal-based personalization (job change alerts, funding news, technographic data layered together). Apollo is worth it for high-volume outreach where contact data alone is sufficient.
Does Clay offer a free trial?
Yes. Clay gives you 100 free credits on signup, no credit card required. It is enough to test a workflow on a small batch of contacts and verify your data sources return useful results. Not enough for production use.
How much does credit overage cost?
Launch plan: $0.03 per credit over the 10,000 monthly limit. Growth plan: $0.02 per credit over the 25,000 monthly limit. At Growth plan overage rates, 10,000 extra credits costs $200. If you are consistently hitting overages, upgrading the plan almost always costs less than paying overage rates.
How do I estimate my credit usage before committing to a plan?
Take a representative sample of 20-50 contacts that match your typical ICP. Build your intended workflow (email lookup, LinkedIn, whatever else you need). Run it on that sample. Divide total credits consumed by contacts processed to get your per-contact rate. Multiply by your monthly volume. Add 50% buffer for waterfall misses and re-runs. That is your monthly credit estimate.
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