Attio vs Clay
Attio vs Clay gets compared because both are the modern-looking spreadsheet in a GTM stack, and they do opposite jobs. Attio is a CRM: a schema you define through the API, objects that persist, a free plan with full API access and $44 a user when you outgrow it. Clay is an enrichment router billed per action in front of about 150 vendors, and it charges an action plus data credits on the rows it finds and nothing on a miss. Run Clay to fill a row and Attio to keep it.
Where they actually differ
Every value comes from the same record that drives the CRM and sync APIs listing, so this table cannot disagree with the cards. Accented tags are data one provider returns and the other does not.
| Compare | Attio API | Clay |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A CRM whose data model you define in code | One table that fans out to 150+ providers |
| Entry price | $44/user/mo | $167/mo |
| Unit cost | Not sold by the unit | $0.045 per data credit |
| Billing model | Per seat Subscription Free tier | Subscription Credit packs Free tier |
| Free tier | Free plan with full API access, 100 seat credits a month | Free plan, 500 actions and 100 data credits per month |
| GTM motion covered | Sync | Source Enrich Signal |
| Data returned | CRM recordsWork emailFirmographics | Work emailPersonal emailMobile phoneFirmographicsTechnographicsJob postingsJob changesIntent and newsLinkedIn profile |
| MCP server | Yes Part of the Attio developer platform | Yes https://api.clay.com/v3/mcp |
| Interfaces | REST API MCP server Webhooks n8n node | REST API MCP server Webhooks Bulk or async Native in Clay |
| Auth | Bearer token or OAuth 2.0 | Optional token on a webhook source. The HTTP API column uses the other service's key |
| Rate limits | 100 requests/s for reads, 25/s for writes, across the whole API | Concurrency governed by plan, not a published per-minute cap |
| Coverage | Global | Global |
| Compliance | GDPR DPA SOC 2 Type II | GDPR DPA SOC 2 Type II |
| Best for | Best API-first CRM | Best orchestration layer |
Pick each one when
Attio API
- You need a system of record with a schema you control.
- Reps and permissions are part of the requirement.
- A free plan with full API access is how you want to start.
These two do different jobs, so the useful question is not which one wins but whether you need both. Run the same 500 rows through the broader product on its own, then through the specialist as a second pass, and count the rows the second pass actually adds. If you can count them on one hand, the broader product is the whole stack.
What each one costs, tier by tier
Both publish a full rate card, so this comparison runs on numbers rather than on adjectives. Attio API lists 4 tiers and Clay lists 4. Every figure is read off the vendor's own pricing page, and the pages they came from are listed at the foot of this one.
| The short version | Attio API | Clay |
|---|---|---|
| Cheapest paid plan | Plus, $44 | Launch, $167 |
| Tiers published | 4 | 4 |
| Free tier | Free plan with full API access, 100 seat credits a month | Free plan, 500 actions and 100 data credits per month |
| Unit cost at entry | Not sold by the unit | $0.0452 per data credit |
The cheapest paid plan is rarely the plan you end up on, because what moves you up a tier is usually volume rather than a feature. The two rate cards below are what you are choosing between.
Attio API
Attio API publishes 4 tiers, one of them free, and the paid ladder runs from $44 to Custom.
Free
- Full REST API access
- 100 seat credits a month
- 250 workspace credits a month
Plus
- 500 seat credits a month
- 1,500 workspace credits a month
- Billed monthly or annually
Pro
- 1,000 seat credits a month
- 10,000 workspace credits a month
- The tier Attio marks as popular
Enterprise
- 2,500 seat credits a month
- Custom workspace credits
Clay
Clay publishes 4 tiers, one of them free, and the paid ladder runs from $167 to Custom.
Free
- 100 data credits a month, 1,200 a year
- Unlimited seats and tables, up to 200 rows per table
- Multi-provider waterfalls and Claygent
- Bring your own API key
Launch
- 2,500 data credits a month, 30,000 a year, unused ones roll over up to 2x
- Phone number enrichment
- Job change and other signals, unlimited Audiences search
- Send through the Clay Sequencer or an integration
Growth
- 6,000 data credits a month, 72,000 a year, unused ones roll over up to 2x
- Integrate with any HTTP API. This is the tier that unlocks it
- Auto-sync and enrich CRM, warehouse sync
- Web intent signals, webhook-driven automation
Enterprise
- Custom action and data credit volume, and Clay API access for calling Clay from your own code
- Auto-delete, so one webhook takes unlimited submissions
What Attio and Clay cost at your volume
Put your own volume in. The model picks the cheapest published plan that covers it on each side, which is the question a rate card cannot answer and the one that decides the bill.
Attio API
Priced per seat, so the bill moves with headcount rather than with volume.
Plans are read from each vendor's own pricing page and the model picks the cheapest one that covers you, so these are list prices before any discount you negotiate and before annual billing, which most of these vendors discount.
What a year costs at three volumes
The same plan-fit arithmetic as the model above, run out to a year, because an annual number is what a budget actually asks for. Attio API is priced per seat, so that column does not move with volume. The figure shown is 3 seats for a year.
| A year at | Attio API | Clay |
|---|---|---|
| 1,000 a month | $1,584 Plus | $5,352 Growth |
| 10,000 a month | $1,584 Plus | $5,352 Growth |
| 50,000 a month | $1,584 Plus | Quoted |
2 of the 2 providers here publish enough to be put in this table. These are list prices on the published plan that covers each volume, so they are the number before you negotiate and before annual billing, which most of these vendors discount by between a fifth and a half.
How this plays out once it is running
The failure mode is treating a Clay table as a system of record, which means paying action rates to re-find data you already had and keeping your customer list somewhere with no permissions model for reps. That bill grows quietly, because every re-run looks like normal usage.
The one case for Attio alone is a team whose enrichment is a single provider call, where Clay is a router with nothing to route.
What each one is genuinely good at
Not a feature list. These are the things that make somebody keep paying after the novelty has worn off, which is a different question from what the marketing page leads with.
Attio API
The rows persist, and that is the whole category difference
Attio is a system of record. Objects have identity, history and permissions, and a rep can open one. Clay's table is a workspace for producing rows rather than a place to keep them, which is why the two end up in the same stack rather than competing for the same slot.
A free plan with the full REST API
Plus 100 seat credits and 250 workspace credits a month, so the data model can be designed and proved before anything is bought. Clay's free plan runs 500 actions a month and does not include the HTTP API at all, which only unlocks on the $446 Growth tier.
A plain rate limit instead of a consumption model
A hundred requests a second for reads and 25 for writes. Nothing is consumed, so a loop that misbehaves costs you latency rather than money. On Clay a loop that misbehaves spends actions and data credits on every row it finds, and the bill arrives after the work.
Clay
About 150 providers behind one contract
Reaching the same coverage directly means signing with a dozen vendors, holding a dozen keys and reconciling a dozen invoices. Clay is the only product in this directory that collapses that into one relationship, and the waterfall logic that would take a week to build is a column setting.
The logic is editable by the person who owns the list
Branching conditions, research steps and a permissions model a non-engineer can use. If the person who decides what a good lead looks like cannot deploy code, that gap is exactly what Clay is sold to close, and no CRM closes it.
Fields a CRM does not go and get
Personal emails and job-change signals among them. Attio stores whatever you put in it; Clay is the thing that finds what to put in. On a reactivation play built on people who moved roles, Clay is the input and Attio is the destination.
Where each one falls down
Every provider on this site has a case it handles badly, and the people who find out are the ones who bought it for that case. These are the ones worth knowing before you sign rather than after.
Attio API
It does not enrich anything
Attio stores rows and does not find them. Teams who buy it expecting the modern-spreadsheet feel to include data discover that enrichment is still a separate purchase, and this comparison exists largely because that expectation is common.
Writes are the limited quarter
Twenty-five a second against 100 for reads, and an enrichment pipeline is nearly all writes. If Clay or anything else is pushing rows in at volume, that is the number to design the batch against.
Clay
Two meters on every hit
A found contact costs an action for Clay's work plus the data credits of whichever provider answered, $0.0452 a credit on annual Launch, and the credit count varies by provider. Nothing is charged on a miss, but the bill still arrives after the work rather than before it.
There is no API key in the shape you expect
Clay authenticates with an optional token on a webhook source, and its HTTP API column uses the other service's key rather than one of its own. Below Enterprise, where the pricing page lists Clay API access, you are integrating with a table that calls out, not an endpoint that answers, and that is a different dependency to design around.
The HTTP API is two tiers up
Integrating any HTTP API is what Growth unlocks, at $446 a month against $167 for Launch. If calling arbitrary endpoints is the reason you want Clay rather than its interface, your entry price is the higher number.
Using Attio and Clay together
A two-way comparison assumes the answer is one of them. On this pairing it often is not, and the arrangement below is what teams actually end up running.
This is the pairing on this site where running both is not a compromise but the actual design. Clay produces the row, Attio keeps it, and neither tries to do the other's job.
The wiring that works is one-directional. Clay writes into Attio and nothing writes back, so there is one owner per field and no loop. Cap the rows the Clay table runs on before pointing a large list at it, because the spend lands as the table runs rather than after anyone reviews the results, and Attio's 25 writes a second is the rate the handoff has to respect.
Where teams get into trouble is treating the Clay table as the system of record because it is easier to look at. Rows there have no permissions model, no history a rep can audit and no guarantee of persistence, and discovering that after six months of operating from it is an expensive way to learn the difference.
Attio or Clay, for you
Five questions, answered from the same records as the rest of this page. Nothing is sent anywhere and there is no result to email yourself.
Each answer leans one way. The recommendation appears here once you have picked at least two.
A tool like this can only weigh what is on the page. It does not know your segment, and the one test that does is the bake-off further down: real rows, cheapest entry on each side, spend divided by survivors.
Where an answer leans on a certification or an integration, it means that vendor publishes it on the pages this directory read, which is not the same as the other one lacking it. The sources are listed at the foot of the page.
Where the data comes from, and what you may do with it
The question that arrives late and expensively is not how good the data is, it is who is allowed to hold it. These are the fields each one returns, the coverage it claims and the compliance it publishes.
| Provider | Fields returned | Coverage | Compliance | Redistribution |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Attio API | CRM records, Work email, Firmographics | Global | GDPR DPA SOC 2 Type II | Not stated |
| Clay | Work email, Personal email, Mobile phone, Firmographics, Technographics, Job postings, Job changes, Intent and news, LinkedIn profile | Global | GDPR DPA SOC 2 Type II | Not stated |
None of these states a redistribution position on its pricing or docs pages. Internally that never matters. Put the rows in something your customers can see and it becomes the question your legal team asks first.
Two practical notes that apply to every provider on this page. A compliance badge describes the vendor, not your use of it, so a GDPR DPA does not give you a lawful basis for the outreach you send. And every one of these vendors runs its own opt-out, which means a person who asks you to delete their record has to be removed from your copy as well as from theirs.
Moving between Attio and Clay
Most readers of this page are already on one of these two. A swap is four hours of code and a month of watching, and the order below is the one that catches the expensive mistakes while they are still free.
Measure the thing you are about to lose
Run 500 rows you already have through Attio API and record the match rate, the fields that came back populated and the cost. Without that number a migration cannot be judged, because every provider looks cheaper per unit than the one you are paying for today.
Check the fields, not the field count
Clay does not return CRM records, which Attio API does. If anything downstream reads crm records, that is a change to your pipeline and not just to your vendor.
Rewrite the auth and the limits, in that order
Attio API authenticates with bearer token or OAuth 2.0. Clay uses optional token on a webhook source. The HTTP API column uses the other service's key.
The limits are the part that bites later. Attio API rate: 100 requests/s for reads, 25/s for writes, across the whole API.
Clay rate: Concurrency governed by plan, not a published per-minute cap. A loop tuned to the first will either crawl or get throttled on the second.
Run both for one billing cycle
Keep the old key live and route a slice of real traffic to the new one. A month is the shortest honest test, because credit expiry, rollover and the overage rate only show up at renewal and those are where the surprises live.
Cancel on the renewal date, not before
Credits on most of these plans do not survive a downgrade. Check what happens to the balance you have already paid for, and time the switch so you are not buying the same records twice.
The step people skip is the first one, and it is the only one that cannot be done after the fact. Once the old key is off you have nothing to compare the new match rate against, so a provider that is quietly worse on your segment looks like a provider that is fine.
What practitioners say about Clay
The one part of this page that is not a vendor claim. Quotes are transcribed as written, linked to the thread, and nothing here is the only source for a figure in the tables above.
Use it as a filter, not as a bulk provider
One thing I've seen with Clay is that it feels expensive when you use it like a bulk data provider, but much more reasonable when you use it as a filter first. I rarely enrich everything. I narrow the list with cheap signals and firmographics, then only run waterfall email/phone on leads that actually look worth it. That shift alone cut my credit usage a lot, and the outreach quality went up because fewer bad leads made it through. At that point you're paying for decisions, not just data.
r/gtmengineering · January 2026 · 16 points
This is the argument the pricing section makes, arrived at from the other direction. The lever that moves a Clay bill is not the rate, it is how many rows ever reach the expensive step. Narrowing on firmographics first costs almost nothing and keeps the paid enrichments for rows worth contacting.
It also explains why a team that thinks it wants to leave Clay often does not need to. The complaint is usually the spend, and the fix is usually an ordering change rather than a migration.
Bringing your own keys is a real line item, not a hack
Working in tech sales at a large 8 figure SaaS, our current setup for the team is as follows: [...] We do still have Clay but we bring our own API keys to keep the cost down
r/gtmengineering · January 2026 · 32 points
Clay lets you connect your own provider keys instead of spending its credits on that provider. The team above keeps the workbench and pays the underlying vendors directly, which is the arrangement that makes Clay a router rather than a reseller.
Worth knowing before you compare rate cards, because it changes what you are comparing. A Clay bill with your own keys attached is a subscription for the logic; a Clay bill without them is a subscription plus a margin on every lookup. Clay's own documentation is the authority on which integrations accept your key.
14 threads read on 13 October 2026, searched by vendor name. Scores and dates are the comment's own. Nothing here is the only source for a price or a limit on this site: every figure in the tables above comes from a vendor's own page.
Where each one sits in a working pipeline
Neither of these is bought in isolation. These are the worked stacks on this site that use one or both, with the cost run end to end.
The wider field for both
A two-way comparison assumes the answer is one of these two. Often it is not, and the reason you are comparing them at all points somewhere else entirely: Attio alternatives and Clay alternatives both start from the reason people leave.
Attio API alternatives
4A CRM for people who want to define the schema themselves. Not everybody does.
See the alternatives →Clay alternatives
4Clay bills two meters on every row it finds, actions and data credits. That, and paying for a workbench nobody opens, is why teams look elsewhere.
See the alternatives →Everything in Sync
6The full category these two sit in, filtered by data returned, billing model and entry price.
Browse the category →Related comparisons
The 26 providers behind every pairing here are in the main listing.
Pairings that share a side with this one: Attio vs Twenty, Clay vs FullEnrich and Attio vs folk.
And: Clay vs People Data Labs and Attio vs Close. Every comparison in the directory is on the compare hub.
Apollo API vs Clay
One key for the whole motion against a router sitting in front of 150 vendors.
Compare them →Clay vs FullEnrich
Two ways to buy a waterfall: a spreadsheet you configure, or one endpoint you call.
Compare them →Clay vs People Data Labs
Coverage borrowed from 150 vendors against one dataset you are licensed to redistribute.
Compare them →Comparison pages end at the rate card. Your list does not.
We run the bake-off on your actual data, pick the provider order, and build the pipeline behind it: waterfall routing, credit ceilings and the write-back that puts a verified contact in front of a rep the same day.
Worked with 300+ companies. A senior operator runs your account.
Attio and Clay, answered
Read from the same records that drive the table above.
Is Attio or Clay cheaper?
On the entry plan it is Attio, $44/user/mo against Clay at $167/mo. The entry price is the comparable figure, because they do not meter the same thing.
Can I try Attio and Clay for free?
Attio: Free plan with full API access, 100 seat credits a month. Clay: Free plan, 500 actions and 100 data credits per month.
What are the rate limits on Attio and Clay?
Attio: 100 requests/s for reads, 25/s for writes, across the whole API. Clay: Concurrency governed by plan, not a published per-minute cap.
Do Attio and Clay both have MCP servers?
Both do. Attio: Part of the Attio developer platform. Clay: https://api.clay.com/v3/mcp.
Which is better, Attio or Clay?
Attio vs Clay gets compared because both are the modern-looking spreadsheet in a GTM stack, and they do opposite jobs. Attio is a CRM: a schema you define through the API, objects that persist, a free plan with full API access and $44 a user when you outgrow it.
Can you use Attio and Clay together?
This is the pairing on this site where running both is not a compromise but the actual design. Clay produces the row, Attio keeps it, and neither tries to do the other's job.
Can I migrate from Attio to Clay without losing data?
Not without losing a field. Clay does not return CRM records, which Attio does, so anything downstream that reads it has to change. Either way, measure your match rate on 500 rows before you switch, because that number is the one you cannot recover afterwards.