Field
Domain
clay.com
Scanned
Oct 5, 2026

Clay

This report reads the companies competing for Clay’s buyers and where Clay could move. One of eight factors is crowded; the open water is “Usage, not seats” and “Agents included”. Two established players trail Clay most on “Price, no call”; two beat it on “Owns the data”.

What Clay is

Go-to-market data enrichment and workflow tool: a spreadsheet-shaped workspace that pulls from many data providers and runs outbound research and personalization at scale.

  1. Reps won’t work a list until they can see why an account qualified.
  2. One data provider leaves gaps, so the buyer wants several stacked without hiring for it.
  3. Ops wants records that clean themselves instead of pulling lists by hand.
All 6 jobs
  1. The buyer wants to retarget in minutes when an experiment flops.
  2. Ops wants reps off data admin and into real conversations.
  3. A data-science job that used to take days, the buyer now wants done in hours.

Competitors

Space in one glance

One of eight factors is crowded; the open water is “Usage, not seats” and “Agents included”.

1 11x, A Apollo.io, C Cognism, H HubSpot, S Salesforce. Black bar: Clay. Solid dot: medium evidence. Ring: low. Question mark: unknown. Rows run from Clay strongest to weakest.

  1. Price, no call

    Whether the entry price sits on the public pricing page, or only arrives after a sales conversation.

    1CAHS
  2. Usage, not seats

    Whether the bill tracks actions and credits consumed, or multiplies by every seat the team adds.

    AHS1C
  3. Vendors stacked

    Whether one subscription routes a lookup through several providers until the field fills, or ships a single source.

    SCH1A
  4. Agents included

    Whether AI agents switch on inside the current contract, or arrive as a second line on the invoice.

    CS1AH
  5. Public signals

    Whether the tool watches public activity — GitHub, web visits, job changes — and names the person behind it.

    ACHS1
  6. Owns the data

    Whether contact data comes from the vendor’s own verified database, so one company stands behind a dead number.

    1SHAC
  7. Runs itself

    Whether the tool works outreach end to end on its own, or hands over a canvas to wire up first.

    ACHS1
  8. It’s the CRM

    Whether the deal data lives here, or the tool writes into a CRM somebody else owns.

    1CAHS

Against Clay

Two established players trail Clay most on “Price, no call”; two beat it on “Owns the data”.

Rooms in order of gap to Clay, nearest first.

Apollo.io

Beats Clay on “Owns the data” and “It’s the CRM”; trails on “Usage, not seats” and “Price, no call”.

Price, no call
Usage, not seats
Vendors stacked
Owns the data
Runs itself
It’s the CRM
Public signals
Agents included

11x

Beats Clay on “Runs itself” and “Public signals”; trails on “Price, no call” and “Usage, not seats”.

Price, no call
Usage, not seats
Vendors stacked
Owns the data
Runs itself
It’s the CRM
Public signals
Agents included

HubSpot

Beats Clay on “It’s the CRM” and “Owns the data”; trails on “Usage, not seats” and “Vendors stacked”.

Price, no call
Usage, not seats
Vendors stacked
Owns the data
Runs itself
It’s the CRM
Public signals
Agents included

Cognism

Beats Clay on “Owns the data”; trails on “Price, no call” and “Vendors stacked”.

Price, no call
Usage, not seats
Vendors stacked
Owns the data
Runs itself
It’s the CRM
Public signals
Agents included

Salesforce

Beats Clay on “It’s the CRM” and “Runs itself”; trails on “Vendors stacked” and “Usage, not seats”.

Price, no call
Usage, not seats
Vendors stacked
Owns the data
Runs itself
It’s the CRM
Public signals
Agents included

What Clay could do

32 candidate moves for Clay, sorted into eliminate, reduce, raise and create.

Eliminate6 items

  • HubSpot

    Seat fees for reps who only read the finished list. HubSpot meters enrichment by credit from $42 per month. (2026-10-05)

    1 source

5 more

  • 11x

    Drop the headcount-replacement pitch. 11x promises to “Scale pipeline faster than you can hire”; Clay’s buyers keep reps and want them selling. (2026-10-05)

    1 source

  • 11x

    Cut demo-gated access. 11x runs no pricing page and no self-serve signup, so an ops buyer can’t try anything before a call. (2026-10-05)

    1 source

  • Apollo.io

    Gated first runs look optional: Apollo’s pricing page keeps a Starter plan “free forever,” so buyers start without paying. (2026-10-05)

    1 source

  • Cognism

    Seat minimums. Cognism bundles ‘5 seats included’ on both prospecting tiers, so small ops teams pay for chairs nobody fills. (2026-10-05)

    1 source

  • Salesforce

    Eliminate roadmap talk from the pitch — Salesforce says “The rest will launch by year’s end,” and buyers can’t run a play on a date. (2026-09-11)

    1 source

Reduce9 items

  • Salesforce

    Reduce spend on prospecting features the CRM now bundles — Salesforce ships a prospecting agent of its own inside Sales Cloud. (2026-10-05, 2026-09-11)

    2 sources

8 more

  • 11x

    Reduce the provider-count headline. 11x courts the same RevOps buyer by naming one outcome, pipeline, not a tally of data vendors to wire up. (2026-10-05)

    1 source

  • 11x

    Reduce build-it-yourself setup. 11x offers a 20-minute demo that configures Julian on the buyer’s own scenarios; Clay’s spreadsheet asks ops to assemble plays. (2026-10-05)

    1 source

  • Apollo.io

    Provider breadth may be over-invested. Apollo bundles its own contact database and sells itself as the single go-to-market “foundation,” not a stack to assemble. (2026-10-05)

    1 source

  • Apollo.io

    Headcount-heavy service may be over-built for ops buyers. Apollo runs a team of 800 behind one owned database. (2026-10-05)

    1 source

  • Cognism

    Sales-gated pricing. Cognism routes both prospecting tiers to ‘Talk to sales’ and publishes no amount, so buyers can’t size spend alone. (2026-10-05)

    1 source

  • HubSpot

    Headline provider counts matter less once records enrich themselves inside the CRM. HubSpot shipped Breeze Intelligence enrichment on 2024-09-18. (2024-09-18)

    1 source

  • HubSpot

    Chasing every GTM department thins focus. HubSpot fields 8,882 full-time employees to cover that surface, and Clay can’t out-staff it. (2025-12-31)

    1 source

  • Salesforce

    Reduce agent branding — Salesforce’s page title reads “Best Sales Prospecting AI Agent,” so the word agent no longer sorts one tool from another. (2026-10-05)

    1 source

Raise10 items

  • HubSpot

    Show why each account qualified, not just a filled field. Reps at Intercom won’t work a list without that reason. (2024-09-18, 2026-10-05)

    2 sources

9 more

  • 11x

    Raise price legibility. 11x publishes no price and no pricing page, so a number the buyer reads without a call becomes the differentiator. (2026-10-05)

    1 source

  • 11x

    Raise vendor continuity. 11x named a new CEO in May 2025 when its founder stepped down; buyers staking a channel want stability proof. (2025-05-05)

    1 source

  • 11x

    Raise why-it-qualified evidence. 11x’s homepage sells outcomes — “Digital Workers, Human Results” — and never shows the reason a contact got picked. (2026-10-05)

    1 source

  • Apollo.io

    Readable paid pricing is a gap: Apollo’s fetched pricing page lists a free Starter tier and no paid dollar amount. (2026-10-05)

    1 source

  • Apollo.io

    Qualification reasoning is open ground: Apollo’s fetched pages sell database access, while Intercom’s reps won’t work a list without the why. (2026-10-05, 2026-10-05)

    2 sources

  • Cognism

    Published coverage proof. Cognism sells ‘verified, compliance-first data’ with no hit rate on the page; buyers want numbers they can check pre-purchase. (2026-10-05)

    1 source

  • HubSpot

    A price the buyer reads without a call. HubSpot publishes a $42-per-month entry price for Breeze Intelligence credits. (2026-10-05)

    1 source

  • Salesforce

    Raise a price you can read without a call — this run’s fetch of Salesforce’s pricing page turns up no quotable number. (2026-10-05)

    1 source

  • Salesforce

    Raise what works without Sales Cloud — Salesforce files its prospecting agent under Sales Cloud, so the agent lives inside the CRM. (2026-10-05)

    1 source

Create7 items

Hypotheses: no evidence can prove what does not exist yet.

  • Salesforce

    Hypothesis

    Create pricing that charges only for records a rep actually works, not seats or credits bought up front.

    no sources recorded

6 more

  • 11x

    Hypothesis

    Pay per booked meeting, not per seat or credit — nobody in this footprint prices on the outcome they advertise.

    no sources recorded

  • 11x

    Hypothesis

    A record where the agent’s research, its source, and its date ride along with every send, so the rep can inspect it.

    no sources recorded

  • Apollo.io

    Hypothesis

    Nobody prices data by rows that proved true. A per-verified-row charge, refunding stale records, would let ops buy accuracy instead of credits.

    no sources recorded

  • Cognism

    Hypothesis

    A per-record receipt: where each phone number came from, which provider, what consent basis — so compliance review doesn’t stall the list.

    no sources recorded

  • HubSpot

    Hypothesis

    Charge only for enrichment that lands a usable field, refunding credits when every provider comes back empty. Nobody in this footprint prices that way.

    no sources recorded

  • Salesforce

    Hypothesis

    Create a record where every field shows which provider said it and when, so a rep can challenge the data mid-call.

    no sources recorded

What changed this window

One move this week: one changelog update.

WeekMonthYear

  • Oct 5, 2026

    HubSpot

    Changelog
    Before
    Not recorded.
    After
    Docs state enrichment runs on Starter, Professional and Enterprise, and “Data enrichment does not consume HubSpot Credits.”

    knowledge.hubspot.com

Earlier moves, 10

  • Sep 29, 2026

    Cognism

    Changelog
    Before
    Not recorded.
    After
    “MCP & API access” listed on both Standard and Pro, marked “New”

    cognism.com

  • Sep 11, 2026

    Salesforce

    Launch
    Before
    Not recorded.
    After
    Hunter ships: it “helps business-to-business salespeople find leads and craft outreach emails”, with most new features generally available

    siliconangle.com

  • Mar 19, 2026

    Apollo.io

    Launch
    Before
    Not recorded.
    After
    Acquired Pocus, “an enterprise-grade revenue intelligence platform”, toward an “AI-native GTM operating system”

    apollo.io

  • Sep 9, 2025

    Cognism

    Leadership
    Before
    Pete Daffern, Interim CEO
    After
    Dominic Allon as CEO and Chris Evans as CRO

    gzconsulting.substack.com

  • May 5, 2025

    11x

    Leadership
    Before
    Founder Hasan Sukkar is CEO
    After
    CTO Prabhav Jain is CEO; Sukkar becomes “non-executive chairman”

    finance.yahoo.com

  • Dec 4, 2024

    Salesforce

    Launch
    Before
    Not recorded.
    After
    Agentforce “went into production in the last week of Q3” and was “off to a flying start according to Benioff, with 200 deals”

    diginomica.com

  • Nov 12, 2024

    11x

    Funding
    Before
    $24M Series A led by Benchmark
    After
    $50M Series B led by Andreessen Horowitz, $74M total raised

    techfundingnews.com

  • Sep 18, 2024

    HubSpot

    Launch
    Before
    Not recorded.
    After
    “Breeze Intelligence includes data enrichment via more than 200 million buyers and company profiles and contacts in HubSpot Smart CRM.”

    constellationr.com

  • Aug 29, 2023

    Apollo.io

    Funding
    Before
    Not recorded.
    After
    $100M Series D at a $1.6B valuation; total funding approximately $250M

    finsmes.com

  • Jan 13, 2022

    Cognism

    Funding
    Before
    Not recorded.
    After
    “$87.5m (£64m)” Series C led by Viking Global Investors

    uktech.news

Established players

1 new this week; 5 all-time.

Long tail

8 new this week; 8 all-time.

New entrants

1 new this week; 1 all-time.

Tech stack

Raw materials

One raw material could move “Agents included”; its numbers are vendor-reported only.