# Clay vs ContactOut

Updated 2026-10-15. Compared from independent Reddit comments only. Methodology: https://gtmranked.com/methodology/

**Is Clay or ContactOut better?** Independent users prefer ContactOut (44/100 from 18 rated comments) over Clay (25/100 from 19 rated comments). ContactOut is best for Recruiters who need personal email addresses; Clay is best for RevOps or GTM engineers who will build and maintain custom enrichment workflows.

**Is Clay or ContactOut cheaper?** Clay: Free plan with 100 data credits and 500 actions a month (tables capped at 200 rows, no phone enrichment). Launch from $167/mo billed annually ($185 monthly) with 2,500 data credits and 15,000 actions a month; Growth from $446/mo billed annually ($495 monthly) with 6,000 data credits and 40,000 actions; Enterprise is custom with an annual commitment. Data credits start at $0.05 each; bring-your-own API key runs use actions only. 14-day trial. ContactOut: Limited-time free tier (5 emails, phones and exports a day, one user). Email plan $49/mo monthly or $39/mo billed annually; Email + Phone $99/mo monthly or $79/mo billed annually; both single-user. Cheaper regional plans exclude US data (from $19/mo billed annually). Team and API plans are sales-led. Prices are from each vendor's pricing page and change often.

| | Clay | ContactOut |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 25/100 | 44/100 |
| Rank in category | #11 | #3 |
| Rated comments | 19 | 18 |
| Best for | RevOps or GTM engineers who will build and maintain custom enrichment workflows; Waterfall enrichment across several data providers; Targeted, lower-volume lists where data quality matters more than cost per row | Recruiters who need personal email addresses; Pulling emails for contacts found on LinkedIn |
| Starting price | $167/mo | $39/mo |

## #11 Clay

Clay is a GTM data platform where teams build spreadsheet-style workflows that pull from 150+ marketplace data vendors and AI models, with waterfall enrichment, an AI research agent (Claygent) and support for bringing their own provider API keys. Website: clay.com. Category: [B2B Data & Enrichment](https://gtmranked.com/best/b2b-data-enrichment/). Score 25/100 (4 positive, 9 mixed, 6 negative of 19 independent comments).

**Verdict:** Independent users largely agree Clay is the most flexible way to run waterfall enrichment and custom research workflows, because it can query many providers and route the results into a CRM. The trade-off is cost and effort: credits burn quickly, the 2026 move to billing every workflow action makes bills hard to predict, and teams say it takes a skilled builder or a dedicated person to get value from it. More than half of the Reddit mentions are promotional, including a cluster of about a dozen r/coldemail comments from May and June 2026 that all pair Prospeo with Clay in the same talking points, plus many replies plugging Clay alternatives such as Bitscale, Floqer, Airscale and pipe0; this review rests on about 20 independent opinions.

**What users like:**
- Waterfall enrichment across many providers: users say it pulls from more sources than single databases like Apollo and fills gaps they would otherwise miss [1](https://www.reddit.com/r/gtmengineering/comments/1tq8qx0/_/oofddcu/) [2](https://www.reddit.com/r/gtmengineering/comments/1wjqc2o/_/pal6uc2/) [3](https://www.reddit.com/r/LeadGeneration/comments/1mdxjgw/_/n672rsu/) [4](https://www.reddit.com/r/coldemail/comments/1thxncv/_/omqk1i5/) [5](https://www.reddit.com/r/revops/comments/1kxjivf/_/muq91wa/)
- Flexible enough for custom work once someone learns it: AI account research, hiring signals, CRM imports and middleware between other tools [1](https://www.reddit.com/r/gtmengineering/comments/1wjqc2o/_/patju4d/) [2](https://www.reddit.com/r/gtmengineering/comments/1oh40y6/_/ord8mgg/) [3](https://www.reddit.com/r/revops/comments/1kxjivf/_/mupq1eh/) [4](https://www.reddit.com/r/gtmengineering/comments/1oh40y6/_/nllke8n/) [5](https://www.reddit.com/r/revops/comments/1qv0787/_/o3gohux/)
- Costs become manageable for teams that filter lists with cheap signals before enriching, or bring their own provider API keys instead of paying Clay's data markup [1](https://www.reddit.com/r/gtmengineering/comments/1q592xw/_/nxzsp69/) [2](https://www.reddit.com/r/techsales/comments/1sahaaq/_/odvu8wa/) [3](https://www.reddit.com/r/gtmengineering/comments/1oh40y6/_/nllke8n/)

**What users complain about:**
- Expensive: credits burn quickly because it can do so much, and one team cites a $26k quote for what it considered entry-level work [1](https://www.reddit.com/r/revops/comments/1qv0787/_/o3gohux/) [2](https://www.reddit.com/r/revops/comments/1kxjivf/_/muq91wa/) [3](https://www.reddit.com/r/LeadGeneration/comments/1mdxjgw/_/n672rsu/) [4](https://www.reddit.com/r/LeadGeneration/comments/1mdxjgw/_/n6adkqg/) [5](https://www.reddit.com/r/n8n/comments/1t4pk5e/_/ok5b5um/)
- The 2026 pricing change bills every workflow step, HTTP call and CRM push as an action, which users say makes costs hard to predict at agency scale [1](https://www.reddit.com/r/techsales/comments/1sahaaq/_/odvu8wa/) [2](https://www.reddit.com/r/gtmengineering/comments/1tq8qx0/_/oofi2hb/)
- Steep learning curve: every use case has to be built by hand, and some teams say they would need to hire someone just to run it [1](https://www.reddit.com/r/revops/comments/1kxjivf/_/mupq1eh/) [2](https://www.reddit.com/r/revops/comments/1kxjivf/_/murj1my/) [3](https://www.reddit.com/r/gtmengineering/comments/1oh40y6/_/ord8mgg/) [4](https://www.reddit.com/r/LeadGeneration/comments/1mdxjgw/_/n6adkqg/)
- Economics weaken at high volume: users who run it as a bulk data provider find it expensive and suggest reserving it for a filtered or top-priority slice of the list [1](https://www.reddit.com/r/coldemail/comments/1thxncv/_/omqk1i5/) [2](https://www.reddit.com/r/gtmengineering/comments/1q592xw/_/nxzsp69/)
- Some find it clunky and slow; one trial user could not connect it to HubSpot, which Clay acknowledged as a known issue at the time [1](https://www.reddit.com/r/coldemail/comments/1tdn1ce/_/oly4xat/) [2](https://www.reddit.com/r/sales/comments/1g1guqj/_/lrh3k02/)

**Best for:** RevOps or GTM engineers who will build and maintain custom enrichment workflows; Waterfall enrichment across several data providers; Targeted, lower-volume lists where data quality matters more than cost per row.
**Skip it if:** Teams that just want a contact database with no setup; High-volume bulk enrichment on a tight budget; Agencies that need predictable per-client costs.
**Pricing (vendor-stated, checked 2026-10-14):** Free plan with 100 data credits and 500 actions a month (tables capped at 200 rows, no phone enrichment). Launch from $167/mo billed annually ($185 monthly) with 2,500 data credits and 15,000 actions a month; Growth from $446/mo billed annually ($495 monthly) with 6,000 data credits and 40,000 actions; Enterprise is custom with an annual commitment. Data credits start at $0.05 each; bring-your-own API key runs use actions only. 14-day trial.

Full review: https://gtmranked.com/tools/clay/

## #3 ContactOut

ContactOut finds email addresses and phone numbers for professionals through a browser extension and search portal, with list building, email campaigns and enrichment on paid plans. Website: contactout.com. Category: [B2B Data & Enrichment](https://gtmranked.com/best/b2b-data-enrichment/). Score 44/100 (10 positive, 4 mixed, 4 negative of 18 independent comments).

**Verdict:** About 18 first-hand, non-promotional comments, many from recruiters, give a mixed but mostly favourable picture: ContactOut is rated for personal emails and for pulling contacts from LinkedIn profiles, while several senders report that not every email is verified and bounces follow, and views on its phone numbers are split. Promotion is heavy: the corpus filter already dropped 81 repeat-promoter comments, an Apollo employee called out astroturfing for ContactOut in one r/coldemail thread where several accounts praised it within days in February 2026, a September and October 2025 burst of 'tried it, tech team was great' testimonials was excluded, and many criticisms came only inside pitches for Prospeo, FullEnrich and other tools, so those are not counted either.

**What users like:**
- Strong on personal email addresses; a tech recruiter who tried it alongside RocketReach found it the stronger of the two for personal emails [1](https://www.reddit.com/r/Recruiter_Advice/comments/1n7n8o6/_/ood5tqe/) [2](https://www.reddit.com/r/DigitalMarketing/comments/1jo7ozq/_/nm5vsyc/)
- Works well for LinkedIn-sourced lists; one user who has used a dozen data tools says it stands out across almost every vertical when starting from LinkedIn [1](https://www.reddit.com/r/b2bmarketing/comments/1o94lpl/_/nk0bf2e/) [2](https://www.reddit.com/r/coldemail/comments/1jtipl7/_/njytr81/) [3](https://www.reddit.com/r/LeadGeneration/comments/1kai8ol/_/mpvhc72/)
- Email accuracy is rated well by some users, including one team reporting under 2% bounces on LinkedIn-sourced lists [1](https://www.reddit.com/r/DigitalMarketing/comments/1jo7ozq/_/nm5vsyc/) [2](https://www.reddit.com/r/coldemail/comments/1tkxq0p/_/onl901x/)
- Helps recruiters find hard-to-reach passive candidates [1](https://www.reddit.com/r/salestechniques/comments/1gb5u54/_/o75t41c/)
- Some users rate its mobile numbers well, though others found phone coverage weak, so this is contested [1](https://www.reddit.com/r/SaaS/comments/1r1r54w/_/o5mtycf/) [2](https://www.reddit.com/r/coldemail/comments/1srtisf/_/ohjli5n/) [3](https://www.reddit.com/r/sales/comments/1ohius0/_/nlocohq/)

**What users complain about:**
- Not every email it returns is verified; several users report bounces and say results need a separate verification pass [1](https://www.reddit.com/r/coldemail/comments/1iyj9im/_/mfxdt95/) [2](https://www.reddit.com/r/LeadGeneration/comments/1jso32u/_/mm08mcr/) [3](https://www.reddit.com/r/sales/comments/1msl0yj/_/n96unpv/)
- Phone coverage was poor for SaaS contacts in one user's experience, and another found its numbers less accurate than ZoomInfo's (other users rate its mobiles well) [1](https://www.reddit.com/r/work/comments/1wd4bvn/_/p9zpyaq/) [2](https://www.reddit.com/r/sales/comments/1msl0yj/_/n96unpv/)
- Has grown from a lookup tool into a broader sales platform; a user who only needed LinkedIn lookups found it overkill and left, and another barely used it because the interface was confusing [1](https://www.reddit.com/r/b2bmarketing/comments/1sl0ip0/_/og32x51/) [2](https://www.reddit.com/r/LeadGeneration/comments/1iz04os/_/mf8bhbf/)
- You are locked into its credit-based pricing model, which one user cites as a reason to build their own sourcing instead [1](https://www.reddit.com/r/coldemail/comments/1txui1f/_/opypd00/)
- People listed in its database report opt-out requests being ignored twice before an escalated email got them removed [1](https://www.reddit.com/r/gdpr/comments/1ndbfae/_/ndm5n90/)

**Best for:** Recruiters who need personal email addresses; Pulling emails for contacts found on LinkedIn.
**Skip it if:** Sending to its emails without a separate verification step; Users who only want a simple LinkedIn lookup.
**Pricing (vendor-stated, checked 2026-10-14):** Limited-time free tier (5 emails, phones and exports a day, one user). Email plan $49/mo monthly or $39/mo billed annually; Email + Phone $99/mo monthly or $79/mo billed annually; both single-user. Cheaper regional plans exclude US data (from $19/mo billed annually). Team and API plans are sales-led.

Full review: https://gtmranked.com/tools/contactout/