Master Clay with our step-by-step tutorial, detailed feature walkthrough, and expert tips.
Explore the key features that make Clay powerful for sales & marketing agents workflows.
Natural-language AI agent that browses the public web on demand to answer custom research questions per row — extracting pricing pages, summarizing posts, checking hiring status, identifying tech stacks — and writes structured results back into the table.
Chains 150+ data providers (Apollo, ZoomInfo, Hunter, Clearbit, BuiltWith, Datagma, and many more) in a configurable fallback order, charging credits only for the provider that returns a valid result. Materially improves email, mobile, and firmographic match rates compared to single-vendor approaches.
Visual builder for chaining enrichment, AI, conditional logic, and destination steps into reusable end-to-end workflows that can be triggered by webhooks, schedules, CRM events, or signal changes.
Buying-intent layer that monitors job changes, funding announcements, hiring trends, and technology adoption, then triggers Clay workflows or alerts when target accounts match defined ICP criteria.
Build dynamic, enriched audiences and sync them directly to LinkedIn, Meta, and Google Ads for coordinated ABM campaigns, with automatic refresh as new accounts qualify or disqualify.
Native, two-way integration with Salesforce and HubSpot to push enriched data, scores, and AI-generated fields back into the CRM, and to trigger Clay runs based on CRM events.
Built-in cold email sequencer for teams that want to send personalized outbound directly from Clay using AI-generated copy grounded in enriched data, without a separate engagement tool.
Clay's waterfall system queries up to 10+ of its 150+ data sources sequentially for each prospect, starting with the most reliable and cost-effective providers. If the first source lacks a contact or returns low-quality data, it automatically tries the next provider in the chain, continuing until a match is found or all sources are exhausted. This approach materially improves coverage compared to relying on a single vendor.
Clay operates on a credit-based system where different data sources consume different credit amounts per lookup. Basic enrichment providers (e.g., Clearbit, Hunter) typically cost 1–2 credits per contact, while premium providers (e.g., ZoomInfo, Lusha) cost 5–10 credits each. The Starter plan includes 2,000 credits/month at $149/month, Explorer includes 10,000 credits at $349/month, and Pro includes 50,000 credits at $800/month. Teams control costs by configuring which providers appear in their waterfall, setting per-row credit caps, and using conditional logic to skip expensive lookups when cheaper sources already returned valid data.
Claygent analyzes dozens of signals including recent company news, job postings, technology stack changes, funding events, leadership transitions, social media activity, and mutual connections. It can generate personalization angles like referencing a prospect's recent blog post or a company's latest product launch, producing research-grade context for each contact.
Yes, Clay excels at account-based strategies through its company intelligence and Signals features. It can identify all relevant stakeholders within target accounts, track organizational changes, and coordinate personalized outreach across multiple contacts while maintaining account-level context and scoring.
While Clay's Sculptor builder is no-code, maximizing the platform typically requires someone with sales operations experience or strong technical aptitude. Basic list building and enrichment can be set up in an afternoon, but advanced workflows, custom Claygent prompts, and CRM integrations benefit from a dedicated RevOps operator or Clay-certified consultant.
Now that you know how to use Clay, it's time to put this knowledge into practice.
Sign up and follow the tutorial steps
Check pros, cons, and user feedback
See how it stacks against alternatives
Follow our tutorial and master this powerful sales & marketing agents tool in minutes.
Tutorial updated March 2026