Clay and Claude, and who does what.

Clay is very good at getting data into rows. Claude is very good at reading, judging and writing. Most acquisition builds that disappoint are asking one of them to do the other's job.

The split we build Keeping Clay spend predictable

Clay

The data workbench

Tables where each row is a company or a person, and each enrichment is a column
A data marketplace that Clay says covers more than 200 providers
Waterfalls, which try providers in a set order so you do not pay twice for the same field
Signals such as job changes and promotions
Claygent, its AI agent with web research, built in Claygent Builder
CRM sync, webhooks and ad audiences on the Growth plan

Claude

The reader and writer

Research that needs judgment across a company's own site, news and your notes
Fit decisions against definitions you wrote down
Drafts in your voice, with every claim tied to a source
Follow-up plans that read what came back last time
Routines on a schedule through Claude Code or the Agent SDK
Reading and writing to your CRM and inbox through MCP

The split we build

Each step, the tool that suits it.

This is how the acquisition system usually divides the work. The order matters as much as the tools: the cheap judgments go first, so the expensive ones only run where they count.

Step	Tool	Why
Signals	Clay signals, plus your own sources	Funding, hires and launches, each with a date and a source
First cut	Jev	A written yes or no question over thousands of rows, for cents
Enrichment	Clay waterfalls	Only on the rows that survived the first cut, so credits go further
Contacts	Hunter or Apollo	Verified emails for the decision makers at shortlisted companies
Research and fit	Claude	Reads the company's own site and your notes, then judges fit on written definitions
Route	LinkedIn and your CRM history	Mutual connections and past threads, so the first touch is as warm as it can be
Draft	Claude	One angle per company, in your voice
Approve and send	A named person, in your CRM or inbox	Nothing leaves without a yes, and every send has a receipt

Spend

Keeping Clay spend predictable.

Clay bills on two meters. Actions cover the orchestration, such as enriching, running a table, calling an AI model or exporting, and start at under a cent each. Data Credits pay for data bought from Clay's marketplace partners and start at five cents. Bring your own provider keys and you use Actions only.

Actions reset every billing cycle. Data Credits roll over up to twice the monthly amount on Launch and Growth, and top-ups cost 30 percent more, so it pays to size the plan properly. Clay says an enrichment that finds nothing is not charged.

What keeps the bill sane in our builds:

Filter before you enrich. The first cut costs cents; enriching a list you were going to throw away does not.
Use your own keys where you already pay a provider.
Keep judgment and drafting that need your memory outside the table, in Claude.
Keep one record of truth, usually the CRM, and sync to it, so two lists never drift apart.

Clay's pricing, checked on 29 September 2026. The plan cards and the FAQ on the same page showed different monthly figures, which look like annual and monthly billing, so check the live page before you budget.

Claygent or Claude?

Often both.

Claygent lives in the table and is well suited to per-row research you want to sit next to the data. Claude is the better fit where the job needs your memory: your offer, your past replies, the companies you rejected and why, and your voice. Or where the output is a draft a person will approve.

The failures we see most often are the same few:

Enriching everything, then filtering
An AI column deciding fit with no written definition of fit
Sequences sending without a person in the loop
No memory of rejections, so the same wrong company comes back next week

In our own run of the acquisition system, one in ten companies contacted booked a call in the first week. The case study has the full numbers.

Questions

Questions about Clay and Claude.

Do I need Clay to do GTM engineering?

No. Clay is the most common workbench, and a good one, but the same pipeline can run on a CRM, a couple of data providers and Claude. We build in Clay when a team already uses it, or when the data coverage is worth the spend.

Can Claude replace Clay?

Not for data. Claude can research a company from its own website, but it does not sell verified contact data or run provider waterfalls. Clay does. Claude is stronger at the judgment and writing that sit on top.

How much does Clay cost?

Clay has a free plan and paid Launch, Growth and Enterprise plans, billed in Actions and Data Credits. Check clay.com/pricing for current figures: on 29 September 2026 the page showed two different sets of monthly prices.

Where does Jev fit?

In front of enrichment. It answers written yes or no questions over a whole list for fractions of a cent, so Clay and Claude only spend on companies worth it. See our Jev guide.

Will you build in our existing Clay workspace?

Yes, if you have one. We build on your tables and CRM rather than around them, and you own everything when we hand over.

Acquisition systemFinds the right companies and the warmest way in.Jev guideThe decision model: how it works, what it costs, where it fits.Claude for growthModels, Claude Code, MCP, and the approval rules we build in.GTM engineeringSignals, fit, enrichment, routing and drafted outreach, built in your CRM.Case studyOne acquisition system, built three times, with the numbers.

Start here

Let's build what runs without you.

Twenty minutes on how growth runs in your company today. If a build is not the answer, we will tell you what is.

Book the free call See a sample build

See pricing