Apollo.io vs Clay

Apollo.io is freemium — a usable free tier with paid plans above it. Clay is freemium — a usable free tier with paid plans above it. Both are listed under Sales & Customer Intelligence, so this is a like-for-like comparison. Neither is ranked above the other — Flocci carries no sponsored placement.

Apollo.io vs Clay — straight answers

Apollo.io vs Clay: what is the difference?

Apollo.io is freemium — a usable free tier with paid plans above it and is listed for free Starter plan with unlimited contact emails (10,000 credits/mo fair-use). Clay is freemium — a usable free tier with paid plans above it and is listed for AI-powered data enrichment and prospecting. Both sit in Sales & Customer Intelligence.

Is Apollo.io or Clay cheaper to start with?

Neither — Apollo.io and Clay are both freemium, so the choice comes down to capability rather than cost. Both entries list what they uniquely do above.

Which should I choose, Apollo.io or Clay?

Choose Apollo.io if you need free Starter plan with unlimited contact emails (10,000 credits/mo fair-use); choose Clay if you need AI-powered data enrichment and prospecting. Flocci AI Tools does not rank one above the other — it shows both feature sets side by side and lets the requirement decide.

Apollo.io compared with Clay: pricing tier, category, listed capabilities and links.
 Apollo.ioClay
Pricing tierFree tier + paid plansFree tier + paid plans
Free to startYesYes
CategoryData Analysis & BusinessData Analysis & Business
TypeSales & Customer IntelligenceSales & Customer Intelligence
Listed capabilities
  • Free Starter plan with unlimited contact emails (10,000 credits/mo fair-use)
  • AI Research drafts personalized outbound messaging from signals
  • Combined lead database + engagement + conversation intelligence in one tool
  • AI-powered data enrichment and prospecting
  • 100+ data providers in one table
  • Claygent researches accounts for you
  • Free plan
Tagsapollo io, sales intelligence, ai research prospecting, lead database, sales engagement platform, freesales, clay, enrichment, prospecting, agents, free
Websiteapollo.ioclay.com
Full pageApollo.io details →Clay details →
AlternativesApollo.io alternatives →Clay alternatives →

Twenty CRM

Sales & Customer Intelligence
freeNew
  • Open-source CRM with custom objects, fields and views
  • AI agents and chat built in
  • Self-host with Docker Compose or use twenty.com cloud
  • 57.7k GitHub stars

Accio (Alibaba)

Sales & Customer Intelligence
freemiumNew
  • AI agent that finds suppliers, compares products and drafts sourcing steps on Alibaba.com
  • Free plan with optional paid upgrades
  • Accio Work adds agentic sourcing tasks
  • Mobile apps on iOS and Android

Attio

Sales & Customer Intelligence
freemiumNew
  • Free plan for up to 3 seats and 50,000 records
  • Ask Attio and AI agents with monthly AI credits on the free plan
  • Automatic contact enrichment and email/calendar sync
  • API, webhooks and workflows included

HubSpot Breeze

Sales & Customer Intelligence
freemium
  • Suite of AI agents (Customer, Prospecting, Content, Data) built into HubSpot CRM
  • Included credits on every plan tier (500-5,000/mo) plus outcome-based pricing
  • Customer Agent billed per resolved conversation since April 2026

Hunter

Sales & Customer Intelligence
freemiumNew
  • Free plan: 50 credits per month for email finding and verification
  • AI Assistant with 10 AI lead searches per month
  • Connect one email account for sequences of up to 500 recipients
  • No credit card required

Salesforce Agentforce

Sales & Customer Intelligence
freemium
  • Build/deploy autonomous agents natively across Salesforce Sales/Service/Marketing Cloud
  • Free "Foundations" tier: 200k Flex Credits + Agent Builder on Enterprise Edition+
  • Three parallel pricing models: per-conversation, flex credits, or per-user