Clay
Build lead lists in Clay tables, run waterfalls and Claygents, gate what you spend, and hand clean data to your CRM and sequencer.
Start: What Clay is and where things liveAbout Clay
Clay is a sales and marketing data platform for building lists of companies and people. You source records into tables, enrich them from 150+ data providers and AI, and push the results to your CRM and sequencer. Waterfalls try providers in order until one finds a match, and Claygent researches the web for each row. RevOps, SDRs and growth teams use it. Usage is billed in Actions and Data Credits.
Best for: Sales, RevOps and growth teams who build prospect lists and want clean data in their CRM.
Good for
- Sourcing companies and people with Find Companies and Find People
- Finding work emails with a waterfall that charges only for the provider that matches
- Researching each row on the web with Claygent
- Sending results to HubSpot, Salesforce and sequencers like Instantly and Outreach
Where people slip
- Running enrichments on a whole table before testing 10 to 20 rows
- Leaving Auto-run on while you build, so paid columns run before you're ready
- Enriching rows that don't qualify. Add run conditions to filter first
- Turning off Ignore blank values in HubSpot, which overwrites CRM fields with blanks
What is Clay used for?
Clay is used to build lists of companies and people, fill in missing data such as work emails, and research each row with AI. Teams then send the clean list to a CRM or sequencer. The work happens in tables inside workbooks.
What's the difference between Actions and Data Credits in Clay?
Actions count platform work: one per enrichment, AI run or exported record. Data Credits pay for data or AI bought from marketplace providers. Your own API key removes the Data Credit cost, though the run still uses an Action.
What is a waterfall in Clay?
A waterfall tries several data providers in order and stops at the first valid result. With the Work Email waterfall, you only pay credits for the provider that finds a match. You can add a free inferred email step first and choose how strict validation is.
Does Clay refund credits?
Yes, automatically, in many cases. Run condition not met, Missing input, most errors, timeouts and stopped runs refund both the Data Credits and the Action. No data refunds only for listed actions, including most email finders. A refunded cell reads Charged: 0 (Refunded).
Checked against Clay's own docs on 2026-11-06.
Basics
Know what Clay is, find your way around a workbook and table, and run your first small enrichment safely.
New to Clay? Start here. Already use it? Skip to the next milestone.
0 of 2 lessons completeTables, waterfalls and Claygent
Build a sourced table, run a waterfall and a Claygent column, and test small before you spend Actions and Data Credits.
0 of 2 lessons completeQualify, enrich and check the results
Gate paid columns with run conditions, reuse data you already have, and read a table's results before anything leaves Clay.
0 of 2 lessons complete