Clay helps you build the workflow. Ocean tells you which accounts are worth running through it, ranked from your own won and lost deals.
Used by teams at
ClayBuilding custom enrichment and research workflows from 150+ data sources.
Clay is a GTM data workbench. Teams build spreadsheet-style workflows that pull from more than 150 data providers, run its Claygent research agent on every row and push the results to CRMs and sequencers. It now has native Lookalikes and its own sequencer.
Knowing which accounts to work, with the ICP learned from your deals and no workflow to build.
Ocean is contextual intelligence for go-to-market. It reads what every company actually does from its own website, learns what good looks like from your closed-won and closed-lost deals, and ranks your whole market against it, with the reason behind each score. The ranked accounts arrive in your CRM, your rep queue or your AI agents.
What buyers weigh, grouped by the job each part does. A green check marks the stronger side.
| Topic | Ocean.io logo Ocean | Clay |
|---|---|---|
| Finding the right accounts | ||
| Lookalikes from your closed-won deals | Ocean is stronger here. Core of the product. Segments and models learned from your won and lost CRM deals. | Native Lookalikes since July 2026, seeded from up to 15,000 companies you pick. |
| Where the ICP comes from | Ocean is stronger here. Learned automatically from your won and lost deals. | You define it. A new agent, in early access, suggests ICP changes from campaign results. |
| The reason behind each account | Ocean is stronger here. Segment, score, tier and matched signals on every account and every export. | Whatever you build into the table. |
| Account research at scale | Custom questions answered from each company’s website, with the answer on every export. | Claygent runs custom research on every row, and each run uses credits. |
| Contacts and data | ||
| Contacts | Verified emails and direct phones from a waterfall across 16+ data sources. Charged only when a contact is found, and exports are free. | Clay is stronger here. Waterfall enrichment across 150+ data providers. |
| Company data | 85M+ companies, built from the open web. | Whatever its providers return, combined in one table. |
| Workflow and pricing | ||
| Outbound execution | Sends ranked accounts and contacts to the sequencer you already use. It doesn’t send for you. | Clay is stronger here. A native sequencer, plus integrations with other sequencers and ads. |
| AI agents and MCP | MCP server, public API and a chat agent on the same data and lookalike engine. | An MCP server, so Claude and ChatGPT can call functions your team builds. |
| Pricing | Ocean is stronger here. Two ways to buy: a flat-rate plan with credits included, or a custom plan built around your deals and credit volume. | Plans from $167 a month billed annually, with Data Credits and Actions on two meters. |
Reviewers rate it highly for flexibility and data coverage. The complaints are about the learning curve and credits.
4.6 out of 5
Clay’s average on G2
The rating is from G2. The themes come from review write-ups.
Clay lists its self-serve plans, and larger teams report what they paid. Buyers report a $60,210 median across 101 purchases.
Median Clay contract
$60,210 a year
Half of buyers pay less than this and half pay more, across 101 purchases.
Clay launched native Lookalikes in July 2026, and it showed an agent in early access that suggests ICP changes from campaign results. Both move Clay toward deciding who to target.
A flat-rate plan with credits included, or a custom plan built around your deals.
Contacts are charged only when one is found. Exports are free.
See Ocean pricingBoth help you decide who to reach. They differ in whether you build the answer or get it.
Choose Clay if Ocean.io logo Already on Clay?Five steps, working back from your billing date.
Find your billing date, plan and unused credits. Clay bills Data Credits and Actions separately.
Export the tables and scoring logic your team built, and note who maintains them.
Connect HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive or Attio. Ocean reads your closed-won and closed-lost deals to learn what a good account looks like.
Ocean proposes segments and scores, with the reason on each. Correct anything that doesn’t match how you sell.
Scores, segments and matched signals go back to your CRM, or into Apollo, Instantly or Lemlist sequences.
The right alternative depends on what you use Clay for. Here’s what each is built for and where Ocean starts.
ApolloBuilt for Contacts and sequencing in one tool, with published self-serve plans.
Where Ocean starts Ocean starts from which accounts deserve outreach, then pushes contacts to Apollo, Instantly or Lemlist sequences.
ZoomInfoBuilt for Contact and direct-dial volume, with third-party intent, in one contract.
Where Ocean starts Ocean ranks accounts from your closed-won deals instead of selling a database.
LandbaseBuilt for Teams that want natural-language audience search and outreach from one AI platform.
Where Ocean starts Ocean learns from your own closed-won deals and leaves outreach to the tools you already use.
ExploriumBuilt for Teams and AI agents that need a B2B data foundation for go-to-market.
Where Ocean starts Ocean ships the ranking itself, learned from your deals, instead of a data layer you build on.
KeyplayBuilt for Teams that want ICP scores they can inspect and backtest, now part of Inflection.
Where Ocean starts Ocean learns from your won and lost deals, covers any industry and finds the contacts too.
Short answers on Clay’s cost, its new lookalikes, how Ocean compares and what switching takes.
Launch is $167 a month and Growth is $446 a month on annual billing, or $185 and $495 monthly. Larger teams report a median of $60,210 a year across 101 purchases Vendr tracked.
Clay bills two meters: Data Credits for data lookups and Actions for platform usage. A workflow’s cost depends on both.
Yes. Clay launched native Lookalikes in July 2026, seeded from up to 15,000 companies you choose.
Not out of the box. You define the ICP, and an agent Clay showed in early access suggests changes from campaign results. Ocean learns the ICP from your won and lost deals.
Yes. Ocean can send ranked accounts to Clay through a webhook, so you can keep Clay for enrichment and sequencing.
Yes. Use Ocean to decide which accounts are worth working, and Clay to build the enrichment and outreach around them.
Ocean reads what each company does from its own website, learns from your closed-won and closed-lost deals, and returns ranked matches with the reason on each one.
Check your billing date and credits, export the tables and scoring logic your team built, connect your CRM so Ocean reads your won and lost deals, review the segments and scores Ocean proposes, then send scored accounts to your CRM or sequencer.
