Exa Websets vs Clay in 2026: what 500 accounts cost on each, and the price per row

Exa Websets and Clay both build a table of companies or people for prospecting, and both bill in credits. Websets takes a query in plain words and checks each result against your criteria, at credit rates shown on a billing page inside your Exa account. Clay gives you a table where each column buys data from one of its 150+ providers, and Clay puts a fully enriched record at 6 to 20 Data Credits. Neither sets a price per finished row before the run.

SpecStream Deep Search prices the finished row. Describe the accounts in plain words, approve the most the run can cost, and each company that meets every condition comes back as a structured row with the people you asked for: 5¢, 15¢ or $1 a row, plus 5¢ for an email and 15¢ for a phone. Source URL and read time on every value.

Side by side

	SpecStream Deep Search	Exa Websets	Clay
What you send	The accounts you want in plain words, with every condition each row must meet	A query in plain words, a result count, and optional criteria and enrichments	A table you build, with one provider behind each enrichment column
What comes back	Structured rows that meet every condition, with the people you asked for. Source URL and read time on every value	Items that pass every criterion, with their enrichments. The count you ask for is a target	The values each provider returns, in the columns of your table
The unit you pay for	A delivered row: 5¢, 15¢ or $1, plus 5¢ for an email and 15¢ for a phone	Websets credits for verified results, enrichments, contact data, imports and API previews	Data Credits from $0.05 each, plus 1 Action for each record enriched or exported
Published price	On the pricing page, the same rate on every plan	Rates on the Websets billing page inside your account	6 to 20 Data Credits for a fully enriched record: 30¢ to $1 at the $0.05 rate
The price before a run	The most the run can cost, quoted and approved before it starts	The count is a target, and an API preview uses credits	An estimate for AI columns. Clay says 75% of runs cost less than the estimate
How to start	$10 of credit, no card	The Free plan stops a webset at 25 verified results. The Websets API needs a paid Websets plan	Free: 100 Data Credits and 500 Actions a month, no phone enrichment. Launch from $185 a month
A list you already have	A CSV, Excel file, Google Sheet or Airtable base of up to 20,000 rows, each row matched to one identity	A CSV with a URL column: LinkedIn profile URLs for people, homepage URLs for companies	Up to 50,000 rows per table on Launch. Unlimited row bulk enrichment on Enterprise
Reruns	Hourly to yearly. Each row is labeled changed, unchanged or no longer matching, and an unchanged row costs 1¢	A monitor searches for new items, at most once a day	Scheduled enrichment from Launch. Each record enriched counts as 1 Action
Where rows go	HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, Attio, Google Sheets, Excel, Airtable, Slack, Teams, Zapier, Make, n8n, signed webhooks, the API and the MCP server	People websets to Salesforce, HubSpot, Instantly, Smartlead and Lemlist. Any webset to Clay by webhook, with a Clay Pro account	CRM integrations, HTTP API integrations and webhooks from Growth, $495 a month. Clay API access on Enterprise

One worked example: 500 accounts with a contact

The job: 500 US software companies that are hiring a revenue operations role, each with its VP of Sales and a work email.

SpecStream. One request. Each account is a 15¢ row, since it carries the company's facts and one related person, and each work email adds 5¢. 500 rows cost $75 and 500 emails cost $25, so the quote reads $100 at most before anything runs. Duplicates and rows a page contradicts are not charged, and a run that delivers fewer than 500 rows costs less.

Clay. Clay puts a fully enriched record at 6 to 20 Data Credits. At the $0.05 rate that is 30¢ to $1 a record, or $150 to $500 for 500 records, plus 500 Actions, one for each record enriched. Launch, at $185 a month, includes 2,500 Data Credits, enough for about 125 to 416 such records. Credits bought on top cost 30% more, with a 250 credit minimum. Clay's credit refunds page says many actions charge whether or not the provider finds a match.

Exa Websets. Exa prints no Websets rate outside the account: verified results, enrichments, contact data, imports and API previews each use credits, at rates on your Websets billing page. The Free plan stops a webset at 25 verified results, so 500 accounts need a paid Websets plan, and the count is a target, so the webset can end with fewer. Exa's Websets guide now points new list-building work to Exa Agent, which prices a fixed effort run at $0.012 to $1.00 a request and adds $0.02 for an email and $0.07 for a phone. A request is a run, so its cost per account depends on how many accounts each run returns.

On SpecStream the total is known before the run, and it is the price of the rows themselves. On Clay you add up credits per column and Actions per record. On Websets you read the rate inside the account.

What Websets leaves to you

Websets finds and checks the items. What happens to them next is your work: a people webset exports to a CRM as Leads or Contacts, an export sends all rows of the table, and a monitor looks for new items at most once a day. A list you bring has to carry a URL column, LinkedIn profiles for people or homepages for companies.

What Clay leaves to you

Clay hands you the table and the marketplace. You choose a provider for each column, and what comes back is what those providers hold. Two meters run at once, Actions and Data Credits. Actions reset each billing cycle and do not roll over, and unused credits expire when the paid subscription ends. CRM integrations and webhooks start on Growth, at $495 a month.

What SpecStream does for this job

SpecStream is the live web data engine for teams and agents. For a prospecting table it covers the whole job, from the request to the rows in your CRM:

The request, shown before it runs. You see the conditions and the columns as editable parts, and the quote for the most the run can cost.

Every row meets every condition you wrote. A company comes back when its own pages meet them all. A row that fails one is not delivered and not billed.

One record per account. Facts from many sites join into one row, and records of two kinds never merge.

Rows where your team works. HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, Attio, Sheets, Slack or Teams, with no code, or your agent through the MCP server at https://api.specstream.ai/mcp.

Up to date. Save the request and it reruns hourly to yearly. A changed or new row costs half its rate and an unchanged row 1¢, so rechecking 500 accounts that did not change costs $5. Rows you already own are never charged again.

The same account runs the Search API at $5 per 1,000 searches and the Extract API at $0.80 per 1,000 pages, from one balance.

Using Exa and Clay together

Exa exports any webset to Clay by webhook, and that export needs a Clay Pro account. The bill is then Websets credits for the items, plus Clay's Actions and Data Credits for each column you add in Clay. On SpecStream the finding, the checking, the contact and the delivery are one row price.

Questions buyers ask

Is Exa Websets cheaper than Clay? Neither prints a price per finished row you can read before you sign in. Clay's own figure is 6 to 20 Data Credits for a fully enriched record, 30¢ to $1 at $0.05 a credit. Websets rates are on the billing page inside an Exa account. SpecStream charges 5¢, 15¢ or $1 a delivered row, plus 5¢ for an email.

Can Exa Websets replace Clay? For finding and checking a list, Websets does that part. Clay's columns, plans and CRM integrations from Growth stay a separate bill. SpecStream returns the checked rows with the people and delivers them into your CRM at one row price.

What do 1,000 accounts with the buying committee cost on SpecStream? $150, plus 5¢ for each email and 15¢ for each phone, with the most the run can cost approved before it starts.

Is there a free way to try it? Yes. A new SpecStream account gets $10 of credit, no card. At 5¢ a row, that is up to 200 rows.

Try it

Write the accounts you want in plain words on Deep Search, approve the quote, and the rows land in your CRM or sheet. Every rate is on the pricing page. For a full side by side with each tool, read Exa Websets alternatives and Clay alternatives.

Sources

Rival figures were read on their own pages on Nov 12, 2026: Exa Websets guide, Exa Websets FAQ, Exa pricing, Exa Websets integrations, Exa CSV import, Exa Websets monitors, Clay pricing, Clay Actions and Data Credits, Clay credit refunds and Clay terms of service. SpecStream's rates are from its pricing page.