Apollo vs Clay in 2026
Both prices, and rows at 5¢ to $1.
Apollo's own comparison lists Basic at $49 a user a month billed yearly, with 30,000 credits a year, and Professional at $79 with 48,000. Clay starts at $185 a month, or $167 billed yearly, for 2,500 Data Credits and 15,000 Actions.
Apollo sells the 240M contacts and 30M companies its database holds. Clay sells a table that calls 150+ providers. SpecStream, the live web data engine for teams and agents, returns every account that meets your conditions as a row, at 5¢, 15¢ or $1.
New accounts get $10 of credit, no card.
SpecStream, Apollo and Clay side by side
| SpecStream | Apollo | Clay | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What you send | The accounts you want in plain words, with the conditions every row must meet. SpecStream reads it back as parts you can edit before anything runs | Filters on Apollo's database, in the app, the API or MCP | A table you build. Each enrichment column calls one of 150+ providers on every row |
| What you get back | One structured row per account, with facts from many sites joined into one record. Source URL and read time on every value | The records Apollo holds: 240M contacts and 30M companies. The API people search returns no email or phone | What each provider returns, in the columns of your table. A fully enriched record typically takes 6 to 20 Data Credits |
| The price you can read | 5¢, 15¢ or $1 a delivered row by how much the row needs, plus 5¢ for an email and 15¢ for a phone. 1,000 accounts with the buying committee cost $150, plus 5¢ for each email | Billed yearly, per user a month: Free with 900 credits a year, Basic $49 with 30,000 credits a year, Professional $79 with 48,000, Organization $119 with 72,000 and 3 users at least | Free: 100 Data Credits and 500 Actions a month. Launch from $185 a month ($167 billed yearly): 2,500 Data Credits and 15,000 Actions. Growth from $495 ($446 billed yearly): 6,000 Data Credits and 40,000 Actions. Data Credits start at $0.05 each |
| What a contact costs | 5¢ for an email and 15¢ for a phone, on a row that carries it | Through the API, 1 credit for a person with email and 8 more when a mobile comes back. A waterfall email typically takes 1 to 4 credits and a waterfall phone 8 to 25 | Part of the 6 to 20 Data Credits of a fully enriched record, from $0.05 each |
| Seats | None. One balance for the whole team, from $10 of credit with no card | Per user, and all seats on an account are on the same plan | Unlimited seats on every plan, priced by Actions and Data Credits |
| What a miss costs | Nothing. A row that fails one of your conditions is not delivered and not billed. Duplicates and rows you already own are not charged, and a run that finds nothing costs nothing | A person with no match is not charged. Some waterfall vendors use credits per lookup even when no data is found | Clay's credit refunds page says many actions charge whether or not the provider finds a match. Its pricing page says an enrichment that returns no result is not charged |
| Unused credit | Credit you buy never expires. What a run does not use goes back to your balance | Expires at the end of each billing cycle, plan credits and add-on credits alike | Top-ups cost 30% more, 250 credits at least. Actions reset each billing cycle, and unused credits expire when the paid subscription ends |
| API and MCP | MCP server at https://api.specstream.ai/mcp, REST API, Python and TypeScript SDKs, a CLI and A2A. Rows go to HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, Attio, Google Sheets, Excel, Airtable, Slack, Teams, Zapier, Make, n8n and signed webhooks | REST API and MCP. Database search allows 200 requests a minute and 50,000 a day on paid plans, and MCP calls count toward the same limits | CRM auto-sync, HTTP API integrations and webhook automation start on Growth, from $495 a month. Clay API access is on Enterprise |
Why teams weighing Apollo and Clay pick SpecStream
The accounts no filter lists
Apollo answers from the records in its database, and Clay from what its providers hold. Your best accounts often share a trait no filter lists: the tools they run, the roles they hire for, the markets they entered. Describe it, and SpecStream searches the live web, reads each page and joins what it finds into one row per account, with the buying committee.
Before anything runs, it reads the request back as parts you can edit: the conditions every row must meet and the facts to bring back.
Pay per row, not per seat
Five reps on Apollo Professional cost $395 a month billed yearly, a 12 month commitment, and unused credits expire each cycle. Clay's Launch plan covers 125 to 416 fully enriched records a month, at Clay's own 6 to 20 Data Credits a record.
On SpecStream 1,000 accounts with the committee cost $150, plus 5¢ for each email, with no seats. Every request gets a quote of the most it can cost, good for 30 minutes, and the charge never goes past it.
Only rows that meet every condition are billed
SpecStream checks each condition you wrote against the account's own pages. An account that fails one is not delivered and not billed, and duplicates, rows you already own and a run that finds nothing cost nothing. For any row, get_find_decisions returns each condition's answer with its reason, the value, the source and the time it was read.
Bring the list you already have from Apollo or Clay
Export the list from Apollo or Clay as a CSV and import up to 20,000 rows. Import is free. SpecStream matches each row to one identity, with any namesakes shown beside their evidence, and fills in or checks it. A row that matches pays its rate, and a row that does not costs 5¢. A saved request then reruns hourly to yearly, and new matches land in your CRM with no code. Rates are on pricing.
Other Apollo and Clay alternatives
SpecStream
The live web data engine for teams and agents. One request in plain words returns every account that meets your conditions as a structured row, at 5¢, 15¢ or $1 a delivered row plus 5¢ for an email and 15¢ for a phone, under a maximum you approve. The rows land in your CRM and rerun on your schedule.
ZoomInfo
A company and contact database of 500M contacts and 100M companies by its own count, sold by contract. Vendr reports a median buyer pays $33,500 a year, and the AWS Marketplace listing sells 1 user with 2,000 bulk credits for $3,000 for 12 months. SpecStream prints its price per row and needs no contract.
Landbase
A request in plain English run on a database of 300M+ contacts. Plans start at $499 a month for 15,000 credits, with a verified email at 1 credit and a verified mobile at 10. SpecStream reads the live web for each request, has no monthly minimum and starts with $10 of credit.
How SpecStream scores
The same numbers as the benchmarks page, from the official tasks and scorers.
| SpecStream |  Parallel |  Exa |  Tavily |  Perplexity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Web researchWideSearch, GPT-5.6 Luna | 60.9 | 45.5 | 53.0 | 47.9 | 47.0 |
| Factual accuracySimpleQA Verified, GPT-5.6 Luna | 96 | 94 | 91 | 94 | 94 |
| Factual accuracySimpleQA Verified, GPT-5.6 Sol | 99 | 97 | 91 | 92 | 95 |
Test SpecStream against your Apollo or Clay list
Take one list you bought from Apollo or built in Clay last month and write the accounts you wanted in plain words. Send it from code: this call spends nothing. The 402 reply shows how SpecStream read the request, the columns and the most it can cost.
curl -i https://api.specstream.ai/v1/agent/lists \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"request": "B2B software companies in the US and Canada with 20 to 200 employees that started selling to enterprise in the last year, with the head of sales and a work email", "count": 25}'Approve that maximum by card through Stripe's Link agent wallet, or in USDC on Base, Arbitrum or Polygon, and you pay for the rows found. Or sign up for $10 of credit, no card, and run the same request in the workspace or from your agent over the MCP server at https://api.specstream.ai/mcp. Then set the rows beside your old list: count the accounts that meet every condition, and open the source of any value.
Frequently asked questions
Something we didn't answer? Talk to a human
How much does Apollo cost?
How much does Clay cost?
Is Apollo a Clay alternative?
Which costs less for 1,000 accounts with an email?
Can I bring my Apollo or Clay list to SpecStream?
Does SpecStream have an API?
https://api.specstream.ai/mcp, at the same 5¢, 15¢ or $1 a row. The same key runs the Search API from $1 per 1,000 searches of up to 10 results and the Extract API at $0.80 per 1,000 pages.Sources
SpecStream wrote this page. Each rival figure comes from that company's own page, or from the named third party where the company publishes no price.
- SpecStream pricingspecstream.ai/pricing, read Nov 12, 2026
- SpecStream for agentsspecstream.ai/agents.md, read Nov 12, 2026
- Apollo, Apollo vs Clayapollo.io/insights/apollo-vs-clay, read Nov 12, 2026
- Apollo pricingapollo.io/pricing, read Nov 12, 2026
- Apollo docs, API pricingdocs.apollo.io/docs/api-pricing.md, read Nov 12, 2026
- Apollo docs, people searchdocs.apollo.io/reference/people-api-search.md, read Nov 12, 2026
- Apollo docs, rate limitsdocs.apollo.io/reference/rate-limits.md, read Nov 12, 2026
- Clay pricingclay.com/pricing, read Nov 12, 2026
- Clay docs, Actions and Data Creditsuniversity.clay.com/docs/actions-data-credits, read Nov 12, 2026
- Clay docs, credit refundsuniversity.clay.com/docs/credit-refunds, read Nov 12, 2026
- Clay terms of serviceclay.com/terms-of-service, read Nov 12, 2026
- Vendr, ZoomInfo pricingvendr.com/buyer-guides/zoominfo, read Nov 12, 2026
- ZoomInfo on AWS Marketplaceaws.amazon.com/marketplace/pp/prodview-ckg6rmyo3zsmw, read Nov 12, 2026
- Landbase pricinglandbase.com/pricing, read Nov 12, 2026