vioscale
Comparison

Clay vs Instantly.ai

No clear leader: Instantly.ai (68.3) and Clay (66.4) are within the 5-point margin; treat as a tie. The attribute-by-attribute breakdown below, with a source and date on every value, is the honest way to compare them.

Clay full profile →Instantly.ai full profile →
Machine formatsJSONMarkdownGraphQLor send Accept: application/json
Clay66
Instantly.ai68
Score
Vioscale score
Clay66 / 100medium · 55%
Instantly.ai68 / 100low · 37%
Pricing
Free tier
Clay✓
Instantly.ai✓
Model
Clayfreemium
Instantly.aicommercial
Price level
Clayhigh
Instantly.aihigh
Starting price
Clay$185
Instantly.ai$94
Transparent
Clay✓
Instantly.ai✓
Integrations
Count
Clay45
Instantly.ai4
Security
Gdpr
Clay✓
Instantly.ai–
Soc2
Clay✓
Instantly.ai–
Market
Availability

Capabilities

Feature-by-feature on the axes that matter for ai sdr sales agents. “-” means undocumented, not absent.

Capabilities
Deployment model
Claycloud_managed_saas
Instantly.aiFeature of broader sales platform
Autonomous inbox reply handling and objection rebuttals
Clay-
Instantly.ai✓
Web scraping and linkedin profile ingestion
Clay✓
Instantly.ai✓
Meeting booking via native calendar integration
Clay-
Instantly.ai✗
Two way CRM sync to prevent duplicate outreach
Clay✓
Instantly.ai✓
Multi channel sequencing email and linkedin dm
Clay✓
Instantly.ai✗
Playbook based guardrails for brand tone
Clay-
Instantly.ai✗
Waterfall data enrichment for email finding
Clay✓
Instantly.ai✓
Human in the loop draft approval mode
Clay-
Instantly.ai✗
Deliverability and spam reputation warmup
Clay-
Instantly.ai✓
SOC2 type ii
Clay-
Instantly.ai✗
GDPR and CCPA prospect data compliance
Clay✓
Instantly.ai✗
Pricing model
Clay-
Instantly.aiFlat monthly digital worker

What each one is

The product in its own terms, so the numbers below have context.

Clay

A cloud-based system that consolidates first-party data, intent signals, and third-party enrichment from hundreds of vendors to automate prospecting, personalized outreach, and CRM synchronization for sales and marketing teams.

Independently observed

Instantly.ai

Sales engagement platform providing AI-driven automation for cold email outreach, lead enrichment from multiple data sources, and autonomous reply handling. Includes integration with CRMs like HubSpot, 450M+ B2B contact database, and tools to monitor campaign performance through pipeline and revenue metrics.

Independently observed

Pricing

List pricing as published by each vendor, with the date we read it. Always verify at the source before you buy.

Clay

from $185/moSubscriptionFree tier

From $185/mo for Starter plan. Free tier available. Data credits from $0.05 each, cheaper at scale.

  • FreeFree
    • Unlimited seats and tables
    • Multi-provider waterfalls
    • Claygent enrichment
    • Clay Sequencer for email
  • StarterStarting at $185/mo
    • Phone number enrichment
    • Job change and signal tracking
    • Email campaign integrations
  • Growth-
    • CRM auto-sync and enrichment
    • HTTP API integrations
    • Webhook automation
    • Web intent signal tracking
    • Audience pushes to ads platforms
    • +1 more
  • EnterpriseContact sales
    • Unlimited Audiences across sources
    • Unlimited row bulk enrichment
    • Clay API access
    • Data warehouse syncs
    • SSO
    • +3 more
as of verify ↗

Instantly.ai

from $94/moSubscription

From $94/month. Annual billing saves 10%.

  • Starter$94/month; $85/month annual
    • AI Sales Agent
    • Database of 450M+ B2B leads
    • 1500 Instantly credits monthly
  • Scale$194/month; $175/month annual
    • Everything in Starter
    • AI Reply Agent
    • Unibox replies
    • Advanced deliverability features
    • Premium Live Support
  • Agency$555/month; $500/month annual
    • Everything in Scale
    • SISR System (private IP infrastructure)
    • Dedicated Account Manager
  • EnterpriseContact sales
    • Everything in Agency
    • Private Deliverability Network
    • Dedicated GTM Engineer
    • Custom infrastructure
as of verify ↗

Platform & deployment

Where each product runs and how it can be hosted. A dash means undocumented, not unsupported.

Platforms
Web
Clay✓
Instantly.ai✓
Deployment
Cloud / SaaS
Clay✓
Instantly.ai✓

Integrations

What each product connects to. Counts come from the vendor's own integration directory where one exists.

In common (2)
  • Better Contact
  • Trigify

Clay

45 total - 43 not shared
  • Snowflake
  • BigQuery
  • Databricks
  • Postgres
  • Fivetran
  • Salesforce
  • Marketo
  • Pardot
  • ActiveCampaign
  • Google Sheets
  • Google Slides
  • Google Docs
  • Notion
  • LinkedIn
  • YouTube
  • Semrush
  • Similarweb
  • Reddit
  • Gong
  • Loom
  • Bitly
  • LeadIQ
  • ContactOut
  • Wiza
  • +19 more
Independently observed

Instantly.ai

5 total - 3 not shared
  • Slack
  • HubSpot
  • Perplexity
Independently observed

Comparison generated from independently-sourced facts. Every value links to its source and retrieval date. See the method.