Clay vs Profound

Features, pricing, ratings, and pros and cons, side by side.

Profound logo

Profound

Track how ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini mention your brand, then act with AI agents

Free trial

Verdict

Clay is listed under AI Agents and Profound under Sales & Marketing AI. Both have a free plan or trial. Only Clay is available on CLI.

Best overall

Clay

  • Sales Teams
  • Revenue Operations
  • Growth Marketers
  • Sales Development Reps

Choose Clay if

  • You want a tool built for Multi-provider lead enrichment, AI-assisted account research, building custom outbound and inbound workflows.
  • Access to 150+ data providers with waterfall enrichment in a single workspace.
  • Claygent applies AI web research to custom questions about each lead or account.

Choose Profound if

  • You want a tool built for measuring brand visibility and citations across AI answer engines, and turning that data into content and page updates.
  • Covers up to nine answer engines, including ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude and Google AI Overviews.
  • Combines monitoring with action through AI Marketer agents that draft work for approval.
Best for beginners
Profound
Best for business
Clay

Features

17 features compared.

  • Claygent
    Clay
    Available
    Profound
    Not available
  • Waterfall Enrichment
    Clay
    Available
    Profound
    Not available
  • Data Marketplace
    Clay
    Available
    Profound
    Not available
  • Workflow Tables
    Clay
    Available
    Profound
    Not available
  • Audiences and Signals
    Clay
    Available
    Profound
    Not available
  • Email Sequencing
    Clay
    Available
    Profound
    Not available
  • Ads Audience Sync
    Clay
    Available
    Profound
    Not available
  • CRM and Warehouse Sync
    Clay
    Available
    Profound
    Not available
  • Credit Budgeting
    Clay
    Available
    Profound
    Not available
  • Answer Engine Insights
    Clay
    Not available
    Profound
    Available
  • Prompt Volumes
    Clay
    Not available
    Profound
    Available
  • Shopping Visibility
    Clay
    Not available
    Profound
    Available
  • Agent Analytics
    Clay
    Not available
    Profound
    Available
  • AI Marketer
    Clay
    Not available
    Profound
    Available
  • Context Manager
    Clay
    Not available
    Profound
    Available
  • FactCheck and Sentiment
    Clay
    Not available
    Profound
    Available
  • Command Center
    Clay
    Not available
    Profound
    Available

Pricing

Plans as listed by each vendor. Check their sites for current prices.

  • Pricing model
    Clay
    Freemium
    Profound
    Free trial
  • Free plan
    Clay
    Yes
    Profound
    Yes
  • Starting price
    Clay
    $0
    Profound
    $0
  • Plans
    Clay
    4 plans
    Profound
    2 plans

Clay plans

  • Free

    $0

    Starter plan to explore enrichment and Claygent

    • 500 actions/mo
    • 100 data credits/mo
    • unlimited seats and tables
    • waterfall enrichment
    • Claygent
    • bring your own API key
    • 200 rows per table
  • Launch

    $167/month

    Individuals and small teams automating first prospecting workflows

    • 15K actions/mo
    • 3K data credits/mo
    • phone number enrichment
    • unlimited Audiences search
    • signals
    • reusable functions
    • email sending
  • Growth

    Most popular

    $446/month

    Teams scaling their GTM motion

    • 40K actions/mo
    • 6K data credits/mo
    • CRM auto-sync
    • data warehouse sync
    • HTTP API integrations
    • web intent signals
    • priority support
  • Enterprise

    Custom/custom

    Large organizations with security and volume needs

    • Custom credits and actions
    • bulk enrichment over 50K records
    • SSO/SAML
    • SCIM
    • RBAC
    • IP allowlists
    • dedicated growth strategist

Profound plans

  • Trial

    $0

    Limited free trial to test the platform

    • 50 unique prompts tracked daily for 7 days
    • ChatGPT
    • Gemini and Google AI Overviews
    • limited AI Marketer credits
    • 5 Prompt Volumes searches
    • unlimited seats
  • Enterprise

    Most popular

    Custom/month

    Tailored plan for brands and teams, sold through the accounts team

    • Up to 9 answer engines
    • custom prompts
    • ChatGPT Shopping
    • all-time data history
    • CSV and JSON exports
    • API access
    • SSO
    • SOC 2
    • dedicated support

Our ratings

Scored out of 10 by the Finder Atlas editorial team. Last reviewed October 2026.

Clay
7.9overall
Profound
7.8overall

Clay leads in 3 categories and Profound in 1, with 1 tied.

  • Ease of Use

    Profound leads by 0.8
    Clay
    7.0
    Profound
    7.8
  • Feature Depth

    Clay leads by 0.4
    Clay
    9.2
    Profound
    8.8
  • Value for Money

    Clay leads by 0.8
    Clay
    7.3
    Profound
    6.5
  • Performance & Speed

    Tied
    Clay
    8.0
    Profound
    8.0
  • Documentation & Support

    Clay leads by 0.2
    Clay
    8.2
    Profound
    8.0

Scores weigh documented features, plan value, platform coverage, integrations and user feedback. A missing score means we have not rated that area yet.

Pros and cons

Clay

Pros

  • Access to 150+ data providers with waterfall enrichment in a single workspace.
  • Claygent applies AI web research to custom questions about each lead or account.
  • Free plan with unlimited seats and tables for testing workflows.
  • Outputs reach email, LinkedIn/Meta/Google ads and CRMs without extra tooling.
  • Frequent product updates, with weekly changelog roundups.

Cons

  • Credit-based pricing with two credit types is harder to forecast than flat per-seat pricing.
  • Free plan is limited to 500 actions, 100 data credits and 200 rows per table, with no phone enrichment or signals.
  • CRM sync, warehouse sync and API access require Growth ($446/mo list) or higher.
  • Pricing page figures are inconsistent between headline prices and FAQ text.

Profound

Pros

  • Covers up to nine answer engines, including ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude and Google AI Overviews.
  • Combines monitoring with action through AI Marketer agents that draft work for approval.
  • Agent Analytics connects to CDN and cloud providers such as Cloudflare, Akamai and AWS.
  • Enterprise controls include SSO, SCIM, RBAC and SOC 2.
  • Documented API and MCP access for pulling data into reports and pipelines.

Cons

  • No published prices; paid plans require talking to the accounts team.
  • The free Trial is limited to 50 prompts for 7 days with no data history or exports.
  • Third-party reports of a mid-September 2026 pricing change removing self-serve plans make costs hard to compare.
  • API, exports and SSO are not included in the Trial.

Platforms

  • Web
    Clay
    Supported
    Profound
    Supported
  • Windows
    Clay
    Not supported
    Profound
    Not supported
  • macOS
    Clay
    Not supported
    Profound
    Not supported
  • iOS
    Clay
    Not supported
    Profound
    Not supported
  • Android
    Clay
    Not supported
    Profound
    Not supported
  • API
    Clay
    Supported
    Profound
    Supported
  • Browser Extension
    Clay
    Not supported
    Profound
    Not supported
  • CLI
    Clay
    Supported
    Profound
    Not supported

Integrations

Clay

18 integrations
  • Salesforce
  • HubSpot
  • Snowflake
  • Google BigQuery
  • Airtable
  • Apollo.io
  • ZoomInfo
  • Clearbit
  • Crunchbase
  • PitchBook
  • Semrush
  • Lusha
  • OpenAI
  • Anthropic
  • Google Gemini
  • LinkedIn
  • Meta Ads
  • Google Ads

Profound

9 integrations
  • Akamai
  • AWS
  • Cloudflare
  • Fastly
  • Google Analytics
  • Google Cloud Platform
  • Netlify
  • Vercel
  • WordPress

Company

  • Company
    Clay
    Clay
    Profound
    Profound
  • Founded
    Clay
    2017
    Profound
    2024
  • Headquarters
    Clay
    New York, NY
    Profound
    New York, NY
  • Listing
    Clay
    Claimed
    Profound
    Claimed

Frequently asked questions

Is Clay better than Profound?

It depends on your workflow. Clay is built for Multi-provider lead enrichment, AI-assisted account research, building custom outbound and inbound workflows. Profound is built for measuring brand visibility and citations across AI answer engines, and turning that data into content and page updates.

What are the key feature differences between Clay and Profound?

Clay: Enrich leads with 150+ data sources and AI research agents to run go-to-market plays. Profound: Track how ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini mention your brand, then act with AI agents.

Does Clay or Profound have a free plan?

Yes, both do. Clay is freemium and Profound is free trial, and each has a free plan or trial.

Which is cheaper, Clay or Profound?

Both can be used for free. Paid plans differ in limits and features, so compare the tiers in the pricing table above.