Apollo vs Clay
Which one do AI engines recommend, and how do they differ on price, fit and features?
The short answer
Apollo is the stronger AI pick in Sales Engagement: it has a visibility score of 51 versus 2.9 for Clay, and ranks ahead in 100% of the answers that name both.
Choose Apollo if…
- You want the brand AI engines rank higher (51 vs 2.9)
- AI answers describe it more positively (60% vs 33% positive)
- You need SOC 2 or ISO/IEC 27001 or CASA Tier 2 or CPRA or EU-US DPF or PCI DSS coverage
- Per seat pricing suits your budget better than usage-based
Choose Clay if…
- You need SOC 2 Type II or ISO 27001 coverage
- You prefer a larger, established vendor (1,001–5,000 employees)
- Usage-based pricing suits your budget better than per seat
AI visibility side by side
Latest weekly run · Nov 3
| Metric | Apollo | Clay |
|---|---|---|
| Visibility score | 51% | 2.9% |
| Change vs last week | down−2.8% | down−1.5% |
| Rank in Sales Engagement | #4 | #25 |
| Share of voice | 9.4% | 1.2% |
| Mentions this run | 59 | 9 |
| Positive in AI answers | 60% | 33% |
The stronger value in each row is marked with a ✓.
Visibility score trend
Weekly runs over the last 60 days
Apollo −2.799999999999997pp · Clay −1.5000000000000004pp over 1 weekly runs.
Engine by engine
Apollo leads on 3 of 3 engines
Head to head in AI answers
8 engine answers name both brands
| Prompt | Engine | Apollo | Clay |
|---|---|---|---|
| How do I choose a sales engagement platform for a mid-market team? | Perplexity | #3 | #7 |
| What should a sales engagement platform integrate with? | ChatGPT | #8 | #9 |
| Best sales engagement platform for startups | ChatGPT | #1 | #8 |
| Best sales engagement platform for startups | Perplexity | #1 | #8 |
| Best sales engagement platform with AI features | ChatGPT | #3 | #11 |
| Most affordable sales engagement platform that is still reliable | Perplexity | #1 | #9 |
| Which sales engagement platform offers a free trial? | Perplexity | #8 | #13 |
| Is there a free sales engagement platform for small teams? | Perplexity | #1 | #7 |
Features, pricing & fit
| Dimension | Apollo | Clay |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Per seat | Usage-based |
| Entry price | Contact sales | Free; paid from $167 / mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Deployment | Cloud platform | — |
| Integrations | 200+ | — |
| Compliance | GDPR, SOC 2, CCPA, ISO/IEC 27001, CASA Tier 2, CPRA, EU-US DPF, PCI DSS | SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, GDPR, CCPA |
| Support | Email support at support@apollo.io, Dedicated support on Custom plans, Sales team for Custom plan discussions | Priority support queue on Growth plan, Dedicated Slack channel on Enterprise plan, Dedicated growth strategist on Enterprise plan |
| Founded | 2015 | 2017 |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, CA | New York City, NY, United States |
| Employees | 501–1,000 | 1,001–5,000 |
| Funding | Series D · $250M raised | Series B Expansion |
| Best for | Sales and go-to-market teams that run prospecting, outreach and dialing and want data, AI and execution in one system | GTM engineers and revenue teams that build their own prospecting, enrichment and outbound workflows. |
Plans side by side
Clay
Pros and cons
Themes from the AI answers that mention each brand
Apollo
- Large B2B contact database combined with prospecting and email sequencing
- Transparent self-serve per-user pricing with a free tier
- Strong all-in-one value for prospecting and outreach
- Affordable, reliable choice for small teams and startups
- Widely used and highly rated by reviewers
Clay
Profile in progress.
Data collected ·ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Mode·coverage 98.8%·next run
Cite as: SlateIndex, “Apollo vs Clay”, https://slateindex.ai/compare/apollo-vs-clay, data of Nov 3, 2026. Licence: CC BY 4.0.