Clay vs Persana.ai

by Gralio Mar 18, 2025

Clay and Persana.ai are sales tools with distinct strengths. Clay excels in data enrichment and outreach within a familiar spreadsheet environment. Persana.ai focuses on prospecting and lead qualification with its extensive database and AI-powered tools. Choose Clay for robust data enrichment and ease of use, and Persana.ai for powerful prospecting and CRM integrations.

At Gralio.ai we help to simplify your decision-making process by offering detailed, side-by-side software comparisons like this one, to help you confidently choose the tool that aligns with your business goals.

This comparison was created by analysing 184 reviews and 60 websites, saving 1 hour, 31 minutes of reading.

Logo of Clay
Logo of Persana.ai

About

Clay is a data enrichment and outreach tool that helps businesses improve sales outreach. It offers access to over 75 data providers, AI-powered research, and personalized messaging features, all within a user-friendly spreadsheet interface. Clay aims to streamline the lead generation process, improve data accuracy, and automate repetitive tasks, allowing sales teams to focus on building relationships and closing deals.
Persana.ai is an AI-powered sales prospecting tool that helps businesses find, qualify, and reach out to potential customers. It offers access to a database of over 700 million contacts and 200 million companies, along with tools for building targeted lead lists, enriching data with AI, and creating personalized messaging. Persana.ai integrates with popular CRM platforms like Salesforce and HubSpot. The software aims to improve sales prospecting efficiency and effectiveness.

Summary

Main difference
Clay is a spreadsheet-like interface with AI-powered data research and enrichment, focusing on sales outreach and lead generation. Persana.ai is an AI-powered sales prospecting tool with a large database of contacts and companies, emphasizing lead qualification and personalized messaging.

Relative strengths of Clay (compared to Persana.ai)

  • Superior data enrichment from 75+ providers and AI agents.

  • User-friendly spreadsheet interface simplifies data manipulation.

  • Flexible workflow builder automates enrichment and outreach tasks.

Relative weaknesses of Clay (compared to Persana.ai)

  • Credit-based pricing can be confusing and potentially expensive.

  • Some integrations, while numerous, need further refinement.

  • Occasional glitches and slow performance with large datasets.

Who is using Clay and Persana.ai?

Bartek Pucek
Founder at Proofs; Angel investor (e.g. Eleven Labs)
Ben Lang
Ex Notion Head of Community | next play Founder | Angel Investing
Jérémy Grandillon
CEO & Co-founder of TC9 — AI Allbound Agency
Kyle Poyar
Co-Founder & Operating Partner | Growth Unhinged
Noam Nisand
Leed Services Founder
Show all 40 stacks
Robert Bradley
Founder & Chief GTM Strategist at Profit Labs A
Suprava Sabat
Co-Founder @AcquisitionX

Who should use Clay VS. Persana.ai

Clay is a powerful data enrichment and outreach tool ideal for sales teams in tech companies. Its AI-powered research and personalized messaging features, accessible through a user-friendly spreadsheet interface, streamline lead generation. Users praise Clay's data enrichment capabilities and intuitive design but note that the credit system can be confusing and costly.

Persana.ai is an AI-powered sales prospecting tool ideal for sales and marketing professionals in small to medium-sized businesses, especially in the software and technology industries. Users praise its excellent customer support, effective AI-powered data enrichment, and personalized messaging features. However, some users mention occasional bugs and a steep learning curve. Persana.ai offers a tiered subscription model with pricing starting at $68/month.

  • Ideal for small to large tech companies, especially software companies, focused on sales.

  • Best fit for software, IT, and telecommunications, as well as marketing and advertising industries.

  • Best for small to medium businesses (1-100 employees) and medium businesses (101-1000 employees).

  • Particularly well-suited for software, IT, telecommunications, marketing, and advertising.

Clay and Persana.ai features

Supported
Partially supported
Not supported
Type in the name of the feature or in your own words tell us what you need

  • AI-powered data research
    Supported

    Clay offers AI-powered research by combining premium data access with AI agents.

    Supported

    Persana.ai offers AI data research by combining premium data sources and AI research agents.

  • Flexible workflow builder
    Supported

    Clay supports workflow automation for tasks like enrichment, research, and outreach.

    Supported

    Persana supports flexible workflows for tasks like enrichment, research, and outreach, using sophisticated triggers and CRM integrations.

  • GTM stack consolidation
    Partially supported

    Clay streamlines GTM operations by integrating with 200+ tools and automating tasks.

    Partially supported

    Persana.ai streamlines Go-To-Market operations by integrating various tools and automating workflows, but it does not consolidate all operations into a single platform.

  • Email enrichment
    Supported

    Clay supports email enrichment by gathering email addresses from multiple sources, validating their accuracy, and integrating this data into various sales and marketing tools.

    Supported

    Persana enriches leads with emails from 75+ sources, improving accuracy with Waterfall Enrichment.

  • Lead routing
    Not supported

    Clay does not seem to have built-in automatic lead routing based on criteria like company size, industry, geography, or product interest. While it excels in lead generation, enrichment, and outreach automation, it doesn\'t explicitly mention lead routing in the provided sources.

    Not supported

    Lead routing is not explicitly supported.

  • Social media enrichment
    Partially supported

    Clay might offer social media enrichment via third-party data providers.

    Partially supported

    Persana.ai enriches leads with LinkedIn data but not other social media.

Qualities

  • Value and Pricing Transparency
    -0.43
    Rather negative sentiment
    +0.4
    Rather positive sentiment
  • Customer Service
    +1
    Strongly positive sentiment
    +0.89
    Strongly positive sentiment
  • Ease of Use
    +0.41
    Rather positive sentiment
    +0.63
    Rather positive sentiment
  • Reliability and Performance
    +0.6
    Rather positive sentiment
    +0.57
    Rather positive sentiment
  • Ease of Implementation
    -0.14
    Neutral sentiment
    +0.64
    Rather positive sentiment
  • Scalability
    +1
    Strongly positive sentiment
    +1
    Strongly positive sentiment

Clay and Persana.ai Pricing

Clay's pricing is credit-based and does not follow a traditional subscription model. Users purchase credits to access data and features. The more credits purchased, the lower the cost per credit. Unused credits roll over up to twice the purchased amount.
Plans

User sentiment

Rather negative
-0.5

See full Pricing page

Persana AI offers a tiered subscription model based on credits. The more credits you have the more you can automate with their AI platform. Contact Persana for Enterprise pricing.
Plans

User sentiment

Rather positive
+0.33

See full Pricing page

Clay and Persana.ai review insights

184 reviews analysed from

Users love

  • Highly praised for its powerful and versatile data enrichment capabilities, consolidating access to numerous data providers.
  • Intuitive spreadsheet-like interface makes it user-friendly even for those without coding experience.
  • AI features, including ChatGPT integration, enable advanced personalization and automation for outreach campaigns.
  • Strong community support and responsive customer service via Slack contribute to a positive user experience.
  • Excellent and responsive customer support via Slack and other channels.
  • Effective AI-powered data enrichment and lead generation capabilities.
  • Personalized messaging features improve outreach quality.
  • Cost-effective compared to alternatives like Clay.
  • Useful integrations with CRM platforms and other tools.

Users dislike

  • The credit system can be confusing, especially for new users, leading to unintentional overspending.
  • Credit costs can be high, especially for AI features and extensive data enrichment.
  • Some integrations, while numerous, may require further refinement and polishing for seamless functionality.
  • Occasional glitches or slow performance can hinder workflow, especially when handling large datasets.
  • Occasional bugs and UI/UX issues require attention.
  • Unpredictable product updates and feature removals can be disruptive.
  • Steep learning curve and complex integration with partner tools.
  • Limited LinkedIn search filters and criteria.
  • Login process can be cumbersome.

Clay and Persana.ai Ratings

  • G2
    4.9/5
    (149)
  • G2
    4.5/5
    (35)

Company health

Employee growth

263% increase in the last year
439% increase in the last year

Web traffic

No data
4% decrease in the last quarter

Financing

July 2024 - $62M
January 2023 - $500K

How do Clay's credit-based pricing and Persana.ai's subscriptions affect budget planning?

Clay's credit-based pricing makes budget planning less predictable, as usage directly dictates costs. Overspending is a risk, especially with AI features. Persana.ai's subscriptions offer predictable monthly costs, simplifying budget planning. However, unused credits within a subscription might represent a sunk cost if not fully utilized.

Which product better integrates with existing CRM systems like Salesforce or HubSpot?

Persana.ai integrates with popular CRM platforms like Salesforce and HubSpot, while Clay does not mention specific CRM integrations. Therefore, Persana.ai offers better integration with existing CRM systems.

What are the advantages of Clay?

Clay offers a user-friendly spreadsheet interface combined with AI-powered research and access to over 75 data providers, making data enrichment and outreach more efficient. Its AI features, including ChatGPT integration, allow for advanced personalization and automation. Clay also boasts strong community support and responsive customer service.

What are the disadvantages of Clay?

Clay's credit-based pricing model can be confusing and lead to unexpected costs, especially for resource-intensive features like AI. Users have also reported occasional performance issues and glitches, particularly when processing large datasets. While Clay offers numerous integrations, some users find these integrations require further refinement for optimal functionality.

Is Clay cheaper than Persana.ai?

Clay's pricing is credit-based, with yearly costs ranging from $134 to $720 per credit depending on the plan. Persana.ai uses a monthly subscription model, ranging from $68 to $400 per month. Therefore, a direct price comparison is difficult without knowing the number of credits a Clay user would need. It is possible Clay could be cheaper for very low usage, but at higher usage levels, Persana.ai is likely more economical.

Alternatives to Clay and Persana.ai

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clay-3 vs amplemarket
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ExactBuyer
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Page co-authored by
MK
Michal Kaczor
CEO at Gralio

Michal has worked at startups for many years and writes about topics relating to software selection and IT management. As a former consultant for Bain, a business advisory company, he also knows how to understand needs of any business and find solutions to its problems.

TT
Tymon Terlikiewicz
CTO at Gralio

Tymon is a seasoned CTO who loves finding the perfect tools for any task. He recently headed up the tech department at Batmaid, a well-known Swiss company, where he managed about 60 software purchases, including CX, HR, Payroll, Marketing automation and various developer tools.

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