Apollo.io vs Clay
Ten of twelve models named Apollo.io first on the direct prompt; one named Clay. Apollo.io was named by twelve of the twelve models and Clay by eleven and Apollo.io carries 64 labels and Clay 41, so the shares are not directly comparable.
San Francisco, United States, founded 2015. Named in twenty categories this edition.
Named in nine categories this edition.
Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts over all twelve models, for a mid-market B2B company; rank is within the category; every quote names the model and the prompt it came from. Both figures come from the data enrichment page.
By framing
Apollo.ioFirst choices, of twelve modelsClay
The direct prompt
Both were the first choice
1 of 12 modelsThe answer named them together, and the judge labeled each a first choice.Apollo.io first, Clay an alternative
9 of 12 modelsClay was named in the answer but not as the choice, or not at all.Neither was the first choice, one was named
1 of 12 modelsThe answer put something else first and named one of the two as an alternative.Neither was named
1 of 12 modelsThe answer made no first choice from these two in this category.Bold names in an answer are the products the judge labeled a first choice; a model naming several gives each of them that label. The full answer text for every row is in the record.
By buyer segment
Apollo.io76%#1 of 10Clay2%#5 of 10Apollo.io70%#1 of 10Clay9%#2 of 10Apollo.io7%#5 of 9Clay7%#4 of 9What the models said about Apollo.io
Every negative label with a quote, up to three, then the highest-weighted positives, up to three. Three of three in this category shown.
“Tools with Significant Data Quality Issues ... Bounce rates of 20-35% reported by multiple users, even for emails labeled "verified"” MiniMax M2.5 · negative prompt · hard negative
“Be cautious with these B2B data enrichment tools... Apollo.io: Frequently criticized for 15-30% email bounce rates” Grok 4.1 Fast · negative prompt · hard negative
“Apollo.io is widely recommended for budget-conscious teams.... Apollo provides more functionality at a lower price point than almost any competitor” Claude Haiku 4.5 · budget prompt · first choice
What the models said about Clay
Every negative label with a quote, up to three, then the highest-weighted positives, up to three. Six of six in this category shown.
“Clay provides maximum enrichment flexibility across 100+ data providers but requires a dedicated RevOps engineer to manage it.” Llama 4 Maverick · comparative prompt · soft negative
“Accuracy varies because it inherits each underlying provider's quality, and costs can escalate quickly” DeepSeek V4 Flash · negative prompt · soft negative
“It has a steep learning curve... you can burn through your monthly credits very quickly.” Gemini 3.5 Flash · budget prompt · soft negative
“an orchestrator (like Clay) that lets you stack databases... Tools like Clay and Amplemarket excel at this "AI-agent" level of custom enrichment.” Gemini 3.5 Flash · scale prompt · first choice
“Clay chains together over 150 different data providers... Tools like Clay have shifted the market toward "waterfall" routing” Gemini 3.5 Flash · comparative prompt · first choice
“1. Clay — Best for: Tech-forward teams who want the highest data accuracy via "Waterfall" Enrichment” Gemini 3.5 Flash · direct prompt · first choice
Comparisons are drawn for the top three products in each category. The output is the models' output; nothing here is a recommendation by the index.