# Apollo.io vs Clay: which do AI models recommend for enrichment, October 2026

GTM AI Recommendation Index, October 2026 Edition, Data enrichment. Eleven of fourteen models named Apollo.io first on the direct prompt; one named Clay. Page: https://gtm-ai-index.com/gtm-data/data-enrichment/apollo-io-vs-clay/

| | First-choice share | Rank | Negative rate | Labels | Models naming it |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apollo.io | 73% | #1 of 12 | 14% | 72 | 14 of 14 |
| Clay | 6% | #2 of 12 | 11% | 37 | 14 of 14 |

## The direct prompt, model by model

- Claude Haiku 4.5: apollo.io first (first choices: Apollo.io) (alternatives: Cleanlist, Cognism, ZoomInfo)
- GPT-5.4 mini: apollo.io first (first choices: Apollo.io) (alternatives: Lusha, ZoomInfo)
- Perplexity Sonar: apollo.io first (first choices: Apollo.io) (alternatives: Cognism, UpLead)
- Grok 4.20: apollo.io first (first choices: Apollo.io) (alternatives: Cognism, UpLead)
- DeepSeek V4 Flash: apollo.io first (first choices: Apollo.io) (alternatives: Cleanlist, Cognism, HubSpot Breeze Intelligence, Lusha)
- Llama 4 Maverick: apollo.io first (first choices: Apollo.io) (alternatives: HubSpot Breeze Intelligence, UpLead)
- Kimi K2: apollo.io first (first choices: Apollo.io) (alternatives: Clay, HubSpot Breeze Intelligence)
- GLM 4.7 FlashX: apollo.io first (first choices: Apollo.io) (alternatives: Clay, Cognism, HubSpot Breeze Intelligence)
- MiniMax M2.5: apollo.io first (first choices: Apollo.io, HubSpot Breeze Intelligence) (alternatives: ZoomInfo)
- GPT-6 Luna: apollo.io first (first choices: Apollo.io) (alternatives: Clay, Cognism, HubSpot Breeze Intelligence)
- Muse Glimmer 30B: apollo.io first (first choices: Apollo.io) (alternatives: Cognism, HubSpot Sales Hub)
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: clay first (first choices: Clay) (alternatives: Apollo.io, Cognism, HubSpot Breeze Intelligence, ZoomInfo)
- Mistral Small: neither first, one named (first choices: ZoomInfo) (alternatives: Clay, HubSpot Breeze Intelligence, UpLead)
- Qwen 3.7 Flash: neither first, one named (first choices: UpLead) (alternatives: Apollo.io, HubSpot Breeze Intelligence)

## What the models said about Apollo.io

- "data accuracy and billing are the top pain points at scale" (Muse Glimmer 30B, negative prompt, hard negative)

## What the models said about Clay

- "multi-provider setups built with tools such as Apollo’s waterfall feature or Clay... may make it harder to trace where a particular field came from" (GPT-6 Luna, negative prompt, soft negative)
- "Don't adopt Clay unless you have technical staff to manage workflows." (DeepSeek V4 Flash, negative prompt, soft negative)
- "requires 3 to 4 additional tools and has unpredictable credit costs" (Claude Haiku 4.5, comparative prompt, soft negative)
- "Choose Clay if you have a modern, tech-savvy sales/marketing team ... wants the best possible email-finding coverage" (Gemini 3.5 Flash, paraphrase prompt, first choice)
- "Clay (Best for Workflow Orchestration & Waterfall Enrichment): Clay is a market leader for modern GTM teams." (Gemini 3.5 Flash, scale prompt, first choice)
- "If your strategy is personalized outbound and you want maximum data coverage: Go with Clay." (Gemini 3.5 Flash, comparative prompt, first choice)

Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts over all fourteen models, for a mid-market B2B company; rank is within the category. Comparisons are drawn for the top eight products in each category. Published under CC BY 4.0; the output is the models' output, and nothing here is a recommendation by the index.