Comparison
Clay is a powerful workbench for technical teams. Salesmotion is account intelligence every rep can use from day one. Compare the trade-offs.
Book a demo| Feature | Clay | Salesmotion |
|---|---|---|
| Setup approach | Build custom workflows from scratch | Plug and play — works out of the box |
| Time to first insight | Days to weeks (workflow design + testing) | Minutes (connect CRM, import accounts) |
| Who builds it | RevOps person or technical SDR | No builder needed — every rep self-serves |
| Maintenance required | Ongoing (workflows break, providers change) | Zero — platform handles updates automatically |
| Rep adoption | Low (reps depend on whoever built the workflow) | High (intuitive interface, no training required) |
| Flexibility | Extremely high (build anything) | Opinionated (purpose-built for account intelligence) |
Clay is a powerful data enrichment and workflow automation platform that lets you build custom research and outreach pipelines using a spreadsheet-like interface. Think of it as a 'build your own intelligence tool' — you connect 75+ data providers, create enrichment waterfalls, and design custom automations.
The flexibility is impressive, but it comes with a cost: Clay requires a dedicated builder (usually a RevOps person or technical SDR) to design, test, and maintain workflows. When that person leaves or the workflow breaks, your intelligence pipeline stops.
Best for: RevOps teams and technical users who want to build custom data enrichment workflows from scratch
G2 rating: 4.9/5
Pricing: Free tier; Starter $149/mo; Explorer $349/mo; Pro $800/mo; Enterprise custom
Salesmotion is a plug-and-play account intelligence platform that works out of the box for every rep on your team. There are no workflows to build, no enrichment waterfalls to configure, and no technical skills required. Connect your CRM, import your accounts, and every rep sees AI-generated briefs, buying signals, and outreach drafts within minutes.
Salesmotion is designed for the sales rep, not the RevOps engineer. The platform handles all the data sourcing, signal detection, and AI synthesis behind the scenes — so your team spends time selling, not building and maintaining data pipelines.
Best for: Sales teams that need account intelligence from day one without building or maintaining custom workflows
G2 rating: 4.8/5
Pricing: From $85/mo for individuals; team plans from $990/mo with unlimited users. Scales by accounts monitored, not headcount.
How Clay and Salesmotion stack up across key capabilities.
| Feature | Clay | Salesmotion |
|---|---|---|
| Setup time | Days to weeks for a production-ready workflow | Under 30 minutes to full account intelligence |
| Technical skill required | High — spreadsheet logic, API knowledge, data modeling | None — designed for sales reps |
| Workflow maintenance | Constant — providers change, enrichments break, logic needs updates | Zero — all data sourcing and AI handled by the platform |
| Rep self-service | No — reps consume what the builder creates | Yes — every rep accesses briefs, signals, and outreach directly |
| Buying signals | Can be built via custom workflows (if someone builds them) | 50+ signal types detected automatically, 24/7 |
| Account briefs | Possible with Claygent (requires workflow design) | AI-generated from 1,000+ sources, ready out of the box |
| CRM integration | Salesforce, HubSpot via configured integrations | Native bi-directional Salesforce sync, HubSpot support |
| Scalability across team | Limited by builder capacity and workflow complexity | Unlimited users on team plans — scales instantly |
Clay's published pricing starts at $149/month (Starter) and goes up to $800/month (Pro), with enterprise plans available. But the sticker price doesn't tell the full story. Clay uses a credit-based model, so costs scale with usage — and every enrichment action, AI lookup, and waterfall step consumes credits. Heavy usage can push monthly costs well above the base plan price.
The bigger hidden cost is the builder's time. Clay requires a RevOps person or technical SDR to design, test, and maintain workflows. At an average RevOps salary, that's roughly 20 hours/month of maintenance at $50/hour = $1,000/month in labor. Add that to Clay Pro ($800/month) and you're looking at $1,800/month for a workflow that still requires ongoing attention. When your builder leaves, the pipeline stops until someone else learns the system.
Salesmotion team plans start at $990/month with unlimited users — and zero build time. No RevOps person needed, no workflows to maintain, no credits to track. Every rep gets full access to account briefs, buying signals, and AI outreach from day one. The total cost of ownership is lower, and the time-to-value is measured in minutes, not weeks. See how Cacheflow reduced prep time by 60% with zero workflow building.
“The moment we turned on Salesmotion, it became essential. No more hours on LinkedIn or Google to figure out who we're talking to. It's just there, served up to you, so it's always 'go time.'”
Adam Wainwright
Head of Revenue, Cacheflow
Salesmotion gives your reps the account intelligence they need to book more meetings and close bigger deals.
Salesmotion is dramatically easier. Connect your CRM, import your target accounts, and reps see AI-generated briefs and buying signals within minutes. Clay requires designing enrichment workflows in a spreadsheet-like interface, connecting data providers, configuring waterfalls, and testing the output — a process that typically takes days to weeks for a production-ready pipeline.
No. Salesmotion is designed for sales reps to use directly — no technical skills, no workflow building, no maintenance. The platform handles all data sourcing, signal detection, and AI synthesis automatically. Clay, by contrast, typically requires a RevOps professional or technical user to build and maintain workflows.
This is one of the biggest risks with Clay. When the person who built your workflows leaves, those workflows need to be understood, maintained, and updated by someone new — and Clay's flexibility means every implementation is different. With Salesmotion, there is no builder dependency. The platform works the same way for every team, so there is no single point of failure.
Yes. Some teams use Clay for specialized data enrichment tasks (custom firmographic lookups, technographic waterfalls) while relying on Salesmotion for account intelligence, buying signals, and AI outreach. Clay is strong at contact-level enrichment; Salesmotion excels at account-level intelligence. They can be complementary if you have the RevOps resources to maintain Clay.
Salesmotion consistently sees higher rep adoption because it requires zero training. Reps open an account in Salesforce and see intelligence immediately. Clay's adoption is limited to whoever builds the workflows — individual reps rarely interact with Clay directly. See how Incredible Health went live in 3 days with full team adoption.
With Salesmotion, reps see value within their first session — typically under 30 minutes from signup to their first AI account brief. With Clay, the timeline depends on your builder: designing a production-ready workflow takes days to weeks, then reps only see value when the output is pushed to them (they don't use Clay directly).
Account intelligence, live signals, and AI-driven outreach — so your team spends less time researching and more time closing.
