Clay vs LeadMagic (2026): Data, Pricing and API Compared

Clay is a spreadsheet workflow that resells data from 150+ partners. LeadMagic is a data API that sells credits and charges only for valid results. They overlap on emails and mobiles, but you buy them for different jobs.

Verdict

• Pick Clay if a non-technical team wants to build prospecting workflows in a visual table, with waterfalls across many providers, AI research columns and CRM sync.
• Pick LeadMagic if engineers or agents need verified emails and mobiles from an API or MCP server, and you want to pay only for results. Plans start at $99 a month.
• Pick neither if you need millions of records a month through an API at a fixed bill. Neither vendor publishes a price at 1M. LeadOcean is flat at $499 a month, which fits that case.

Side by side

Data and coverage

Clay has no data set you can size. It sells access to 150+ partners through Data Credits, and its search runs over what Clay calls its GTM dataset (Clay docs, September 2026). Clay publishes no people or company count.

LeadMagic states 400M+ people, 25M+ companies and 46M+ job posts on its homepage (LeadMagic, September 2026). It also sells job change checks at 3 credits each and Google ad search (LeadMagic MCP, October 2026).

Neither tool publishes an email find rate or a phone coverage rate. Treat any such number you see in a vendor ad as unverified, and run a sample of 500 of your own contacts through each before you buy.

The result model differs. A Clay enrichment returns whatever the partner that answered returned, and a waterfall tries the next partner on a miss. LeadMagic returns an email only after it validates it, and a lookup that finds nothing is free.

Phones are a paid add-on on both sides. Clay locks phone enrichment out of the Free plan. LeadMagic charges 5 credits per valid mobile, five times an email.

API and developer experience

Clay's API is built around searches and routines, not a simple lookup. You authenticate with a clay-api-key header and run a function routine over a list of items. Then you poll for results (Clay docs, September 2026).

curl --request POST \
  --url "https://api.clay.com/public/v0/routines/function:t_abc123/run" \
  --header "Content-Type: application/json" \
  --header "clay-api-key: $CLAY_PUBLIC_API_KEY" \
  --data '{"items":[{"id":"row-1","inputs":{"domain":"acme.com"}}]}'

The call returns a routine_run_id. You then GET /routines/run/{id}/results until the status is complete. Tables are read-only through the API, and structured table queries need Enterprise (Clay docs, September 2026). Calling an outside API from a table, through the HTTP API column, starts on Growth.

LeadMagic's API is a single call per lookup. You send a name and domain and get back an email and a status, and a null result costs nothing (LeadMagic docs, September 2026).

curl -X POST "https://api.leadmagic.io/v1/people/email-finder" \
  -H "X-API-Key: $LEADMAGIC_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"first_name":"Jane","last_name":"Doe","domain":"acme.com"}'

On throughput, LeadMagic publishes numbers and Clay mostly does not. The email finder allows 600 requests a minute. Search is metered on Essential and Growth, at about 1 credit per returned person, and zero-credit on Professional and Ultimate (LeadMagic docs, September 2026). Clay returns HTTP 429 with a Retry-After header when you exceed its workspace limit, and gives no figure ahead of time.

Both ship an MCP server. Clay's connector exposes its providers, research agents and your saved functions inside Claude, ChatGPT and Codex. LeadMagic's server uses OAuth with no static API key and covers enrichment, jobs, ads and bulk CSV jobs (LeadMagic MCP, October 2026).

Pricing

Both vendors price in units, so the useful question is what 10,000 lookups cost. The figures below use monthly list prices. Yearly billing is cheaper on both.

10,000 lookups a month

Clay, work emails only. Clay's docs example prices an email find at 0.5 Data Credit plus one Action (Clay docs, September 2026). That is 10,000 x 0.5 = 5,000 credits and 10,000 Actions. On Launch, the 15,000 Action tier is $60 and the 6,000 credit tier is $290. The total is $60 + $290 = $350 a month (Clay pricing, September 2026). Real credit cost varies by provider, and a find that returns nothing is not charged.

Clay, fully enriched records. Clay's docs put a full record at 6 to 20 Data Credits. At the low end, 10,000 records need 60,000 credits. The largest self-serve credit tier is 50,000 a month at $2,125. The rest is extra credits at a 30 percent premium, or an Enterprise quote (Clay pricing, September 2026).

Clay, phones. Clay publishes no credit cost for a phone lookup. It shows inside a table next to the enrichment, and phone enrichment starts on Launch (Clay pricing, September 2026).

LeadMagic, work emails. 10,000 valid emails cost 10,000 credits at 1 credit each. Growth is $249 a month for 20,000 credits, or $208 a month billed yearly (LeadMagic pricing, September 2026). Misses are free, so this is the ceiling.

LeadMagic, mobiles. 10,000 mobiles at 5 credits each is 50,000 credits. That is Professional at $499 a month, or $416 billed yearly.

LeadMagic, email plus mobile. 10,000 people with both is 60,000 credits. That is Ultimate at $849 a month, or $708 billed yearly.

At 10,000 emails a month, LeadMagic costs $249 and Clay costs $350. Neither charges for a miss, so a lower hit rate stretches both allowances.

1M records a month

Clay has no public 1M price. 1M email lookups need 1M Actions, and the largest self-serve Action tier is 200,000 a month. Actions cannot be bought as top-ups, so the path above that is an Enterprise quote (Clay pricing, September 2026).

LeadMagic has no public 1M price either. Its largest plan, Ultimate, includes 100,000 credits a month for $849. Top-up prices and Enterprise credit rates are not published, and Enterprise starts at $2,490 a quarter (LeadMagic pricing, September 2026).

We do not multiply a list rate out to 1M for either tool. Neither vendor sells that volume at a published price, so any figure would be a guess.

Where Clay wins

No-code workflows. Clay is a table your ops team can edit without code. You add columns, set run conditions per column and watch each row run. LeadMagic has no equivalent builder.

Many sources in one place. A waterfall tries partner after partner on a miss. If you need a niche provider, Clay is one column away, and you can bring your own API keys to skip Data Credits (Clay pricing, September 2026).

AI research and signals. Claygent runs web research per row and is included on every plan, including Free. Clay also tracks job changes from Launch, and CRM sync is listed for Growth teams (Clay pricing, October 2026).

Where LeadMagic wins

Cheaper at low and mid volume. A valid email is 1 credit, and a miss is free. For 10,000 emails a month, Growth at $249 undercuts Clay's $350 entry arithmetic.

Published, simple API limits. One endpoint, one header and a documented 600 requests a minute make it easy to plan a job. Clay's Public API limit is a workspace figure you only learn by hitting 429.

Job posts, ads and CSV enrichment. LeadMagic lists 46M+ job posts and ad search, and enriches an uploaded CSV through the dashboard or MCP bulk tools (LeadMagic MCP, October 2026). It also plugs into Clay as a provider.

If you need volume through an API

If your limit is volume and a predictable bill, look at LeadOcean. It holds 693M people and 63M companies behind one REST API and a 12-tool MCP server, both included on the Free plan. Free is 1,000 records, one-off, with no card. Pro is $499 a month, flat, with no credits and no per-record price.

LeadOcean runs at 100 requests per second per key, and POST /v1/exports returns up to 50,000 rows per request. It has no table builder or rep workspace, so it replaces neither tool as a workflow. It is a data source you call in code or from an agent, including from inside a Clay HTTP API column on Growth.

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