Clay is a data enrichment platform built for RevOps engineers. Triage is an outbound prep tool built for the rep sitting in front of a call list. Here's how they actually compare.
Clay is a data enrichment platform for RevOps teams. Triage is an outbound prep tool for reps. They're not really competing — but if you're choosing between them, this page will help you figure out which one solves your actual problem.
| Triage | Clay | |
|---|---|---|
| Who it's for | SDRs, BDRs, AEs, founders doing their own outreach. Anyone who preps for sales conversations. | RevOps engineers, growth teams, and technical marketers building automated enrichment pipelines. |
| Setup time | ✓ Upload a CSV and go. Any rep is running in under 2 minutes. No technical knowledge needed. | Hours to days. Clay requires building workflows, connecting data providers, and learning its table/recipe model. |
| Free tier | ✓ Yes — 50 credits/month, forever. No card required. | ✕ No free tier. 14-day trial only. |
| Starting price | ✓ £0/month (Pro from £29/month) | $149/month (Starter). Enterprise plans $800+/month. |
| Primary function | Surface signals about a specific company (homepage changes, job posts, blog topics) and generate hook options for reps. | Enrich contact and company data at scale using waterfall enrichment across 100+ data providers. |
| Data enrichment | ~ Email verification (ZeroBounce) + enrichment on paid tier (PDL). Not the primary focus. | ✓ Core product. Waterfall enrichment tries multiple providers sequentially for maximum coverage. |
| Signal surfacing | ✓ Yes — scans company homepage, recent blog posts, and job postings for timely conversation hooks. | ✕ Not a signal-surfacing tool. Clay enriches structured data, not live company intent signals. |
| Hook / angle suggestions | ✓ Yes — gives reps 3–5 specific hook options to choose from, based on what's happening at the company right now. | ✕ Not a core feature. Clay can feed data into AI prompts, but hook generation isn't purpose-built. |
| AI email generation | ✓ Rep chooses a hook, then Triage drafts a first-touch email. Rep edits before sending. | ~ Can generate AI copy as part of a workflow, but it's a byproduct of enrichment, not a guided drafting experience. |
| CRM integration | ~ Pipedrive (Phase 1), HubSpot (Phase 2), Salesforce (Phase 3). | ✓ Deep CRM integrations. Push enriched data directly to Salesforce, HubSpot, and others. |
| Learning curve | ✓ Minimal. Built for reps, not engineers. If you can use a spreadsheet, you can use Triage. | Steep. Clay has a dedicated community, documentation library, and certification program — because you need them. |
Clay is genuinely excellent at what it does. Here are the situations where it's the right call:
Clay's waterfall enrichment and 100+ integrations are unmatched. If you're building automated workflows to keep CRM data clean and complete, Clay is a best-in-class tool.
If you're enriching thousands of contacts and need to maximise email and phone coverage by trying multiple data vendors sequentially, Clay's waterfall model is exactly right.
Clay rewards investment. If you have someone who can learn the platform properly and build sophisticated tables and recipes, the output quality is exceptional.
If your team is manually Googling companies and reading homepages before outreach, Triage automates exactly that. 5 minutes of research becomes 30 seconds.
Clay's $149/month minimum and technical setup make it impractical for solo reps or small teams. Triage starts free and works on day one.
Triage is about making each conversation better — surfacing what's happening at a company right now, so reps can open with something relevant instead of a generic pitch.
Yes — and it's actually one of the cleanest workflows in outbound. Clay and Triage sit at different points in the process:
Use Clay to build and enrich your contact list — waterfall-enriching emails, phones, and company data. Then use Triage to prep your reps for each specific conversation — surfacing live signals and generating hook options before they reach out.
Think of it as Clay handling the infrastructure layer (who to contact, what their details are) and Triage handling the conversation layer (what to actually say).
50 credits, no card required. Upload a CSV and get your first batch of prep briefs in minutes.
Start free — no card needed