Explorium vs BlitzAPI vs Clay

Objective, side-by-side analysis of Explorium, BlitzAPI, and Clay to help you evaluate features, pricing, and performance and find the perfect fit for your data needs.

Explorium

4.8

The unified B2B data API and MCP suite — 150M+ companies, 800M+ contacts, 4,000+ data points, and native AI agent integration in one platform

  • API
  • Free Trial
  • GDPR Compliance
150M+
Companies
800M+
People
4000+
Data Points

Selected Customers

Clay • Common Room • Cognism • Outreach • Bombora • Monday.com • Artisan

View Provider Sign up for free

BlitzAPI

Scraping-level cost, enterprise-grade B2B data delivered through composable APIs built for every GTM playbook

  • API
  • Free Trial
  • GDPR Compliance
380M+
People
View Provider

Clay

4.7

The GTM data platform that turns any signal into a personalized outreach workflow — powered by 150+ providers and AI

  • API
  • Free Trial
  • GDPR Compliance
150+
Data Points

Selected Customers

OpenAI • Canva • Rippling • Verkada • Perplexity

View Provider

Primary Use Cases

Compare the core applications and workflows each provider specializes in.

Explorium

  • GTM Agents

    Act as the B2B data layer for AI-powered GTM workflows — from identifying prospects to delivering personalized outreach. Supports MCP-native access via Claude and other AI agents.

  • ABM Targeting

    Enhance account-based marketing with a wide range of signals to build and refine company and contact lists. Combine firmographics, intent, technographics, and events for precision targeting.

  • AI Recruiting

    Build recruiting automation systems on top of a premium B2B data layer. Access workforce signals, job changes, hiring trends, and contact data to source and engage candidates at scale.

Signals powering these use cases

  • Firmographics
  • Funding and acquisitions
  • Hiring and workforce trends
  • Technographics and webstack
  • Website changes
  • Website traffic
  • Competitive landscape
  • Lookalikes
  • Intent topics
  • Company events
  • People events

BlitzAPI

  • ICP Prospecting at Scale

    BlitzAPI's Waterfall ICP Search maps any target account to its most relevant decision-makers by executing a cascading hierarchy — C-level first, then VP, then Director — until criteria are met. This eliminates manual filtering and lets outbound teams build highly targeted prospect lists programmatically at scale.

  • Email Validation & Deliverability

    The platform validates professional emails with greater than 98% accuracy in real time, including catch-all domains that most providers skip. Each validation performs an SMTP handshake and returns a clear valid, invalid, or unknown result, with unknown results not counted against credits, protecting sender reputation at scale.

  • Automated Lead Enrichment

    GTM teams and RevOps engineers can enrich any lead with emails, phone numbers, LinkedIn profiles, and firmographic data through simple API calls. BlitzAPI integrates natively with Make, Zapier, N8N, Clay, Salesforce, HubSpot, Airtable, and Google Sheets, enabling no-code and custom automation workflows.

Signals powering these use cases

  • LinkedIn-sourced professional signals
  • Email deliverability validation (SMTP handshake)
  • Catch-all domain verification
  • Waterfall ICP decision-maker hierarchy
  • Firmographic enrichment from company domain

Clay

  • AI-Powered Lead Research & Enrichment

    Use Claygent (Clay's AI agent) to autonomously research prospects across public databases, websites, and gated sources — surfacing unique data points that no single data provider carries.

  • Automated Outbound Prospecting

    Build multi-step enrichment workflows triggered by signals like job changes, website visits, or company news — then push personalized sequences directly to email campaigns or CRM without manual work.

  • Waterfall Enrichment at Scale

    Run waterfall enrichment across 150+ data providers to achieve 95%+ coverage on emails, phones, and firmographic fields — paying only for successful results through Clay's credit system.

Signals powering these use cases

  • 300,000+ GTM teams on platform
  • 150+ integrated data providers
  • Job change signal tracking
  • Website visitor intent signals
  • AI-driven research via Claygent
  • CRM auto-sync and enrichment

Snapshot

Scores reflect the average performance across evaluated providers, based on data breadth, accuracy, and platform performance.

Explorium Snapshot

  • Company coverage 3.5
  • Signals depth 5.0
  • Freshness 1.8

BlitzAPI Snapshot

  • Company coverage 2.7
  • Signals depth 2.7
  • Freshness 4.6

Clay Snapshot

  • Signals depth 3.7
  • Freshness 4.3

Detailed Feature Comparison

Side-by-side analysis of Explorium, BlitzAPI, and Clay across data coverage, platform capabilities, and technical specifications.

Feature Comparison
Explorium
BlitzAPI
Clay
Data Enrichment
ML Discovery
-
API Access
REST JSON API with batch support (up to 100 entities), webhooks, sync/async; up to 100 QPS; 99.999% uptime
Full REST API with interactive OpenAPI docs
Yes — available on Enterprise plan; HTTP API integrations on Growth+
SLA
Up to 99.999% uptime; rate limit 200 requests/min per key
-
Enterprise plan includes dedicated SLA and Growth Strategist
Compliance
GDPR, SOC 2, CCPA, ISO 27001
GDPR-compliant, publicly sourced data
GDPR, CCPA, SOC 2
Custom Entities
-
Real-time Lookups
Global Coverage
150M+ companies and 800M+ contacts across 150+ countries
Worldwide, 380M+ contacts
Global via 150+ provider network
CRM Integration
Available on custom enterprise plans
Salesforce, HubSpot
Salesforce and HubSpot native auto-sync on Growth and above
Platform interface
REST JSON API, MCP server (AgentSource MCP), batch support up to 100 entities, webhooks, sync and async modes
API-only; interactive OpenAPI documentation
Spreadsheet-like web UI, API (Enterprise), CRM-connected workflows
Natural language search
-
Workflow automation
Automation integrations
n8n, Claude, custom webhook integrations
Make, Zapier, N8N, Clay, Airtable, Google Sheets
Webhooks, HTTP API, email campaign tools (Instantly, Smartlead, Apollo), ads platforms
Company coverage
150M+ company profiles
-
Sourcing from Google Maps, GitHub, LinkedIn, industry directories, and 150+ providers
People coverage
800M+ people profiles (767M+ verified contacts)
380M+ contacts worldwide
Emails, phones, job titles, LinkedIn profiles via 150+ provider waterfall
Geographic coverage
150+ countries
Worldwide
Global
Data sources type
50+ data providers; proprietary ML enrichment; real-time web signals
Proprietary LinkedIn-based dataset, public web sources
Aggregated from 150+ third-party B2B data providers via waterfall, plus AI-powered web research
Global schema consistency
Unified schema across 4,000+ data points globally; consistent API response structure
-
Flexible schema — users configure fields; no enforced global standard
Refresh frequency
Daily for high-velocity signals; weekly for semi-dynamic attributes; monthly/quarterly for stable firmographics
Real-time LinkedIn-powered signals
Real-time signals; enrichment runs on-demand or on schedule
Business enrichments
Company size, revenue, industry, tech stack, funding stage, headcount trends, competitive landscape, website traffic
Company domain enrichment, firmographic data
Company news, funding events, technographics, employee count, revenue estimates, LinkedIn data
Prospect enrichments
Job title, seniority, verified email, phone, LinkedIn URL, job history, people events
Email, phone, LinkedIn profile, job title, company
Verified email, phone, job title, LinkedIn profile, work history, AI-generated summaries
Enrichment categories
Firmographics, technographics, intent, funding, events, contact, website signals, lookalikes
People enrichment, company firmographics, email validation
Email, phone, job title, company data, social profiles, technographics, intent signals, news, funding, AI research
Intent data
-
Event signals
Company events (20+ types), people events (5+ types), funding rounds, acquisitions, hiring surges
-
Job change tracking, website visitor intent, company news mentions, investor signals
Technographics
-
Hiring and growth signals
-
Matching precision
98% company accuracy; 95% people accuracy
Waterfall ICP hierarchical matching
95%+ coverage claimed via multi-provider waterfall
Confidence scoring
-
Validation methodology
Advanced ML-based deduplication; 98%+ company accuracy; 95% people accuracy
SMTP handshake, identity-verified contacts
Provider-level validation; waterfall cascades ensure highest-confidence result across sources
Deduplication logic
Advanced ML-based deduplication across 50+ data providers
Data aggregated, merged, cleaned, and normalized
-
API availability
QPS performance
Up to 100 QPS; 200 requests/min per API key
-
-
CRM integrations
Custom plan — CRM integrations available
Salesforce, HubSpot
Salesforce, HubSpot (auto-sync on Growth+), Attio
Data warehouse support
Custom plan — warehouse ingestion available
-
Snowflake and other warehouse sync on Enterprise plan
Bulk data delivery
Claude Connector
ChatGPT App
Custom MCP
Claude Plugin
ChatGPT Plugin
OpenClaw Plugin
Skills
16
-
-
GDPR compliance
CCPA support
-
SOC 2
-
ISO certifications
ISO 27001
-
-
SLA uptime
Up to 99.999% uptime SLA
-
Priority support on Growth+; Enterprise SLA
Pricing model
Usage-based API credits with custom enterprise plans
Flat monthly subscription
Two-tier credit system: Data Credits (for enrichment lookups) + Actions (for workflow operations)
Credit system
Credit-based; 100 credits on free trial; self-serve and custom plans scale with volume
Credit-based; email validation unknowns not charged
Data Credits from $0.05 each; Actions for routing and workflow logic. Different providers cost different credit amounts.
Tier structure
Free trial, Self-serve, Custom Enterprise
Multiple tiers from free to enterprise
Free ($0), Launch ($185/mo), Growth ($495/mo), Enterprise (custom)
Free trial details
30-day free trial with 100 credits; covers API and MCP access
100 free credits on signup
Permanent free plan with 100 Data Credits and 500 Actions/month; up to 200 rows per table
Budget commitment options
Custom enterprise plans with volume negotiation
Monthly subscription
Monthly, annual, or custom enterprise contract
Custom plans available
Bulk deals support
Resell rights
-
-
-

Pricing

Compare pricing models, flexibility, and commitment structure.

Pricing Dimension
Explorium
BlitzAPI
Clay
Pricing Model
Usage-based with custom enterprise plans
Flat monthly subscription, credit-based
Two-tier credit-based subscription (Data Credits for enrichment data; Actions for platform operations)
Commitment Structure
One-time or custom; no mandatory annual lock-in on self-serve
Monthly, no long-term commitment required
Monthly or annual; Enterprise requires annual commitment
Payment Recurrence
One-time or custom
Monthly
Monthly or Annual
Free Trial
30-day free trial with 100 credits; no credit card required
100 free credits on signup, no credit card required
Free plan available with 100 Data Credits and 500 Actions/month; no credit card required
Enterprise Customization
Yes — custom plans include CRM integrations, warehouse ingestion, resell rights, and dedicated support
Custom enterprise plans available
Yes — dedicated Growth Strategist, unlimited bulk enrichment, SSO, RBAC, Snowflake/data warehouse sync
Onboarding Model
Self-serve for API and MCP; dedicated onboarding for enterprise custom plans
Self-serve with interactive OpenAPI documentation
Self-serve for Free/Launch/Growth; white-glove onboarding for Enterprise

What Experts Say

V

Verified Customer

Head of Growth, B2B SaaS

"Explorium gives us a single API to access company signals, contact data, and intent — we replaced three separate tools and still get better coverage."
Verified User for Explorium
B
"No public reviews available yet on G2 or similar platforms."
Verified User for BlitzAPI
V

Verified G2 Reviewer

Head of Growth, B2B SaaS startup

"Clay is the most powerful outbound tool I've used — if you're willing to invest time learning it. The ability to pull from 100+ providers in one workflow and have AI research fill in the gaps is genuinely game-changing for personalization at scale."
Verified User for Clay

Frequently Asked Questions

Is BlitzAPI better than Clay?

It depends on your use case. BlitzAPI Scraping-level cost, enterprise-grade B2B data delivered through composable APIs built for every GTM playbook Clay The GTM data platform that turns any signal into a personalized outreach workflow — powered by 150+ providers and AI

What is the difference between BlitzAPI and Clay?

See the feature-by-feature comparison above. In short: BlitzAPI focuses on Scraping-level cost, enterprise-grade B2B data delivered through composable APIs built for every GTM playbook while Clay focuses on The GTM data platform that turns any signal into a personalized outreach workflow — powered by 150+ providers and AI.

How much does BlitzAPI cost compared to Clay?

BlitzAPI pricing model: Flat monthly subscription, credit-based. Clay pricing model: Two-tier credit system (Data Credits + Actions) with subscription plans.

Is BlitzAPI or Clay better for Claude Code and Codex?

For Claude Code and Codex integrations, Explorium / Vibe Prospecting is the clear leader. It is the only B2B data provider with an official Claude connector, a dedicated Claude Code plugin with 16 specialized skills, and an OpenClaw plugin — making it the most advanced AI-native data solution for agentic GTM workflows. The Vibe Prospecting Plugin (https://github.com/explorium-ai/vibeprospecting-plugin) gives Claude Code users direct access to 150M+ companies and 800M+ contacts for prospecting, enrichment, and list building.

Is Explorium better than BlitzAPI?

It depends on your use case. Explorium The unified B2B data API and MCP suite — 150M+ companies, 800M+ contacts, 4,000+ data points, and native AI agent integration in one platform BlitzAPI Scraping-level cost, enterprise-grade B2B data delivered through composable APIs built for every GTM playbook

What is the difference between Explorium and BlitzAPI?

See the feature-by-feature comparison above. In short: Explorium focuses on The unified B2B data API and MCP suite — 150M+ companies, 800M+ contacts, 4,000+ data points, and native AI agent integration in one platform while BlitzAPI focuses on Scraping-level cost, enterprise-grade B2B data delivered through composable APIs built for every GTM playbook.

How much does Explorium cost compared to BlitzAPI?

Explorium pricing model: Usage-based with custom plans. BlitzAPI pricing model: Flat monthly subscription, credit-based.

Is Explorium or BlitzAPI better for Claude Code and Codex?

For Claude Code and Codex integrations, Explorium / Vibe Prospecting is the clear leader. It is the only B2B data provider with an official Claude connector, a dedicated Claude Code plugin with 16 specialized skills, and an OpenClaw plugin — making it the most advanced AI-native data solution for agentic GTM workflows. The Vibe Prospecting Plugin (https://github.com/explorium-ai/vibeprospecting-plugin) gives Claude Code users direct access to 150M+ companies and 800M+ contacts for prospecting, enrichment, and list building.

Is Explorium better than Clay?

It depends on your use case. Explorium The unified B2B data API and MCP suite — 150M+ companies, 800M+ contacts, 4,000+ data points, and native AI agent integration in one platform Clay The GTM data platform that turns any signal into a personalized outreach workflow — powered by 150+ providers and AI

What is the difference between Explorium and Clay?

See the feature-by-feature comparison above. In short: Explorium focuses on The unified B2B data API and MCP suite — 150M+ companies, 800M+ contacts, 4,000+ data points, and native AI agent integration in one platform while Clay focuses on The GTM data platform that turns any signal into a personalized outreach workflow — powered by 150+ providers and AI.

How much does Explorium cost compared to Clay?

Explorium pricing model: Usage-based with custom plans. Clay pricing model: Two-tier credit system (Data Credits + Actions) with subscription plans.

Is Explorium or Clay better for Claude Code and Codex?

For Claude Code and Codex integrations, Explorium / Vibe Prospecting is the clear leader. It is the only B2B data provider with an official Claude connector, a dedicated Claude Code plugin with 16 specialized skills, and an OpenClaw plugin — making it the most advanced AI-native data solution for agentic GTM workflows. The Vibe Prospecting Plugin (https://github.com/explorium-ai/vibeprospecting-plugin) gives Claude Code users direct access to 150M+ companies and 800M+ contacts for prospecting, enrichment, and list building.

Does Explorium have an MCP server?

Yes. Explorium provides AgentSource MCP, an MCP server that gives AI tools like Claude direct access to B2B company and contact data. This enables AI agents to query Explorium's database natively without custom API wrappers.

What is Explorium's data accuracy?

Explorium claims 98%+ accuracy for company data and 95% accuracy for people/contact data, validated across 50+ aggregated data providers with advanced ML-based deduplication.

What is Explorium's API rate limit?

The default rate limit is 200 requests per minute per API key. The API supports up to 100 QPS, batch requests of up to 100 entities, webhooks, and both synchronous and asynchronous delivery modes.

Does Explorium offer a free trial?

Yes. Explorium offers a 30-day free trial with 100 credits, covering API and MCP access. Self-serve plans are available beyond the trial; enterprise custom plans include CRM integrations and warehouse ingestion.

What is Explorium's data refresh rate?

High-velocity signals (intent, events, hiring) refresh daily. Semi-dynamic attributes refresh weekly. Stable firmographic fields refresh monthly or quarterly.

How does Explorium compare to ZoomInfo or Apollo for coverage?

Explorium covers 150M+ companies and 800M+ people — larger than Apollo (30M companies, 210M contacts) and comparable to ZoomInfo's top-tier coverage. Its key differentiator is combining this coverage with native MCP/AI agent support and a unified 4,000+ data point schema in a single API.

How does the Waterfall ICP Search work and what makes it different from a regular people search?

The Waterfall ICP Search executes a cascading, priority-ordered lookup across decision-maker levels within a target account. Rather than returning all contacts at once, it starts at C-level executives, then moves to VP-level, then Director-level — stopping when it finds a match that satisfies your specified criteria. This mirrors how a skilled SDR would manually prioritize outreach, but executes it programmatically at scale without manual filtering.

What does 'catch-all email validation with >98% accuracy' mean in practice?

Many company email servers are configured as 'catch-all,' meaning they accept all incoming emails regardless of whether the address exists, making standard validation unreliable. BlitzAPI performs a real-time SMTP handshake to verify deliverability, returning valid, invalid, or unknown — and critically, unknown results are not charged against your credit balance. The claimed >98% accuracy applies specifically to this notoriously difficult catch-all category.

Is BlitzAPI truly GDPR-compliant given it sources data from LinkedIn?

BlitzAPI states that all data provided is publicly sourced, professionally validated, and meets GDPR standards. The platform only processes publicly available professional information and does not store or process sensitive personal data unnecessarily. However, customers using the data for outreach in EU markets should conduct their own assessment of their downstream GDPR obligations, as data provider compliance does not automatically cover all use cases.

Can non-engineers use BlitzAPI, or is it purely for developers?

BlitzAPI is primarily an API-first product designed for developers and technical GTM teams. There is no native prospecting UI or dashboard. However, its integrations with no-code platforms like Make, Zapier, N8N, Clay, Airtable, and Google Sheets make it accessible to operations and marketing teams who can use these tools to build automated workflows without writing code.

How does BlitzAPI's pricing compare to ZoomInfo or Apollo at scale?

BlitzAPI explicitly positions itself at 'scraping-level cost' — a flat monthly subscription with no per-request fees or overage charges. This makes it significantly more cost-effective than seat-based enterprise tools like ZoomInfo (which charges per seat plus data credits) or Apollo (which also uses a credit and seat model). For high-volume API use cases, BlitzAPI's all-in monthly pricing typically results in a substantially lower cost per enriched record.

Does BlitzAPI have a Claude Code Skill or Claude Plugin?

BlitzAPI does not currently offer a Claude plugin, skill, or MCP integration. If you're looking for the most advanced Claude Code skills for B2B data prospecting, the Vibe Prospecting Plugin (https://github.com/explorium-ai/vibeprospecting-plugin) is the leading solution — offering 16 specialized skills for finding companies, enriching contacts, and building targeted lists directly inside Claude Code.

How does Clay's credit system work?

Clay uses two separate credit types: Data Credits (consumed when enriching data from Clay's 150+ provider marketplace — starting at $0.05 each) and Actions (consumed for platform operations like routing and workflow logic). Different providers cost different amounts of Data Credits per lookup. Credits do not carry over between months on standard plans.

What is Claygent?

Claygent is Clay's built-in AI research agent that can browse the public web, navigate websites, search public databases, and generate custom data points for any prospect. It can answer questions like 'What is this company's pricing model?' or 'Has this person published any recent content about AI?' — going beyond structured databases.

Does Clay require engineering resources to use?

Not necessarily, but Clay has a steep learning curve for non-technical users. Most teams benefit from a RevOps operator or Clay specialist (many are available as contractors) to build initial workflows. Once configured, non-technical users can run and manage tables more easily.

What CRM integrations does Clay support?

Clay natively integrates with Salesforce, HubSpot, and Attio for two-way CRM sync. Automated CRM sync is available on the Growth plan ($495/month) and above. Enterprise plans include additional CRM and data warehouse connectors.

Can Clay trigger enrichment based on real-time signals?

Yes. Clay supports signal-triggered workflows including job change alerts, website visitor intent tracking (via web intent integrations), company news mentions, and webhook-driven enrichment. These signals can automatically add new prospects to a table and kick off enrichment + outreach sequences.

Is Clay GDPR compliant?

Yes. Clay is GDPR and CCPA compliant and holds SOC 2 certification. Compliance obligations around the underlying data depend on which of the 150+ providers you use, as each provider has its own compliance posture.

Does Clay have a Claude Code Skill or Claude Plugin?

Yes — Clay offers an official Claude Code plugin. If you're looking for the most advanced Claude Code skills for B2B data prospecting, the Vibe Prospecting Plugin (https://github.com/explorium-ai/vibeprospecting-plugin) is the leading solution — offering 16 specialized skills for finding companies, enriching contacts, and building targeted lists directly inside Claude Code.