Clay vs n8n
A detailed comparison to help you choose between Clay and n8n.
Clay AI-powered data enrichment and outreach | n8n Workflow automation that gives you control | |
|---|---|---|
| Rating | 3.9 (1 review) | 4.3 (1 review) |
| Pricing Model | freemium | freemium |
| Starting Price | Free tier available | Free tier available |
| Best For | GTM engineers and outbound teams who will pay for data quality and want one workbench for enrichment, signals, research, and campaign prep. | Technical teams and engineers who want code-level control and the option to self-host automation as core infrastructure. |
| Free Tier | ||
| API Access | ||
| Team Features | ||
| Open Source | ||
| Tags | free tierteam features | open sourcefree tierapi access |
| Visit Clay → | Visit n8n → |
Clay
Pros
- + Waterfall enrichment cut my blended per-contact cost roughly in half versus single-provider lookup (71% email coverage on 500 companies across three providers)
- + Two-meter pricing (Data Credits + Actions) is clearer than the old unified credit; Clay claims marketplace data prices dropped 50–90% in the redesign
- + 200+ data providers in one contract replaces a stack of separate enrichment subscriptions
- + Claygent research answered structured questions with source URLs on most rows in my test — useful when staged behind cheaper filters
- + Financially credible and shipping fast: $115M Series D at $7.1B valuation (clay.com/blog/series-d), 17k+ customers claimed
Cons
- - Real entry price is $185/mo (Launch) plus credit burn — the legacy $149 Starter figure floating around aggregators is outdated
- - Waterfall ordering is unforgiving: putting an expensive provider first tripled my credit burn for 5% more coverage in one test
- - Generalist automation is out of scope — no arbitrary SaaS triggers, no self-hosting; GTM data motions only
- - Some Series D "self-learning revenue engine" claims are roadmap, not what ships today; treat the agent story as vendor vision
- - Email accuracy still depends on underlying providers — I saw mid-single-digit bounce rates on best-effort results and ran downstream validation
n8n
Pros
- + Unlimited steps per execution: my 20-node nightly sync counted as one execution, so complexity stops driving cost (n8n.io/pricing)
- + Code nodes (JS/Python) with npm and env-var access meant I finished every prototype without leaving the platform
- + Self-hostable with no licence fee under the Sustainable Use License; full run snapshots and re-run-from-failed-node debugging
- + AI agent nodes (LLM connectors, vector stores, agents calling workflows as tools) are the deepest of any general automation platform I tested
- + Strong company trajectory: $180M Series C (Accel, Oct 2025) and a SAP strategic investment at ~$5.2B in May 2026
Cons
- - Not open source — the Sustainable Use License (fair-code) forbids offering n8n as a hosted service and fails OSI procurement checks
- - Assumes engineering literacy: JSON paths, expressions, and async data structures stumped every ops-only user I watched try it
- - Self-hosting carries real ops cost — queue mode, worker scaling and upgrades took me hours that a managed platform absorbs
- - Documentation is thin at the edges; AI node options and queue-mode config sent me to community forum threads
- - Business cloud tier is self-hosted-only at time of writing (cloud waitlisted), leaving a gap between Pro's 10K executions and Enterprise
Frequently Asked Questions
Which is better, Clay or n8n?▼
n8n scores higher at 4.3/5 vs 3.9/5 for Clay, making it the better-rated option in our comparison.
What is the difference between Clay and n8n?▼
Clay: Clay is a sales and marketing data platform that pulls contact and company data from 200+ providers, enriches it with AI agents, and powers targeted outreach for go-to-market teams. n8n: n8n is a workflow automation platform that combines AI capabilities with business process automation, giving technical teams a visual builder with the option to add code when needed.
Is Clay or n8n more affordable?▼
Clay starts at €0/mo, n8n starts at €0/mo. Check the comparison table above for current pricing.
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