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Head to head · Lead search · October 2026 research run

Clay vs Explorium AgentSource

Clay scores 57.7 (C) on agent readiness against Explorium AgentSource's 48.1 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Explorium AgentSource leads on payments & pricing. Both do lead search.

Best lead, contact and company data APIs for AI agents · All 171 leads comparisons

ClayClay Labs Inc. · HTTP API C57.7/100#633 of 1076 Explorium AgentSourceExplorium Ltd. · HTTP API D48.1/100#880 of 1076

Which one, for what

Clay C

Best for Agents building prospect lists and enriching contacts or accounts through many providers at once.

Ahead on

  • Schema & documentation, 84 against 76
  • Security & auth, 48 against 37
  • Maintenance & community, 75 against 28
  • Transparency & trust, 64 against 59

Watch for

API keys carry no scopes and act with the user's workspace access

Explorium AgentSource D

Best for Agents that build prospect lists by filter and then enrich them, or that watch companies for events such as funding and role changes.

Ahead on

  • Payments & pricing, 40 against 30

Watch for

No status page was found, and no SLA is published

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runClayExplorium AgentSourceEdge
Reliability16%204542Clay +3
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.28476Clay +8
Agent ergonomics13%16.26663Clay +3
Security & auth14%17.54837Clay +11
Payments & pricing10%12.53040Explorium AgentSource +10
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.87528Clay +47
Transparency & trust7%8.86459Clay +5
Negative events≤150-2
TotalC 57.7/100D 48.1/100

Facts side by side

FactClayExplorium AgentSource
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorClay Labs Inc.Explorium Ltd.
Hosted endpointhttps://api.clay.com/public/v0https://api.explorium.ai
TransportsHTTPHTTP, Streamable HTTP, SSE (legacy)
AuthOAuth or keyAPI key
PricingFreemiumPay per use
x402nono
LicenceProprietary service under the Clay Terms of Service. The agent plugin repository carries no licence fileProprietary service under the Explorium Terms of Use. The mcp-explorium repository of connection files is MIT
Tools exposednone11
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
Last release2026-10-062026-09-02
Terms last updated2024-05-232026-06-14
Privacy policy last updated2020-09-112026-06-28
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the textnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the textyes
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the textyes
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the textyes
Arbitration or class-action waiveryesnot found in the text

Verdicts

Clay

A documented Public API with an OpenAPI spec, llms.txt and plan-capped search, plus a JSON-first CLI released several times a fortnight, give agents Clay's people search and multi-provider enrichment. Keys have no scopes, the Claude Code plugin auto-approves most CLI calls, and the privacy policy dates from 2020.

Explorium AgentSource

AgentSource v2 has a public OpenAPI 3.1 file, Markdown docs, a 200 queries a minute limit with Retry-After, public credit prices and a 100-credit trial. No status page or published SLA was found, each company shares one API key with no scopes, and the vendor's two published price tables disagree.

Before you call either

Clay

  1. Fetch GET /search/query-mode/reference before writing a search query
  2. Poll routine results until a terminal 200, since 202 means still running
  3. Expect HTTP 402 when a plan's search cap is hit, and tell the user the reset date
  4. Check GET /credits/balance before large batch runs
  5. Ask the user before enabling the plugin's auto-approve hook in a shared workspace

Explorium AgentSource

  1. Send the key in the api_key header to https://api.explorium.ai and use /v2 paths. v1 is deprecated
  2. Point MCP clients at https://mcp-v2.explorium.ai/mcp. The site's agent files still name the v1 server at mcp.explorium.ai
  3. Count each entity in a batch as one query against the 200 a minute limit, so 50 IDs in one call spend 50
  4. Call the statistics endpoint first to size an audience for free. Fetch costs 1 credit a result, or 2 with the Bombora intent filter
  5. Call /v2/autocomplete before filtering on category, tech stack or job title, and never mix two category types in one request

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Clay or Explorium AgentSource?

Clay scores 57.7 (C) on agent readiness against Explorium AgentSource's 48.1 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Explorium AgentSource leads on payments & pricing.

Do Clay and Explorium AgentSource need an API key?

Clay takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in. Explorium AgentSource needs an API key.

Can an agent call Clay and Explorium AgentSource without installing anything?

Yes. Clay has a hosted endpoint at https://api.clay.com/public/v0 and Explorium AgentSource at https://api.explorium.ai.

Other comparisons with Clay or Explorium AgentSource

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