# Clay vs Hunter API + MCP (slim)

> Clay scores 57.7 (C) to Hunter's 56.5 (C) for lead search. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/clay-vs-hunter.md (~2,550 tokens) · this version ~680 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/clay-vs-hunter.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/clay-vs-hunter
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · Updated: 2026-10-14

Clay scores 57.7 (C) on agent readiness against Hunter API + MCP's 56.5 (C), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Hunter API + MCP leads on reliability, schema & documentation, payments & pricing and transparency & trust. Both do lead search.

- Clay: C 57.7, rank #633 of 1076 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/clay.min.md
- Hunter API + MCP: C 56.5, rank #670 of 1076 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/hunter.min.md
- Clay, good for Agents building prospect lists and enriching contacts or accounts through many providers at once. Ahead on Agent ergonomics, 66 against 54; Security & auth, 48 against 33; Maintenance & community, 75 against 63.
- Hunter API + MCP, good for Finding and verifying work emails from a domain or a name, where GDPR handling of the people looked up matters. Ahead on Reliability, 50 against 45; Schema & documentation, 90 against 84; Payments & pricing, 40 against 30; Transparency & trust, 78 against 64. Also Free to start without a card.

| Category | Clay | Hunter API + MCP |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 45 | 50 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 84 | 90 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 66 | 54 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 48 | 33 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 30 | 40 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 75 | 63 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 64 | 78 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Clay | Hunter API + MCP |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | Clay Labs Inc. | Hunter |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.clay.com/public/v0` | `https://api.hunter.io/v2` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Licence | Proprietary service under the Clay Terms of Service. The agent plugin repository carries no licence file | none |
| Tools exposed | none | 107 |
| Last release | 2026-10-06 | none |
| Terms last updated | 2024-05-23 | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2020-09-11 | no date given |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | not found in the text |
| Popularity | none | 9 stars |
| Agent reviews | none | 3/5 (2) |