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Head to head · Lead search · October 2026 research run

Clay vs People Data Labs

People Data Labs scores 64.2 (B) on agent readiness against Clay's 57.7 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Clay leads on schema & documentation and security & auth. 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 People Data LabsPeople Data Labs, Inc. · HTTP API B64.2/100#386 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 70
  • Security & auth, 48 against 43

Watch for

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

People Data Labs B

Best for Products and pipelines that enrich or search person and company records at volume and can write Elasticsearch or SQL queries.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 78 against 45
  • Agent ergonomics, 77 against 66
  • Payments & pricing, 35 against 30

Watch for

No OpenAPI file was found. The machine-readable material is a Postman collection and Elasticsearch mappings

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runClayPeople Data LabsEdge
Reliability16%204578People Data Labs +33
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.28470Clay +14
Agent ergonomics13%16.26677People Data Labs +11
Security & auth14%17.54843Clay +5
Payments & pricing10%12.53035People Data Labs +5
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.87579People Data Labs +4
Transparency & trust7%8.86467People Data Labs +3
Negative events≤1500
TotalC 57.7/100B 64.2/100

Facts side by side

FactClayPeople Data Labs
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorClay Labs Inc.People Data Labs, Inc.
Hosted endpointhttps://api.clay.com/public/v0https://api.peopledatalabs.com/v5
TransportsHTTPHTTP
AuthOAuth or keyAPI key
PricingFreemiumFreemium
x402nono
LicenceProprietary service under the Clay Terms of Service. The agent plugin repository carries no licence fileProprietary service under the Services Subscription Agreement. The Python and JavaScript SDKs are MIT
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
Last release2026-10-062026-09-16
Terms last updated2024-05-23couldn't be read
Privacy policy last updated2020-09-11couldn't be read
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the textcouldn't be read
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the textcouldn't be read
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the textcouldn't be read
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the textcouldn't be read
Arbitration or class-action waiveryescouldn't be read
Popularitynone40 stars, 133k npm/wk, 30k PyPI/wk

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.

People Data Labs

Monthly dated release notes, a free sandbox with synthetic data, response headers that report credits and rate limits, and a free plan of 100 records a month make the API easy to start with. No OpenAPI file was found, keys carry no scopes and may travel in the URL, and the agreement allows changes without notice.

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

People Data Labs

  1. Send the key in the X-Api-Key header. The api_key query parameter puts the secret in URLs and logs
  2. Build and test queries against https://sandbox.api.peopledatalabs.com/v5/... first. It costs no credits and allows five calls a minute
  3. Set size deliberately on search. Every record returned costs one credit, and responses over 1 MB fail
  4. Treat 404 on enrichment as no match, not an error, and 402 as credits exhausted. Neither is worth a retry
  5. On 429, wait until the x-ratelimit-reset time. Limits are fixed-window per key and per endpoint

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Clay or People Data Labs?

People Data Labs scores 64.2 (B) on agent readiness against Clay's 57.7 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Clay leads on schema & documentation and security & auth.

Do Clay and People Data Labs need an API key?

Clay takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in. People Data Labs needs an API key.

Can an agent call Clay and People Data Labs without installing anything?

Yes. Clay has a hosted endpoint at https://api.clay.com/public/v0 and People Data Labs at https://api.peopledatalabs.com/v5.

Other comparisons with Clay or People Data Labs

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