# Clay vs People Data Labs

> People Data Labs scores 64.2 (B) to Clay's 57.7 (C) for lead search. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/clay-vs-people-data-labs
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/clay-vs-people-data-labs.md (~2,650 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/clay-vs-people-data-labs.min.md (~680 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/clay-vs-people-data-labs.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-14

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.

- Clay: grade C, 57.7/100, rank #633 of 1076. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/clay.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/clay.json
- People Data Labs: grade B, 64.2/100, rank #386 of 1076. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/people-data-labs.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/people-data-labs.json
- Best lead, contact and company data APIs for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/lead-data/index.md
- All 171 leads comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lead-data/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Clay (C)

Good 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)

Good 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

| Category | Weight | Clay | People Data Labs | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 45 | 78 | People Data Labs +33 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 84 | 70 | Clay +14 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 66 | 77 | People Data Labs +11 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 48 | 43 | Clay +5 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 30 | 35 | People Data Labs +5 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 75 | 79 | People Data Labs +4 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 64 | 67 | People Data Labs +3 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **57.7 · C** | **64.2 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Clay | People Data Labs |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Clay Labs Inc. | People Data Labs, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.clay.com/public/v0` | `https://api.peopledatalabs.com/v5` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under the Clay Terms of Service. The agent plugin repository carries no licence file | Proprietary service under the Services Subscription Agreement. The Python and JavaScript SDKs are MIT |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-06 | 2026-09-16 |
| Terms last updated | 2024-05-23 | couldn't be read |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2020-09-11 | couldn't be read |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | couldn't be read |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | couldn't be read |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | couldn't be read |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | couldn't be read |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | couldn't be read |
| Popularity | none | 40 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.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/clay-vs-people-data-labs.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/clay-vs-people-data-labs.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "clay", "b": "people-data-labs"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare clay people-data-labs`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/clay.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/people-data-labs.json

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