Clay vs Ortto in 2026: prospecting data engine vs unified CDP and journey automation
Clay builds the list and researches the people on it. Ortto takes customer data you already have and turns it into journeys, dashboards, and a live chat inbox in one product.
Clay
Ortto- Clay publishes pricing from $167/month; Ortto requires contacting sales at every tier, including its entry-level Professional plan.
- Ortto includes a built-in customer data platform that unifies CRM, product usage, and third-party data into live customer profiles; Clay does not build unified profiles, it enriches and researches individual contacts and companies on demand.
- Ortto ships a native live chat and support inbox called Talk; Clay has no support or live chat product at all.
- Clay's Claygent AI agent runs open-ended web research to find data points no provider tracks; Ortto has no equivalent AI research capability, its AI use is centered on journey automation and reporting.
- Ortto has been acquired by Canva, introducing some uncertainty about long-term pricing and roadmap direction.
- Clay includes unlimited seats on every plan, including the free tier; Ortto's per-seat cost is undisclosed since pricing is not public.
Clay and Ortto both call themselves marketing automation, but they sit on opposite sides of the funnel. Clay is a data infrastructure layer for finding and enriching prospects before outreach ever happens, built around a 150+ provider waterfall, Claygent AI research agents, and the natural language Sculptor builder, all with unlimited seats from $167/month. Ortto is a unified platform for companies that already have customer data flowing in from a CRM or product, and it wraps a built-in CDP, a visual journey builder, multi-channel messaging, analytics dashboards, and a live chat product called Talk into one subscription with pricing available only after a sales conversation. One tool exists to answer "who should we talk to." The other exists to answer "what do we do once we know."
The tools at a glance
Clay
GTM data infrastructure that connects 150+ data providers, runs AI research agents, and builds outbound workflows in natural language.
Clay solves a specific, upstream problem: getting reliable contact and company data without maintaining five separate vendor contracts. The waterfall runs a query across 150-plus providers in priority order, taking the first verified result, which produces better coverage than any single source and lets teams control cost by ordering cheaper providers first.
Claygent pushes past what structured data can offer. It performs actual web research, so if a table needs to know whether a company just raised a Series B or changed its hiring plans, Claygent goes and finds that instead of returning a blank field. Sculptor takes that a step further by letting someone describe a workflow in plain language and generating the table logic automatically, which lowers the bar for teams that do not want to learn Clay's formula syntax from scratch.
Clay is not a customer data platform in the CDP sense; it does not ingest ongoing product usage events or maintain a persistent unified profile the way Ortto does. Its email sequencer and Audiences feature close the loop from research to first contact, but once a prospect becomes a customer with product usage history, Clay is not the tool tracking that relationship over time.
| Feature | Free $0/mo | Launch $167/mo | Growth $446/mo | Enterprise Contact |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Actions per month | 500 | from 15,000 | from 50,000 | Custom |
| Multi-provider waterfall | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Claygent AI research | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Native email sequencer | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| CRM sync | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Unlimited seats | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Ortto
Marketing automation, CDP, analytics, and customer support in one platform built for SaaS and high-growth teams.
Ortto starts from the premise that most marketing automation tools force you to build a data pipeline before the automation is worth anything. Its built-in CDP ingests events from CRMs, product analytics, and other integrations, then makes that data usable immediately inside a visual, no-code journey builder without requiring a data engineering project first.
The journey builder triggers email, SMS, push, and in-app messages off real product behavior rather than static list membership, and custom activities let teams define exactly what engagement should count. Analytics dashboards and lead scoring connect that activity back to pipeline outcomes without needing SQL. On top of automation, Ortto bundles Talk, a live chat widget and shared inbox that gives support agents the same customer history the marketing side is working from, which is a genuine differentiator from tools that treat support as a separate purchase.
The catches are pricing opacity and recent change of ownership. Every tier requires a sales conversation, which slows down evaluation for self-serve buyers, and Ortto's acquisition by Canva means the roadmap and pricing structure could shift. Ortto also is not built for B2B cold outreach or data enrichment; it assumes the contacts in its CDP already exist as leads or customers, not a cold list that needs building from scratch.
| Feature | Professional Contact for pricing | Business Contact for pricing | Enterprise Contact for pricing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Journey builder | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Built-in CDP | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Live chat (Talk) | No | Yes | Yes |
| Lead scoring | No | Yes | Yes |
| Custom activities | No | Yes | Yes |
| API access | No | Yes | Yes |
Head-to-head feature comparison
| Feature | Clay | Ortto |
|---|---|---|
| Published pricing | Yes, published tiers | No, requires sales conversation |
| Prospect data enrichment | 150+ providers via waterfall | Not a data enrichment product |
| AI research agent | Yes (Claygent) | No equivalent capability |
| Built-in CDP | No, not a persistent CDP | Yes, built in from Professional |
| Journey / lifecycle automation | Not the core focus | Yes, visual journey builder |
| Live chat and support inbox | None | Yes, native (Talk) |
| Multi-channel messaging | Native email sequencer only | Email, SMS, push, in-app |
| Lead scoring | Not a built-in feature | Yes, from Business up |
| Unlimited seats | Yes | Not disclosed, pricing is private |
| CRM integration | Yes, from Growth up | Yes |
| Free tier / demo model | Free plan, 500 actions/month | Demo only, no published free tier |
| Starting price | $167/mo (Launch) | Contact for pricing |
Which should you choose?
ClayOrttoOrttoClayClayOrttoClay and Ortto rarely compete for the same dollar because they operate on opposite sides of the same funnel. Clay is upstream, built for finding and researching people who do not know you exist yet. Ortto is downstream, built for automating what happens once those people are already in your CRM or product as leads or customers. A company doing serious outbound and running a SaaS product with lifecycle marketing could reasonably run both without overlap.
Bottom line
Choose Clay if your problem is finding, verifying, and researching prospects before outreach, and you want published pricing you can start on today. Choose Ortto if you already have customer or product data and want a unified CDP, journey builder, and support inbox instead of stitching together three separate vendors, and you are comfortable working through a sales process to see pricing. Buying Clay expecting CDP functionality, or Ortto expecting a prospecting database, will leave you needing a second tool either way.
Frequently asked questions
Does Clay work as a customer data platform like Ortto?
No, Clay does not maintain a persistent unified customer profile the way Ortto's built-in CDP does. Clay is built for enriching and researching contacts and companies on demand for prospecting purposes, not for ongoing tracking of product usage and lifecycle behavior across an existing customer base.
Why does Ortto not publish pricing while Clay does?
Ortto requires a sales conversation at every tier, likely reflecting its positioning as a broader platform sale involving CDP, automation, and support in one contract, a structure common among tools targeting mid-market and enterprise SaaS buyers. Clay publishes flat tiers starting at $167/month for Launch because it is designed as a self-serve product teams can start using immediately.
Can Ortto replace Clay for B2B prospecting and data enrichment?
No, Ortto has no data enrichment waterfall or AI research agent comparable to Clay's Claygent, and it is explicitly not well suited to B2B cold outreach according to its own positioning. Ortto assumes contacts already exist in its CDP as leads or customers rather than needing to be sourced from external data providers.
Is Ortto a good fit for eCommerce brands the way it is for SaaS companies?
Ortto is primarily positioned for SaaS and tech companies where product usage data drives automation, not eCommerce brands, which are typically better served by platforms with native Shopify integrations and cart-abandonment logic. This is a separate consideration from the Clay comparison, since Clay is also not built for eCommerce use cases.
What happened with the Ortto and Canva acquisition?
Ortto announced it is joining Canva, which adds uncertainty about future product direction and pricing changes for existing customers. Anyone evaluating Ortto against Clay right now should factor in that its roadmap may shift post-acquisition in ways that are not yet public.
Does Clay include live chat or support tools like Ortto's Talk product?
No, Clay has no live chat, shared inbox, or knowledge base product at all; it is focused entirely on data enrichment, research, and outbound workflows. Ortto's Talk product, a native live chat and support inbox connected to its CDP, has no equivalent anywhere in Clay.