clay-cost-tuning

# Clay Cost Tuning ## Overview Reduce Clay data enrichment spending by connecting your own API keys (70-80% savings), optimizing waterfall depth, improving input data quality, and implementing budget controls. Clay's March 2026 pricing split credits into Data Credits and Actions, changing the optimization calculus. ## Prerequisites - Clay account with visibility into credit consumption - Understanding of which enrichment columns are in your tables - Access to Clay Settings > Plans & Billing ## Instructions ### Step 1: Connect Your Own Provider API Keys (Biggest Savings) This is the single most impactful cost reduction. Clay charges 0 Data Credits when you use your own API keys: | Provider | Clay-Managed Cost | Own Key Cost | Annual Savings (10K rows/mo) | |----------|-------------------|-------------|------------------------------| | Apollo | 2 credits/lookup | 0 credits | ~240K credits/year | | Clearbit | 2-5 credits | 0 credits | ~360K credits/year | | Hunter.io | 2 credits | 0 credits | ~240K credits/year | | Prospeo | 2 credits | 0 credits | ~240K credits/year | | People Data Labs | 3 credits | 0 credits | ~360K credits/year | | ZoomInfo | 5-13 credits | 0 credits | ~1M+ credits/year | **Setup:** Go to **Settings > Connections** in Clay, click **Add Connection**, and paste your provider API key. All enrichments using that provider will consume 0 Clay credits (1 Action is still consumed per enrichment). ### Step 2: Optimize Waterfall Enrichment Depth Each waterf...