Clay vs Nimble

In the market for a new CRM? Clay and Nimble are two standout options, each offering distinct features tailored to different organizational needs. Clay excels in automating data enrichment and lead generation, while Nimble focuses on social media integration and relationship management. In this blog post we'll explore their core functionalities, pricing models, and overall benefits, providing a clear comparison to help you make an informed decision. Additionally, we'll introduce folk which happens to be a popular alternative.

What is Clay?

ClayNAME is an outreach and lead generation tool designed to help businesses streamline prospecting and customer outreach. It automates data enrichment by gathering information from multiple sources, such as LinkedIn and other social platforms, to build detailed contact profiles. Clay enables users to create targeted lists, personalize outreach efforts, and manage communication workflows, focusing on improving efficiency in lead generation and outreach campaigns.

Key features of Clay

• Automated data enrichment: Clay pulls data from multiple sources, such as LinkedIn and public databases, to build comprehensive profiles on prospects, reducing the need for manual data entry.
• Prospecting and list building: Users can create targeted lists of leads by filtering and segmenting prospects based on specific criteria like location, industry, or role.
• Personalized outreach: Clay enables tailored outreach by allowing users to customize messages and emails based on the enriched profile data of each lead.
• Email sequencing: Users can set up automated email sequences for follow-ups, ensuring consistent communication without manual scheduling.
• Template management: The platform offers tools for creating and saving message templates, which helps maintain consistency in outreach efforts.
• LinkedIn integration: Clay connects with LinkedIn, allowing users to gather data directly from profiles and track LinkedIn interactions as part of their outreach strategy.
  

What is Nimble?

Nimble CRM is a relationship-focused CRM designed to help businesses manage contacts, track interactions, and streamline communication. Nimble can work from your Outlook or Gmail inbox, social and web.

Key features of Nimble

• Contact management: Nimble consolidates contact details from various sources, including email and social media, into unified profiles, making it easier to track communication.
• Social listening and engagement: The platform integrates with social media channels, enabling users to monitor conversations, engage with leads, and stay updated on contacts' social activity.
• Email tracking: Nimble provides email tracking tools to monitor when emails are opened and links are clicked, helping users gauge engagement with outreach efforts.
• Pipeline management: Users can manage sales pipelines with customizable deal stages, allowing teams to track opportunities and monitor deal progression.
• Task and activity management: Nimble includes task tracking and reminders, helping users stay organized with follow-ups, meetings, and to-do lists associated with contacts or deals.

Clay vs. Nimble: Feature Comparison

Let's break down the key features of two CRM software solutions and take a closer look at their sales automation, email marketing tools, and contact management.

1. Sales pipeline management

With its main focus on outreach, Clay is not a CRM platform. So it doesn't have a pipeline dashboard per se, but it allows you to connect with your inbound lead form and then creates a dashboard based on this data. This approach offers flexibility for businesses that prefer to customize their sales tracking according to specific lead sources and data inputs.
Nimble CRM includes a dedicated pipeline dashboard designed for tracking sales opportunities through customizable deal stages. This feature provides a visual overview of where deals stand within the sales process, enabling users to create and move deals through each stage, set expected close dates, and update deal values.

2. Ease of use

Clay and Nimble both prioritize user-friendly interfaces. But as an outreach tool, users may find Clay harder to navigate if they're looking for a traditional CRM platform. Nimble, while also easy to navigate, offers a more traditional CRM experience with a focus on contact management and relationship building.

3. Contact enrichment

Clay’s enrichment feature automatically gathers detailed lead information from various sources, creating comprehensive contact profiles that can be integrated with your existing CRM. Nimble similarly uses AI to gather detailed information from multiple sources, enhancing contact profiles for better insights.

4. Outreach

Clay’s outreach feature is designed for efficient prospecting and personalized communication, allowing users to create targeted lists and send automated, customized emails. Nimble CRM’s outreach feature enables users to manage individual and group email communications, with email tracking to monitor opens and clicks for effective engagement.

5. Automation

Clay’s automation features focus on simplifying outreach tasks with automated workflows for email sequencing and follow-ups. Nimble's automation is basic, primarily streamlining tasks like data enrichment and follow-up reminders, lacking advanced multichannel engagement options.

6. Integration

Clay offers integrations with various CRMs, email marketing platforms, and data sources, allowing users to sync enriched contact profiles and streamline outreach workflows across tools. Nimble connects with productivity tools like Mailchimp, QuickBooks, and Zapier, enabling users to automate data flow and enhance functionality through third-party applications.

7. Artificial Intelligence

Clay's AI integration is research-focused, using Claygent to automate research tasks like checking SOC-II compliance. Nimble CRM incorporates AI-powered sales intelligence to enhance prospecting and lead enrichment, providing detailed insights into leads and prospects.

Price and plans comparison

Let's take a closer look at the price and plans of both Clay and Nimble.

Clay prices

Besides a free plan, Clay has a few premium plans to choose from depending on the features you need, credits, and number of people/company searches you want to make. Below is a high level overview of their annual subscription.

• Starter: Starting from $134 per month for 24k credits per year.
• Explorer: Starting from $314 per month, for 120k credits per year.
• Pro: Starting from $720 per month, for 600k credits per year.
• Enterprise: Price undisclosed. Custom credits option.

Nimble prices

Nimble provides both a monthly and annual subscription plan. With only one tier for each subscription type.

• Annual: $24.90/user/month.
• Monthly: $29.90/user/month.

Introducing folk CRM: the best alternative to Clay and Nimble

Looking for an affordable alternative? We recommend folk. A multiple award-winning CRM platform loved for its easy-to-use, plug-and-play CRM system. folk can support multiple business functions including marketing, sales, recruitment, fundraising and more.

Key features

• Contact management: Bring all your contacts into one place seamlessly, from social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Instagram and X to multiple inboxes including Gmail and Outlook.
• Sales pipeline dashboard: Manage your entire sales cycle and leads with a highly customizable sales pipeline dashboard that can be used in Kanban-board view or listicle.
• Notes and reminders: Attach notes directly to a contact's profile in folk, and access them on the go. And assign reminders so you know exactly when to follow-up.
• Ease of use and customization: Easily customize the pipelines, dashboards, automation, email sequences, so that you can use it across your sales cycle and pipeline management – and other business functions such as recruitment, marketing, and more.
• Social media integration: Import people and companies from LinkedIn, Sales Navigator, Instagram, and X within a click thanks to folk’s Google Chrome extension.
• Contact sync from Gmail and Outlook: Full email sync enabling users to manage all communications directly from the CRM.
• Find email addresses in a click: Contact enrichment powered by Apollo, and Dropcontact so you can fill in missing data points with 1-click.
• Email sequences: Send email sequences with reminders if your leads don’t reply to your first emails. It includes an AI integration allowing you to personalize email at scale.

Price and plans

folk has a 14-day free trial. After that, there are affordable monthly or annual subscription plans. The annual subscription plan is as follows.

• Standard: $20 per user, per month.
• Premium: $40 per user, per month.
• Custom: Starts from $80 per user, per month.

Clay vs. Nimble: What's the verdict?

When comparing Clay and Nimble, it's apparent that both offer valuable CRM solutions tailored to different business needs. Clay excels in automating data enrichment and personalized outreach, making it ideal for lead generation. On the other hand, Nimble provides robust social media integration and contact management features, suitable for businesses seeking a comprehensive relationship management tool. However, for companies that need a more personalized approach to relationship management, folk provides a flexible alternative to these traditional CRM options, blending ease of use with customization. Try folk today, free.