Clay vs Nutshell

Clay and Nutshell are two platforms designed to support outreach and customer relationship management, each catering to different business needs. Clay is focused on data enrichment and automated prospecting, providing tools to gather detailed lead information and streamline outreach for efficient prospecting. Nutshell, on the other hand, combines CRM with email marketing and sales automation, offering an integrated solution for managing contacts, pipelines, and campaigns. In this blog post, we’ll compare their key features to help you determine which platform best suits your needs. Or if Folk might be a better alternative with user-friendly contact management and customization options.

What is Clay?

Clay 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 Nutshell?

Nutshell is an all-in-one CRM specifically designed to help B2B teams close more deals. It combines contact management, pipeline tracking, and email marketing tools to support every stage of the sales process, from lead generation to deal closure. With features like customizable pipelines, activity tracking, and seamless integration options, Nutshell also enables sales teams to stay organized, collaborate, and drive results—all within a user-friendly platform tailored for B2B needs.

Key features of Nutshell

• Contact management: Centralizes customer information and tracks communication history to keep teams organized and informed.
• Pipeline management: Customizable sales pipelines to track leads and deals through every stage of the sales process.
• Email marketing: Built-in email campaign tools that enable targeted outreach and engagement with prospects and customers.
• Activity tracking: Logs all interactions, including calls, emails, and meetings, allowing teams to stay on top of follow-ups and engagement.
• Reporting and analytics: Provides insights into sales performance, forecasting, and team activity, helping to make data-driven decisions.

Clay vs. Nutshell: Feature Comparison

Let's break down the key features of two CRM software solutions: Clay and Nutshell, focusing on their sales automation, email marketing tools, and contact management capabilities.

1. Sales pipeline management

As it's not a traditional CRM, Clay doesn't have a traditional pipeline dashboard but allows integration with inbound lead forms to create dashboards based on this data. This approach offers flexibility but might require additional setup for visualizing the sales process. Nutshell provides a comprehensive pipeline management feature with tools for tracking leads and deals through various stages. Users can utilize board, list, map, and chart views to customize their pipeline according to workflow needs.

2. Ease of use

Clay is not a traditional CRM, so may be challenging for some used to this design. But, it offers a user-friendly interface designed for seamless navigation and efficient task management, making it suitable for users who prioritize ease of use. Nutshell is a traditional CRM and also emphasizes simplicity with an intuitive layout that facilitates quick adoption, ensuring team members can easily manage their sales processes without extensive training.

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. This allows for a more informed approach to lead management and personalized outreach. Nutshell’s contact enrichment feature is focused on minimizing manual data entry by allowing users to import contacts, emails, and calendar events from various sources.

4. Outreach

Clay’s outreach feature is designed for efficient prospecting and personalized communication, offering automated, customized email sequences and engagement tracking. Nutshell’s outreach includes built-in email marketing and automation, enabling targeted campaigns and follow-up sequences with basic tracking to assess effectiveness.

5. Automation

Clay’s automation focuses on email outreach with personalized sequencing and follow-up reminders. Nutshell focuses on streamlining basic sales tasks and offers email marketing automation for drip campaigns, enhancing customer engagement within the platform.

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. Nutshell offers integrations with a range of popular tools to enhance its functionality and streamline workflows. It connects with major productivity platforms like Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, and Slack, allowing users to manage emails, calendars, and team communication within their existing tools.

7. Artificial Intelligence

Clay's AI integration, through Claygent, automates research tasks like checking SOC-II compliance. Nutshell’s AI enhances productivity with features like timeline summarization, helping users quickly review historical interactions and activities.

Price and plans comparison

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

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.

Nutshell prices

Nutshell offers several feature-rich plans tailored to different goals and team sizes.

• Foundation: $16 per user, per month.
• Pro: $42 per user, per month.
• Power AI: $52 per user, per month.
• Enterprise: $67 per user, per month.

Introducing folk CRM: the best alternative to Clay and Nutshell

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 supports multiple business functions including sales, marketing, recruitment, investment relations and more. folk is also not limited to large teams. It can be used by solopreneurs, mid-size teams and enterprise scale. Allowing it to scale with you, as your business grows.

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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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. Nutshell: What's the verdict?

When it comes to choosing between Clay and Nutshell, it's clear that the decision largely hinges on your business's specific needs. A traditional CRM, or something more outreach focused? Clay excels in data enrichment and personalized outreach, making it ideal for businesses focused on lead generation and prospecting. On the other hand, Nutshell offers an all-in-one CRM solution with robust pipeline and contact management features, perfect for B2B teams aiming to streamline their sales process. 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