treg vs Clay: the short answer
Both give you people and company data from many vendors under one account, and both accept your own keys. treg is like OpenRouter for tools: one API key and one balance for many paid APIs. treg gives your agent that data beside SEO, social and ad tools, by MCP, API or CLI, billed per call at the provider's rate with 0% markup and no seats, and a call on your own key is never metered. Clay gives a GTM team tables with waterfall enrichment, AI research agents, CRM sync and a sequencer, billed in Actions and Data Credits on a plan. A RevOps team can keep Clay's tables and give its agents treg.
Which one fits
Different tools fit different jobs. Here is when each one is the better choice.
Choose Clay if
- Your team builds and fixes enrichment in a spreadsheet interface, row by row.
- You want waterfalls built in, with no charge when nothing is found.
- You want Claygent and Sculptor for AI research and no-code workflows.
- You want CRM and data warehouse sync, a sequencer and ad audiences in one product.
Choose treg if
- Your agent in Claude Code, Codex or Cursor calls enrichment and research APIs itself, by MCP, API or CLI.
- You want no plan and no seats: each call billed at the provider's rate, with 0% markup.
- You want people and company data beside SEO, social, ad library and generation tools, behind one token.
- You want your own provider keys to win and cost nothing extra, not even an Action.
- You want a team daily spend cap, a per-call cost ceiling and per-member call caps.
treg vs Clay, side by side
Each Clay cell restates Clay's own public pages on 3 November 2026. "Not published" means those pages say nothing about it, not that the feature does not exist.
| Feature | treg | Clay |
|---|---|---|
| Billing | ||
| How you pay | A prepaid team balance. Each catalog call is billed at the provider's own rate. No subscription and no seats. | Plans billed in two meters: Actions (under $0.01 each) and Data Credits (from $0.05 each). Launch from $167 a month and Growth from $446 a month on the plan cards. |
| Free start | $1.00 of credit, once per new verified account. No card. | Free plan: 500 Actions and 100 Data Credits a month, up to 200 rows a table. |
| Fees | 0% markup, a commitment in the terms. No top-up fee. Calls on your own keys, tools and connected accounts are never metered, except X through treg's own X app, which X bills per use. | Top-ups on Launch and Growth cost 30% more. No charge when an enrichment finds nothing. |
| What your agent can use | ||
| Size, in their words | 4,100+ tools across 126 providers, plus the tools your team registers. | 150+ to 200+ data and AI vendors, depending on the page. |
| Paid data with no account at the vendor | Yes: SEO and SERP data, backlinks, people and company enrichment, social profiles and posts, ad libraries, web search and scraping, image, video and voice generation. | Yes: people and company enrichment, emails, phones and AI research, on Clay's accounts. |
| Your own accounts | Google Analytics, Search Console, Google Ads, Business Profile, Tag Manager, Meta Ads, TikTok Ads, Microsoft Advertising, Pinterest Ads, Snapchat Ads, YouTube, LinkedIn, Slack, X, TikTok, Instagram and Facebook Pages. | CRM and data warehouse sync, an email sequencer and ad audiences. |
| Actions (writes) | Writes in your connected accounts (ad changes, Slack messages, social posts) and any API or CLI your team registers. No triggers or scheduled workflows: the agent runs the steps. | Sequences, CRM updates, audiences, and HTTP API calls on Growth and up. |
| What a call returns | The provider's own answer, unchanged. Routed tools add a small wrapper and say so. | Rows and columns in a Clay table. |
| How your agent connects | ||
| MCP | A remote MCP server with OAuth or a token header, for Claude, ChatGPT, Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and others. | Clay MCP for ChatGPT, Claude and Codex, on Launch and up; admins publish Functions. |
| API, CLI and SDKs | An HTTP API (method, path, query and body reach the provider unchanged), a CLI and an agent skill. No SDKs. | HTTP API calls and webhooks from a table on Growth and up; Clay's own API on Enterprise. |
| Bring your own keys | Yes, on every account. Your team's key always wins and is never metered. | Yes. Your key removes the Data Credit cost; an Action is still used. |
| Open source and self-host | Code on GitHub under Apache 2.0 with added terms. You can self-host for your own team; offering it as a hosted service to others needs permission. | No. Hosted service. |
| Control | ||
| Price before the call | Yes. Each tool's rate, with its source and the date it was checked. | Not published |
| Spend limits | A team daily spend cap, a per-call cost ceiling, per-member daily call caps and daily budgets per tagged customer (advisory). No per-key hourly or lifetime caps. | Per-rep credit limits for MCP; per-workbook spend limits on Enterprise. |
| Call records | An audit log of calls with their cost, and every charge in the balance ledger. | Not published as a user-facing feature. |
| Team | Teams with owner, admin, member and viewer roles, and tool access per member. | Unlimited seats on every plan. Admin, Editor and Viewer roles; SSO on Enterprise. |
treg's catalog size is read live from the catalog. Prices change; check each product's own pricing page before you decide.
0% additional fee.
provider rate + $0.000 markup = your priceThe trade-off
What each one does better
Where Clay does best
- 01
The table. A spreadsheet where people who do not code build, inspect and fix enrichment.
- 02
Waterfalls built in. It tries provider after provider until one finds a match, and charges nothing when none does.
- 03
AI research. Claygent and Sculptor run research and workflows over many rows without code.
- 04
The whole GTM loop. CRM and warehouse sync, a sequencer and ad audiences in one product.
- 05
Unlimited seats. Every plan includes unlimited users.
Where treg is the better choice
- 01
Built for agents. Your agent searches the catalog, reads each tool's price with its source and checked date, and calls the tool, from Claude Code, Codex, Cursor or any MCP client.
- 02
0% markup, no plan, no seats. A prepaid balance billed at the provider's own rate. 0% markup is a commitment in the terms, with no top-up fee.
- 03
More than enrichment. 4,100+ tools across 126 providers: SEO and SERP data, backlinks, social, ad libraries and generation models sit beside the people data.
- 04
Your keys, never metered. Your team's own key always wins over treg's, and treg never meters a call on it.
- 05
Spreadsheets too. The treg add-on for Google Sheets fills cells from the catalog, and shows each run's cost first.
Not either-or
Using Clay and treg together
A RevOps team can keep Clay for its tables, sequences and CRM sync, and give its agents treg for ad hoc research, SEO and social data, and quick enrichment outside a table.
Give your agent
every tool in the catalog.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is there a Clay alternative for AI agents?
Yes. treg is a Clay alternative when your agent does the enrichment itself, and Clay fits a GTM team that works in tables. treg gives an agent in Claude Code, Codex or Cursor enrichment and research APIs beside SEO, social and ad library tools. Clay builds waterfalls, Claygent, CRM sync and a sequencer around its tables.
How much does Clay cost?
Clay pricing starts with a Free plan of 500 Actions and 100 Data Credits a month; Launch is from $167 a month and Growth from $446 a month on Clay's plan cards. The FAQ on Clay's pricing page lists $185 and $495, so check Clay's page for the current price. treg has no plan and no seats.
Does Clay have an API?
Partly. Clay tables can make HTTP API calls and take webhooks on Growth and up, and Clay's own API is on Enterprise; Clay does not publish a CLI or SDKs. treg has an HTTP API that passes the method, path, query and body to the provider unchanged, beside a CLI and an agent skill.
Clay vs treg: which is cheaper for an AI agent?
It depends on the job: treg bills one price per call at the provider's own rate with 0% markup, while Clay bills two meters on a plan. Clay Actions cost under $0.01 each, Data Credits start at $0.05 each, and top-ups on Launch and Growth cost 30% more. Clay charges nothing when an enrichment finds nothing.
Can I use Clay and treg together?
Yes. A RevOps team can keep Clay for its tables, sequences and CRM sync, and give its agents treg for ad hoc research, SEO and social data, and quick enrichment outside a table.
Does treg work in Google Sheets?
Yes. The treg add-on for Google Sheets fills cells from the catalog and shows each run's cost first. Clay's table is a spreadsheet of its own, where people who do not code build, inspect and fix enrichment.
Does treg have an MCP server?
Yes. treg is a remote MCP server with OAuth or a token header, for Claude, ChatGPT, Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and others, beside an HTTP API and a CLI. Clay MCP works with ChatGPT, Claude and Codex on Launch and up, where admins publish Functions for reps.
Sources and method
- Clay home pagehttps://www.clay.com
- Clay pricinghttps://www.clay.com/pricing
- Actions and Data Creditshttps://university.clay.com/docs/credits
- Clay MCPhttps://www.clay.com/guides/clay-mcp
- Waterfall enrichmenthttps://www.clay.com/waterfall-enrichment
We read these pages on 3 November 2026. treg's own facts come from its pricing, terms and code. We left out what we could not check, and we do not guess why a product works the way it does.
Something wrong or out of date? Write to jason@treg.to and we will fix it.
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