Clay vs Clearbit (Breeze Intelligence): Which Wins in 2026?

Clay starts at $167 a month as a standalone workflow and enrichment tool, no CRM required. Clearbit was acquired by HubSpot and rebranded Breeze Intelligence, and per HubSpot's own billing documentation it no longer sells as a separate product, enrichment now runs on HubSpot Credits at roughly $0.01 each, gated behind an active HubSpot subscription. For a cold email agency building its own prospect lists, that difference decides which tool you can even buy.

Clay vs Clearbit (Breeze Intelligence): 2026 pricing at a glance

Tool	Plan	Starting Price	Requires	Best For
Clay	Free	$0/mo	Nothing	Testing waterfalls on 500 actions/mo, 100 data credits/mo
Clay	Launch	$167/mo	Nothing	Solo founders or small teams sourcing 15,000 actions/mo
Clay	Growth	$446/mo	Nothing	Agencies auto-enriching a CRM at 40,000 actions/mo
Clay	Enterprise	Custom	Annual contract	High-volume teams needing 200,000+ actions/mo
Clearbit (Breeze Intelligence)	Bundled credits	~$10 per 1,000 HubSpot Credits (≈$0.01/credit)	Active HubSpot subscription	Teams already inside HubSpot enriching CRM records
Clearbit (Breeze Intelligence)	Overage	$0.01/credit, invoiced in 10s	HubSpot subscription	Scaling enrichment past included monthly credits

• Cheapest entry point: Clay Free at $0/month for light list-building.
• Best standalone pick for cold email sourcing: Clay Launch at $167/month.
• Best if you already run HubSpot CRM: Breeze Intelligence at roughly $10 per 1,000 credits.
• Worst fit for a cold email agency with no CRM: Breeze Intelligence, it will not sell to you without a HubSpot seat.

What is Clay and how does its 2026 pricing work?

Clay is a spreadsheet-style workflow tool that pulls data from dozens of providers in a waterfall, then hands off to your sending stack. Free gives 500 actions and 100 data credits a month. Launch starts at $167/month for 15,000 actions and 3,000 data credits, scaling to 200,000 actions on higher tiers, per Clay's pricing page.

Every paid tier includes Claygent AI enrichment, multi-provider waterfalls, and unlimited seats. Phone enrichment and job-change signals unlock on Launch and above. Unused credits roll over up to 2x on Launch and Growth, which beats most single-source tools where unused lookups evaporate at month end.

• Waterfall enrichment across dozens of providers, not one vendor's database.
• Claygent AI research agent for facts a static database misses.
• Direct handoff to email finders and verifiers, then sequencing tools like Instantly or Apollo.io.

What happened to Clearbit, and what does Breeze Intelligence cost in 2026?

Clearbit was acquired by HubSpot and folded into the Breeze AI line as Breeze Intelligence. There is no public standalone pricing page anymore. Per HubSpot's own credits documentation, enrichment now runs through HubSpot's unified credit system at roughly $0.01 per credit in overages, invoiced in blocks of 10.

HubSpot converted legacy Breeze Credits to HubSpot Credits at a 30x rate in June 2025, per HubSpot's account management help center, so 100 old Breeze Credits became 3,000 HubSpot Credits. Included credits vary by tier, and there is no way to buy Breeze Intelligence enrichment without an active HubSpot seat underneath it.

Clay vs Clearbit for cold email list building: which should you use?

If you're sourcing and verifying emails for cold outbound and don't already run HubSpot as your CRM, Clay is the only real option here. Breeze Intelligence isn't a buyable enrichment tool anymore, it's a metered feature bolted onto a CRM subscription you may not want. Most agencies building outbound lists from scratch hit that wall on the first sales call.

Clay's $167/month Launch plan gets a real waterfall across multiple providers plus AI research, versus Breeze Intelligence's $10-per-1,000-credit add-on that only works inside HubSpot. Pair Clay's output with a dedicated email verifier before you send. Across campaigns that have generated 3,000+ qualified B2B meetings, waterfall enrichment plus a hard verification step consistently outperforms any single-source lookup, Clearbit included back when it was one.

Already deep in HubSpot for inbound? Breeze Intelligence's native record enrichment saves a tool swap. If cold email is the whole motion, skip it and start with Clay.

Building this stack yourself eats a week of setup before the first email sends. If you'd rather have someone hand you a working outbound engine, Modern Inbound's setup service gets your data, infrastructure, and sequencing running without you touching a waterfall builder.

Clay vs Clearbit FAQ

Is Clearbit still a separate product from HubSpot in 2026?
No. Clearbit was acquired by HubSpot and now operates as Breeze Intelligence, billed through HubSpot's credit system with no standalone plan or public price list of its own.

What is the cheapest way to start with Clay?
Clay's Free plan costs $0/month and includes 500 actions and 100 data credits, enough to test waterfalls before committing to the $167/month Launch tier.

Can I use Breeze Intelligence without a HubSpot subscription?
No. Breeze Intelligence enrichment credits only work inside an active HubSpot account, per HubSpot's own product and billing documentation, so there is no way to buy it standalone.

Which tool is better for building a cold email list from scratch?
Clay, because it works independent of any CRM and starts at $167/month, versus Breeze Intelligence which requires a HubSpot subscription before you can enrich a single record.

By Rishabh Ambasta, Founder, Modern Inbound.