Agentic Index
Bardeen vs Clay (2026)
Bardeen and Clay both automate GTM data work, from opposite architectures. That verdict is the Agentic Index coverage score, graded from each vendor's own published materials.
Clay is the table: 150 plus enrichment providers in waterfall workflows, Claygent research, and orchestration of scoring and outbound, from a free tier through 185 and 495 dollar monthly credit plans. Bardeen is the browser: agents that scrape, enrich, and act on web data wherever it lives, from 10 dollars a month. Serious teams often run Clay as the system and Bardeen as the collector.
This comparison is published by Agentic Index, an independent agentic AI vendor research platform. Bardeen and Clay are each graded against the same 14 capability Agentic Index taxonomy, from the vendor's own public materials under the Agentic Index verification standard, alongside 956 researched vendors. No vendor pays for placement and no vendor has reviewed this page. How this evidence is graded
Choose Bardeen if
- Web scraping from live pages, sites without APIs, is a real share of your data need.
- The 10 dollar entry makes it a free lunch tier for individual operators.
- Browser native automation extends beyond GTM into general ops work.
Choose Clay if
- Waterfall enrichment across 150 plus providers is the coverage and cost optimization play.
- Claygent research plus scoring plus outbound orchestration makes it the GTM data hub.
- The ecosystem matters: templates, community, and integrations compound your team's skill.
| At a glance | Bardeen | Clay |
|---|---|---|
| Category | GTM / revenue agent | GTM / revenue agent |
| Entry price | From $10/mo · free tier | Free · Launch $185/mo ($167/mo billed annually) · Growth $495/mo ($446/mo billed annually) · Enterprise custom · each plan is an Actions block plus a Data Credits block |
| Free / trial | Free; 7-day trial | Free plan with 100 Data Credits and 500 Actions/mo, unlimited seats and tables, waterfalls, Claygent, and Sequencer (up to 200 rows/table). |
| Pricing confidence | public partial | public exact |
| Feature | B Bardeen |
C Clay |
|---|---|---|
| Action & orchestration | ||
|
Integrations & Tool Calling Ability to connect agents to real systems through native integrations, OAuth-authenticated actions, custom tools, APIs, webhooks, or MCP-compatible tools. |
Partial | Full / Explicit |
|
Workflow Orchestration Ability to sequence, branch, retry, route, and combine deterministic workflow nodes with autonomous agent steps. |
Partial | Full / Explicit |
|
Triggers & Channel Coverage How agents wake up and where they work: schedules, webhooks, message events, CRM events, inbox events, chat, email, voice, and collaboration tools. |
Full / Explicit | Full / Explicit |
| Knowledge & context | ||
|
Knowledge Grounding & RAG Ability to ground agent behavior in company data through document ingestion, retrieval, external knowledge APIs, semantic search, or RAG layers. |
No / Not documented | Partial |
|
Memory & State Persistence Ability to persist context across a run, conversation, workflow, user, team, or longer-term memory layer. |
No / Not documented | Partial |
| Control & trust | ||
|
Human Oversight & Guardrails Approval steps, consent checkpoints, escalation rules, structured guardrails, policy constraints, and pause/resume controls. |
No / Not documented | Partial |
|
Security, Identity & Governance RBAC, SSO, auditability, encryption, least-privilege tool access, compliance posture, and data handling policy. |
Partial | Full / Explicit |
|
Observability & Auditability Traces, logs, execution histories, metrics, audit events, and debugging detail for production agent behavior. |
Partial | Partial |
|
Deployment & Data Residency Deployment modes and options, including SaaS, dedicated cloud, VPC, on-prem, hybrid, local runtime, and self-hosting. |
Full / Explicit | No / Not documented |
| Solution readiness | ||
|
Prebuilt Agents, Templates & Packs Ready-made workflows, packaged employees, templates, blueprints, industry solutions, and role-specific agents that reduce time-to-value. |
Full / Explicit | Full / Explicit |
| Platform extensibility | ||
|
Model Flexibility & Routing Ability to work across multiple foundation models, route tasks to different models, or let buyers bring their own providers and keys. |
No / Not documented | Full / Explicit |
|
APIs, SDKs & MCP Extensibility Composability layer: stable APIs, SDKs, MCP tool consumption/serving, custom tools, and integration into internal systems. |
No / Not documented | Full / Explicit |
|
Testing, Debugging & Optimization Testing, debugging, scoring, retries, fallbacks, quality gates, and optimization loops for improving agent workflows before and after deployment. |
No / Not documented | Full / Explicit |
| Specialist automation | ||
|
Browser & Computer Use Browser, desktop, or remote/local computer control for workflows that cannot be handled through stable APIs alone. |
Full / Explicit | Partial |
Pricing snapshot
Sourced from the Index pricing dataset · open each vendor's profile for full detail.
| Pricing | B Bardeen |
C Clay |
|---|---|---|
|
Entry price Lowest public entry point |
From $10/mo · free tier | Free · Launch $185/mo ($167/mo billed annually) · Growth $495/mo ($446/mo billed annually) · Enterprise custom · each plan is an Actions block plus a Data Credits block |
|
Pricing confidence How public the numbers are |
Public, partial | Public, exact |
|
Billing Primary billing axis |
credits | Usage based: monthly subscription tier plus two credit pools, Data Credits (marketplace data/AI) and Actions (platform operations). Unlimited seats. |
|
Variable cost Workload / overage exposure |
Medium variable cost | High variable cost |
|
Free tier / trial Try before you buy |
Free tierTrial
|
Free tier
|
|
Buying motion Self-serve vs sales call |
Mixed | Self-serve |
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