LeadHootz vs Apollo, Clay, and Lusha

You type a request the way you would ask ChatGPT: titles, industries, locations, company stage, and hiring signals. LeadHootz turns that into filters against 350M+ prospects and keeps the list in the same workspace, so you do not export it into a second tool to enrich and a third to send.

Apollo and Lusha start from search filters. Clay starts from a table workflow.

Search people and companies by title, seniority, geography, company size, and industry, then save the matches as a list. Find Leads uses that same targeting for decision makers, local businesses, and jobs.

Apollo and Lusha include this search. Clay reaches people and company data through providers you connect.

Work email, verified email, and mobile run across providers in order until a match is found. Start from a lead list, a CSV import, or a saved search, and watch progress in Live Activity. Rows that miss stay on the list so you can retry or skip them.

Clay includes a waterfall. Apollo and Lusha enrich from their own databases.

Credits are used when a contact is found. An empty lookup does not spend the budget, so you can enrich a sample, check the hit rate, and then run the rest of the list.

Apollo and Lusha charge a credit when you reveal a contact. Clay charges credits per step in the workflow.

Verified work email is the safer default before you send. Mobile uses the same waterfall and costs more credits, so many teams enrich email first and add phones only on engaged or high-intent rows. An address already on the row can be re-verified before it goes into a campaign.

Apollo and Lusha include work email and mobile. Clay gets them through the providers you connect.

A playbook is a reusable research recipe: extra fields, firmographics, custom questions, and how findings should be phrased. On a list you can also add AI research columns, such as recent funding or tech stack, without leaving the grid. Teammates then enrich the same way.

In Clay you assemble those columns yourself. Apollo and Lusha are not built around this.

The campaign wizard builds a sequence that personalizes the icebreaker, rotates email and LinkedIn steps, and respects daily caps and send windows. Wait days follow the campaign timezone, then the send snaps into the next allowed window. A reply stops the sequence.

Apollo includes sequences. Clay exports the list to a separate sender. Lusha includes sequences on some plans.

Gmail and Outlook are the default senders, so mail goes out from your mailbox rather than a shared blast address, and replies land in Unibox. Provider daily caps still apply, which is why campaign caps exist. SendGrid is there when a team outgrows inbox limits.

Apollo sends from those inboxes. Lusha is limited here. Clay is not a sending product.

A sequence can include a LinkedIn invite or message beside email, with the same wait days, timezone, and daily caps. Connect LinkedIn once and both the campaign step and social campaigns can use that identity. A reply on either channel stops the sequence in Unibox.

Apollo turns LinkedIn into tasks. Lusha brings LinkedIn data in through an extension. Clay does not run LinkedIn steps.

Social campaigns post, comment, and reply where buyers already are, including X, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Meta Ads. Copy can be AI-crafted, a template, or written by you, and posting uses the same timezone and day windows as email.

Apollo, Clay, and Lusha do not include social campaigns as the product.

The same social workspace can ship image ads and banner calls-to-action with tracked hoo.tz links. Analytics show which creative and which ask actually moved the account, so you can double down instead of guessing.

Apollo, Clay, and Lusha do not include banner ads with tracked links as the product.

Live Activity is the operations ticker: sends, replies, enrichments, and agent jobs as they happen. Open it when you launch a campaign or a large enrich so you can see that it is firing. A step held for a send window shows as waiting, not as a failure.

Apollo reports sequence results. Clay keeps a run log on the table. Lusha is not an operations ticker.

Unibox is the working inbox for campaign email and LinkedIn replies, so you are not switching between Gmail, Outlook, and LinkedIn. When a prospect replies, the sequence stops. You can answer from Unibox, book a meeting if calendar is connected, or hand the thread to a teammate.

Apollo has a sequence inbox. Clay and Lusha are not inboxes.

One plain-English prompt can run find, enrich, social, and follow-up. The agent picks the channel, personalizes the copy, and books the next conversation, then sends a digest of replies and meetings.

Apollo has an AI assistant. Clay has a research agent. Lusha does not run this loop.

Job openings are a live buying signal: in Find Leads you can target companies hiring a role, then enroll them while the timing is still good. The same signals view also covers funding, site visits, social engagement, and job changes, and the agent can keep listening.

Apollo offers job filters. In Clay you assemble this yourself. Lusha does not sell job openings as the product.

When a workspace starts from a company website, LeadHootz pulls that site's logo, turns it into a transparent PNG sized for the sidebar, and shows it to that team instead of the LeadHootz mark. Other customers still see the default logo.

Apollo, Clay, and Lusha do not white-label their product from your website automatically.

A private link lets a client or stakeholder review the research view without an app seat. You can set a password, an expiry, and whether they can export. Agencies use this so a client can approve names before outreach starts.

Apollo, Clay, and Lusha do not include a private share link that needs no extra seat.

The website chat widget answers from your company context, in your brand colors, and can offer meeting times from the connected calendar. After-hours visitors can get a straight answer and a slot without a back-and-forth email.

Apollo, Clay, and Lusha do not include a website chat that books meetings.

Connect the same Gmail or Outlook account and turn calendar on. LeadHootz reads busy and free so chat and meeting links offer real openings and do not double-book you. Booked meetings sit with the lead record.

Apollo offers a calendar link. Clay and Lusha do not book from live availability.

AI Inbound records visits, return trips, and high-intent paths such as pricing, demo, and contact, including people who never filled in a form. Known leads who come back to the site can get faster follow-up from a campaign already running.

Apollo, Clay, and Lusha do not identify website visitors as part of the product.

A bearer key calls the same people and company enrichment as the app, including logo, financials, and email verify, and draws from the same credits. Job-title autocomplete does not charge a credit. The limit is 60 requests a minute and 10,000 a day per key.

Apollo, Clay, and Lusha each offer an enrichment API.

For a matched UK company, LeadHootz can return turnover, assets, cash, and net worth. The same figures are available in the app and from the public API at /v1/companies/financials.

Clay can show financials if you connect a source. Apollo and Lusha do not include UK company financials as the product.