TL;DR
- OpenFunnel → Activity/Signal-first + natural-language Trait Search; agentic research, segmentation, and micro-audience orchestration that refreshes and pipes context ambiently.
- Clay → Enrichment/research/outreach in tables; with OpenFunnel in the stack, use Clay for outreach execution only.
What OpenFunnel does
- Activity Listeners find companies doing something now that indicate they might have a pain-point
- Trait Search Agents (natural language) find companies by what they offer/how they go to market, not just firmographic filters.
- Research Agents perform deep company & person research and segment into different buckets for messaging based on different answers.
- People-Finder Agents pull the right stakeholders tied to the signal.
- Ambient sync to HubSpot/Salesforce/Apollo/Clay/Slack; agents keep lists fresh daily.
- Context Agents (ambient memory) store reusable context (research outputs, prior actions, and signals) across runs so research, qualification, and messaging can reuse every signal without re-prompting.
- Message scaffolds generated from the signals + custom research and brand templates.
What Clay does
- Standalone: Unified enrichment + AI research on tables (Claygent, 100+ data sources) with spreadsheet-style transforms (joins, scoring, dedupe).
- Integrated with OpenFunnel: Use Clay only to execute outreach (sequence hand-off, mailbox mapping). OpenFunnel handles enrichment, scoring, dedupe, and routing.
If you need ongoing discovery of companies and people who actually have your pain-point, enrich, research and segmentation, use OpenFunnel.
If you need heavy custom enrichment logic or one-off list engineering inside a table, start in Clay.
Context Agents (ambient memory)
- Always-on memory of accounts, people, evidence links, and past actions/decisions.
- Reusable context in research, qualification, and message generation — no re-prompting.
- Enables one-shot, vibe-aligned outreach that references exactly what happened and why it matters to that contact.
Core differences
1) Discovery for Pipeline building vs. General Enrichment
- OpenFunnel: Discovers net-new accounts from activities + natural-language trait search (by what they offer, not just generic filters).
Think: “Who just filed a Form D in the last 30 days and hired VP Sales - every company or contact has a reason to exist on OpenFunnel and gets auto-enriched with every information for outreach” - Clay: Enriches and Researches rows you bring. Think: “Take this list, enrich with tech stack + revenue, enrich contacts, score, route.”
2) Agentic generation vs. Table operations
- OpenFunnel: One prompt → the right agents auto-deploy (company-finder + people-finder + qualifiers) and keep running.
- Clay: You build the pipeline in a table; very flexible per-column logic and joins.
3) Ambient freshness vs. Snapshot builds
- OpenFunnel: Listeners run daily; audiences are drift-proof.
- Clay: You can schedule refreshes, but workflows are generally batch/table-centric.
4) Helpful, Timely and Relevant Messaging vs. Scrapnig based personalization
- OpenFunnel: Every contact is tied to a specific, referenceable signal with links (what happened, where).
- Clay: Excellent at enriching and generating snippets, usually trait/persona-driven unless you bring the signal and context of how the lead got there.
Side-by-side (quick read)
| Area | OpenFunnel | Clay |
|---|---|---|
| Primary motion | Activity/Signal → Micro-audience | Table → Enrich/Research → Route |
| Discovery | Built-in Activity Listeners + Trait Search Agents (natural-language; by what they offer) | Bring your own list or sources; enrich & research |
| Segmentation | Agentic qualifiers split into tiers/buckets automatically | Table filters, formulas, and AI ops |
| People finding | People-Finder agents tied to the specific activity | Email finding & research across providers |
| Freshness | Ambient (runs daily, auto-sync) | Batch/table refresh; schedulable |
| Output | CRM/Apollo/Clay/Slack sync + message scaffolds with evidence | Sequences/outreach execution; with OpenFunnel, execution-only (mailboxes/sequences) |
| Best at | Net-new, time-sensitive micro-audiences | Complex enrichment logic and list engineering |
Not either/or: many teams discover, auto-enrich and segment in OpenFunnel, then orchestrate outreach in Clay.
Real examples
Example A — “Form D + Sales leadership change”
Prompt (OpenFunnel):Find US B2B SaaS companies that filed Form D in the last 30 days AND added a VP of Sales in the last 6 months. Split A (50–200 emp) vs B (201–500). Exclude customers and open opps. Push A to AE territories; B to nurture. What happens:
- Activity Listeners pull Form D filings → Research Agents verify category → People-Finder attaches GTM leaders.
- Buckets created → CRM + Slack + Apollo sync.
- Message angles cite the filing + leadership change.
- Context Agents remember filings, roles, and prior routing so future outreach pulls the right context automatically.
- Extra enrichment columns (tech stack nuance, custom revenue model), domain-to-mailbox mapping, and sequence routing.
Example B — “Voice-AI adoption (non-tech)”
Prompt (OpenFunnel):Find non-tech companies embedding voice AI into customer-facing products. Split by industry (finance/healthcare/call centers), find the right people at the companies with full linkedin and email enrichment. Create hooks per industry using the adoption evidence. Output:
- Accounts + roles tied to the adoption event, segmented buckets, sync + hooks.
- Context Agents store adoption evidence and prior decisions/replies so messaging can reuse context without re-prompting.
Using them together (recommended)
- Discover, enrich, and segment in OpenFunnel → Accounts/People + evidence to CRM/Apollo/Clay. Context Agents save memory automatically.
- Execute outreach via Clay/Outreach/HubSpot/Gmail — Clay acts as sender only if it’s in your stack. No extra enrichment/scoring/dedupe needed.
- Stay fresh — OpenFunnel keeps audiences updated daily and re-injects new matches; Context Agents update memory as actions happen.
FAQ
Can OpenFunnel replace Clay?Only if you are doing manual outbound & learning about your customers pain points (which we highly recommend to do), if not then they’re complementary. OpenFunnel creates/maintains signal-rich audiences; Clay shines at outbound mechanics. Can Clay replace OpenFunnel?
If your motion is primarily enriching known lists, maybe. If you need ongoing discovery from activities with auto-segmentation and people-finding tied to those activities, you’ll miss OpenFunnel’s core value.
Do I need both?
Many teams do. With OpenFunnel in place, use Clay primarily to execute outreach if you like plugging it into sequencing tools.
One-liner positioning
- OpenFunnel: Activity-first micro-audiences that refresh themselves.
- Clay: Spreadsheet-style enrichment and AI research for outbound.