Best AI agents for sales: three kinds and how to choose

Clay is a table where each row is a lead, company or account and each column calls a data provider, runs an AI research step or triggers an outbound action. Claygent, its research agent, works inside those columns, and buying signals from LinkedIn, Google and Reddit help rank accounts when intent changes. Its hosted MCP server lets other agents run its find-and-enrich tools, with admins capping each rep’s credit spend.

The free plan carries 500 actions and 100 data credits a month, unlimited seats and Claygent access, capped at 200 rows per table. Launch costs $185 monthly or from $167 a month billed annually, and Growth $495 monthly or from $446 a month billed annually, with a 14-day free trial. Every plan includes unlimited seats, so the bill follows usage rather than headcount.

Spend runs on two meters: Actions for each enrichment or automation step, and Data Credits for the data itself, from $0.05 each. Actions never roll over, while Data Credits bank up to twice the monthly amount. Clay also has a sequencer that hands leads to Salesforce, HubSpot, Outreach or Slack.

The vendor sells two digital workers: Alice, an outbound sales development rep that researches prospects and runs sequences across email, LinkedIn, phone and text, and Julian, an inbound phone agent that answers calls, qualifies leads and books meetings. Campaigns launch from ready-made playbooks filled in on a form, and native two-way connectors cover Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive and Zoho on every plan. What the worker may read and write in your CRM is configurable.

Growth costs $3,750 a month billed annually, or $45,000 a year, for up to 5 users and 2,000 new prospects a month, with managed Gmail mailboxes and CRM sync included. Pro and Enterprise are custom-quoted and there is no monthly plan. Every tier starts with a sales conversation, with no free plan or trial published.

TechCrunch reported in March 2025 that several customer logos on its site belonged to companies that had only run brief unpaid pilots. Its Checkr case study now names Checkr employees by title with attributed quotes.

Apollo sells access to a business contact database and the tools to act on it. Its actions run inside Salesforce, Gmail and a Chrome extension through Apollo Anywhere, and its hosted MCP server, available on any plan including free, brings them into Claude, ChatGPT and Perplexity. Every action is reviewable, and autonomy widens only as far as the buyer allows.

The Free plan never expires and carries 75 credits per seat a month, 2 sequences per team and 250 daily email sends. Paid plans bill per seat: Basic is $49 a seat a month billed annually, and Professional $99 a seat a month billed monthly or $79 billed annually, with a 14-day trial. Organization carries a three-seat minimum.

Credits buy the work, at 1 credit for an email and 8 for a phone number. They are pooled across the team and expire each cycle, add-on credits included. Where Clay bills for usage with unlimited seats, Apollo’s bill grows with each seat you add.

Amplemarket’s Duo agents scan the market daily for signals such as a closed-lost prospect looking again, a visit to your site or a poor review of a competitor, then draft a personalized multichannel sequence for each buyer. Searcher finds prospects with auto-enrichment, Duo Inbox gathers replies in one inbox, and Duo Voice adds AI calls with voice cloning. Admins alone edit the prompts that steer it, such as per-signal nudges and competitor battlecards.

Startup costs $600 a month on an annual term with 2 users included, and Growth and Elite are custom. Startup carries 27,000 contacts, 13,500 email address credits and 600 phone number credits per user per year. The free trial runs 7 days on Startup, and the contract renews itself unless you give notice 60 days before the term ends, with renewal fees capped at a 7% increase.

A public API open to every account, an MCP server on every plan and event pushes for sends, replies, calls and meetings connect it to other tools, including two-way Salesforce sync and Clay. Where Apollo starts on a free plan, Amplemarket starts on a paid annual plan that turns signals into drafts.