A free Claygent alternative

Same job, different billing model

Claygent takes a row, reads the open web, and returns an answer to a question you wrote. So does OpenClay. The difference is what sits behind it: Claygent draws down credits inside a subscription, and OpenClay sends the request to a model provider on your own API key.

That matters most at volume. Credit systems price research per row at a rate the platform sets. Paying the model directly prices it at what the tokens actually cost, which for a typical research row is a fraction of a cent.

Clay details from their public documentation and pricing page, subject to change.

Porting a Claygent prompt

Claygent prompts translate almost directly. Anywhere you referenced a column, OpenClay uses the same braces syntax, and the run substitutes that row's value before sending.

Find the current CEO of {Company} and their total funding raised.
Return ONLY valid JSON: {"ceo":"string","funding":"string"}

• Export your Clay table as CSV.
• Load it into OpenClay and select the columns that identify each row.
• Paste your prompt into the template editor, or describe the fields in plain English and let OpenClay write the prompt.
• Test five rows, compare against what Claygent returned, then run the batch.

The template editor validates as you type. If a template has no column placeholders, the run is blocked rather than sending every row the same prompt.

What you gain in the move

• Choose the model per job, from the cheapest through to a flagship.
• Exact cost quoted after a five-row test, before the batch runs.
• Token usage, peak tokens-per-minute and a blank-cell count while it runs.
• Retry only the rows that failed, without re-running the ones that worked.
• Your spreadsheet never leaves the browser.

Keep Clay for the rest

Claygent is one feature of a larger platform. If you also rely on Clay's data-provider waterfall for verified emails and phone numbers, or on its CRM sync, keep the subscription and use OpenClay for the research columns. Plenty of teams run exactly that split. The full comparison covers where the line sits, and the pricing page works through the arithmetic.