Discrepancy in Company Counts in Clay's Software and IT Filter

Siddhant B. · 2025-12-09T13:20:52.077Z

Why does Clay's find companies show ~30k companies when I limit the industry to "Software and IT" vs when I do not specify anything? I would have thought it would have returned a larger number.

Discrepancy in Company Counts in Clay's Software and IT Filter | Clay

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Clay Support
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When you filter for "Software and IT," you're narrowing the results to only companies in that specific industry, which is why you see around 30k. Without any filters, the search includes all industries, so the total number of companies is much larger. The dataset is built from multiple providers and is self-reported, so filtering by industry reduces the pool to just those matching your criteria. [1] [2] [3]
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Siddhant B.
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No
Clay Support
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Our support team has got your message and we'll get back to you soon! We're currently outside of our standard office hours (9 AM to 9 PM EST, Monday through Friday), so it may take a little longer for us to respond.
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Siddhant B.
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No table, any Clay company search is fine. Geography is United Kingdom.
Mitch H.
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Hey Siddhant, When you search with just "saas" in the products/services field, Clay is looking through company descriptions and product info for that keyword, which gives you ~14k companies.
When you add the "Software and IT" AI filter on top of that, it's expanding your search to ~30k because the AI has analyzed company websites and classified additional companies as being in software/IT - even if they don't explicitly mention "saas" in their product descriptions. So you're getting companies that Clay's AI identified as software/IT businesses based on what's on their websites, not just the ones that happen to use the word "saas" when describing themselves.
Basically: Products/services filter = keyword matching in descriptions. AI filter = Clay's AI classification based on what the company actually does according to their website. The AI filter is catching companies your keyword search missed. Hope this helps!
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We haven't heard back from you here, so we're going to go ahead and close this thread out.
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Siddhant B.
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1.
Thanks Mitch H. - that was very insightful!
2.
So, its basically an "OR" between the "SaaS" filter and the industry filter.
3.
That's a bit unintuitive - and also breaks the convention that Clay itself has. For eg, as a different example: if I specify the industry and the country, Clay works as if there is an "AND" between them - meaning, the industry specified, AND in the country specified.
4.
Unrelated: could you add (Clay) to your display name so folks know that you currently work there?
Bo (.
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It’s not an “OR” between those filters. What’s happening is that the two filters operate on different underlying signals, so when you combine them you’re not strictly narrowing the same dataset the way “industry + country” does.
Products/Services = keyword match in descriptions and product text (so “saas” only catches companies that explicitly use that term).
AI Industry filter = classification based on what the company does (often derived from the website), so it can include software/IT companies that never say “saas” in their text.
When you apply the AI filter, you’re effectively broadening coverage to “companies the model believes are software/IT,” which can increase results even if your keyword filter stays the same. If you want a true “AND” behavior for “SaaS + Software/IT,” the most reliable approach is to keep Products/Services as your hard constraint (or use a more specific keyword set) and treat the AI industry filter as an expansion tool rather than a narrowing filter.
On the display name note: I can’t change Mitch’s name directly, but I’ll pass the feedback along internally so it’s clearer in community threads.
Clay Support
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We haven't heard back from you here, so we're going to go ahead and close this thread out.
Still need help here? Reply back and someone will jump back in.
Have a question thats not related to this thread? We recommend kicking off a new ticket in the support channel!

Clay Support
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When you filter for "Software and IT," you're narrowing the results to only companies in that specific industry, which is why you see around 30k. Without any filters, the search includes all industries, so the total number of companies is much larger. The dataset is built from multiple providers and is self-reported, so filtering by industry reduces the pool to just those matching your criteria. [1] [2] [3]
Clay Support
APP
·
·
Was that helpful?
Siddhant B.
·
·
No
Clay Support
APP
·
·
I'm sorry that didn't help. I'll connect you with a human agent who can assist you further.
Clay Support
APP
·
·
Our support team has got your message and we'll get back to you soon! We're currently outside of our standard office hours (9 AM to 9 PM EST, Monday through Friday), so it may take a little longer for us to respond.
If you’re dealing with a specific table, drop the URL below so we can help you quicker. Otherwise, someone from our team will be in touch soon!
image.png(93 kB)
Siddhant B.
·
·
No table, any Clay company search is fine. Geography is United Kingdom.
Mitch H.
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·
Hey Siddhant, When you search with just "saas" in the products/services field, Clay is looking through company descriptions and product info for that keyword, which gives you ~14k companies.
When you add the "Software and IT" AI filter on top of that, it's expanding your search to ~30k because the AI has analyzed company websites and classified additional companies as being in software/IT - even if they don't explicitly mention "saas" in their product descriptions. So you're getting companies that Clay's AI identified as software/IT businesses based on what's on their websites, not just the ones that happen to use the word "saas" when describing themselves.
Basically: Products/services filter = keyword matching in descriptions. AI filter = Clay's AI classification based on what the company actually does according to their website. The AI filter is catching companies your keyword search missed. Hope this helps!
Clay Support
APP
·
·
We haven't heard back from you here, so we're going to go ahead and close this thread out.
Still need help here? Reply back and someone will jump back in.
Have a question thats not related to this thread? We recommend kicking off a new ticket in the support channel!
Siddhant B.
·
·
1.
Thanks Mitch H. - that was very insightful!
2.
So, its basically an "OR" between the "SaaS" filter and the industry filter.
3.
That's a bit unintuitive - and also breaks the convention that Clay itself has. For eg, as a different example: if I specify the industry and the country, Clay works as if there is an "AND" between them - meaning, the industry specified, AND in the country specified.
4.
Unrelated: could you add (Clay) to your display name so folks know that you currently work there?
Bo (.
·
·
It’s not an “OR” between those filters. What’s happening is that the two filters operate on different underlying signals, so when you combine them you’re not strictly narrowing the same dataset the way “industry + country” does.
Products/Services = keyword match in descriptions and product text (so “saas” only catches companies that explicitly use that term).
AI Industry filter = classification based on what the company does (often derived from the website), so it can include software/IT companies that never say “saas” in their text.
When you apply the AI filter, you’re effectively broadening coverage to “companies the model believes are software/IT,” which can increase results even if your keyword filter stays the same. If you want a true “AND” behavior for “SaaS + Software/IT,” the most reliable approach is to keep Products/Services as your hard constraint (or use a more specific keyword set) and treat the AI industry filter as an expansion tool rather than a narrowing filter.
On the display name note: I can’t change Mitch’s name directly, but I’ll pass the feedback along internally so it’s clearer in community threads.
Clay Support
APP
·
·
We haven't heard back from you here, so we're going to go ahead and close this thread out.
Still need help here? Reply back and someone will jump back in.
Have a question thats not related to this thread? We recommend kicking off a new ticket in the support channel!