Understanding Waterfall Setup Costs in Clay Function

Frank O. · 2025-06-03T12:16:02.287238+00:00

I want to setup a waterfall in this order: • Find People at companies (native clay function). This is normally free, but when I set-up a waterfall it costs 1 credit/row? Am I missing something? • Data provider • Claygent

Frank O.

I want to setup a waterfall in this order:

Find People at companies (native clay function). This is normally free, but when I set-up a waterfall it costs 1 credit/row? Am I missing something?
Data provider
Claygent

11 comments

Channeled
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Waterfalls only charge you credits for the provider that successfully finds data, not for the "Find People" function itself. When you set up a waterfall, it runs multiple actions sequentially, and you're charged for whichever provider returns valid results. If no data is found, credits are typically refunded for most actions. To properly set up your waterfall, right-click "Add Column" > "Add Enrichment", search for "Waterfall", select your desired data point, and then arrange your providers in the preferred order.
Sources: Waterfall Enrich People (Waterfalls) [Clay 101] - Clay University Enrich Companies (Waterfalls) [Clay 101] - Clay University
Frank O.
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It does charge for native clay function right? Second option in image
Channeled
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No, you don't pay credits for prospecting with the native "Find People" function. You only pay credits for actual data enrichment. In a waterfall setup, you're only charged credits for the provider that successfully finds the data, not for using the "Find People" function itself. If no data is found by a provider, credits are typically refunded for that action.
Sources: Waterfall How Clay Credits Work
Frank O.
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Also, curious how I can set-up auto-runs of native Find People function
Bo (.
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Hey, When you run Find People as part of a table workflow, it uses a real-time provider - which is why it costs 1 credit per row. It's faster and often more accurate, but not free. If you want to stick with the free version, you can use Find People at These Companies as a standalone action instead of within the table. That won't cost credits and still gives solid results. When you're using this one, it will always auto-update. You can change the setting to not auto-update by clicking on the column header inside of the table. Let me know if you'd like help setting up the waterfall properly!
Frank O.
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Hey Bo (., thanks. “When you’re using this one, it will always auto-update. You can change the setting to not auto-update by clicking on the column header inside of the table.” What do you mean exactly with auto-update in this example? When will the People table update?
Frank O.
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I would love some help with setting up that waterfall. What I’m looking to create:
Find 3 decision-makers for each company that I can outreach simultaneously.
Waterfall
Check Find People At These Companies to find decision-makers (the free option. Since I gotta be a bit careful with the credits since I haven’t got an ROI yet out of Clay and gotta convince my employer)
Other dataprovider/Clay function. Which one do you recommend? Looking for best quality/price ratio.
Channeled
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Hello Franks! Thanks for reaching out. Jumping in for Bo here. What he means by auto update is basically the button at the bottom right of the table.
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The reason we recommend keeping the auto update disabled is in situations when you already have enrichments setup in the table. Due to this, anytime we have any new data coming into the table (throw re running the source), these enrichments get triggered and lead to credit spend. This may be unnecessary in situations where you are not sure whether you are satisfied with the data it pulled.
Since you want to conserve credits as much as you can, setup your Company Table first. Once you have done that, to setup the Find People table through Actions > Find people at these companies. Please note you need to at least have the Company's Linkedin URL to setup the Find People search I mentioned above. So ensure you have that ready before you click on Find people at these companies. You can put in parameters like Founder, Co-founder or such job titles in the source setup for Find People. The important part here is to add a limit of 3 per company before you preview and run this People search. This will make sure you get 3 decision makers within the company to reach out to. To reach out to these people you need more information about them. Enrich Person is the most cost effective enrichment since you get multiple data points and they are stored within one column. You can also find their email addresses through the Find Work Email waterfall. The email body generation can be done through Use AI enrichment. You can select the model according to your credit budget. We generally recommend breaking down the email content generation into different Use AI columns to ensure accuracy but to conserve credits you can try doing this within one column. Let me know if you want me to expand on this further!
Frank O.
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Hey, thanks for the detailed answer but this didn’t fully answer my question yet. Running the Find people at these companies first is indeed a free first step, but then I will only find a few good leads. I then want to run paid waterfalls such as People Search on Google so every company gets to the 3 leads per company. How to set this up?
Channeled
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Hey Frank! Curious to know why you are going the paid route instead of the Find People route, especially since it is free and will give you details on top decisions makers at the company (if you set limit per company to 3) Secondly, if you want to do a People Search on Google, you do not need to go for a waterfall. You can simply add the a Perform search column (Add Enrichment > Perform Search) and then add the query accordingly. I would highly suggest going the Find People route. Can you tell me more about why you specifically want to use a waterfall?
Frank O.
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Hey, because the Find People is delivering poor results in my country, I need to look into alternative providers

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