Clado Review

Clado sells AI-agent-driven people search: instead of boolean filters, you describe a candidate or lead in plain language and its agents match that description against a claimed 800M+ profile index, then enrich the hits with emails, phone numbers, and social links. This review covers what's verifiable from the vendor's own site and docs, what pricing actually works out to, and where the evidence runs out.

Verdict at a glance

What kind of tool is Clado?

Clado is a people-search and enrichment platform built around AI agents rather than filter forms. You describe a target profile — the vendor's own example is "software engineers at Meta in San Francisco" — and the agent searches a claimed index of more than 800 million profiles for matches, then layers on enrichment: email addresses, phone numbers, LinkedIn scrapes, GitHub handles, and Google Scholar links where available. The company positions this at recruiters, sales teams, and venture investors sourcing founders, and cites customers at firms including Goldman Sachs and Google — a vendor-supplied claim we could not independently confirm.

Clado also cites a search-quality benchmark from Pearch.ai, a competing search vendor, crediting Clado with an Elo score of 1187 against Pearch's own 1132 and Exa's 1041. Worth noting: the benchmark being run by one of the products it's comparing against doesn't make it wrong, but it isn't independent third-party testing either — treat it as directional, not a verdict.

How it works

Access runs two ways: the web dashboard ("Atlas") for interactive search and team collaboration, or a REST API authenticated with a bearer key (format lk_...) for programmatic use. Both meter usage through the same credit system. A "Monitors" feature can watch saved criteria and alert when new matching profiles appear, which is useful for ongoing sourcing rather than one-off list pulls. The platform advertises SOC 2 Type I certification, SOC 2 Type II in observation, and ISO/IEC 27001:2025 conformance — relevant if security review is part of your procurement process, though these are self-reported compliance claims, not something we audited.

Clado pricing (2026)

Clado does not publish monthly subscription tiers on its site. Pricing is entirely usage-based, at $0.01 per credit, per the API pricing docs:

Doing the real-cost math: sourcing and email-enriching 100 candidates with advanced filtering runs 100 credits for the search plus 400 credits for email enrichment (assuming every result matches), or roughly $5.00 total — about $0.05 per usable contact. Add phone numbers instead of email and that jumps to $0.11 per contact. Failed enrichment attempts and failed server requests aren't charged, and cached lookups still bill at standard rates. What's genuinely missing from the public pricing is any bundle or subscription structure — there's no visible way to know your effective rate at scale, or whether volume discounts exist, without contacting sales.

What we could and couldn't verify

We could not find Clado on G2, Trustpilot, or in any organic Reddit thread as of this review — not a single rating, complaint, or endorsement from an independent third party. That's a meaningful gap for a tool handling recruiting and sales data: it means there's no outside signal on match accuracy, data freshness, or how support handles disputed enrichment charges. We also couldn't verify the named-customer claims (Goldman Sachs, Google) or confirm bundle/enterprise pricing, since none of that is published. Everything in this review beyond the credit-cost table comes from Clado's own site and documentation; treat vendor performance claims (match quality, the Pearch.ai benchmark, customer logos) as advertised, not independently confirmed.

Pros and cons

Pros

• Criteria-based search handles nuance that boolean filters can't express
• Transparent per-operation credit pricing, published in the docs
• Enrichment covers email, phone, LinkedIn, GitHub, and Google Scholar in one pass
• API-first with a straightforward bearer-token auth model
• SOC 2 and ISO 27001 posture, useful for security-conscious buyers

Cons

• No public monthly plans; you can't estimate volume cost without contacting sales
• No independent reviews on G2, Trustpilot, or Reddit to check against vendor claims
• Phone enrichment at $0.10 per success is pricey at scale next to pure data providers
• Customer and benchmark claims are vendor-sourced and unverified

Clado alternatives

• Clay — broader data-orchestration platform that blends dozens of enrichment providers with workflow automation, at a higher price point.
• Sixtyfour.ai — similar AI-agent research approach to open-ended lead and candidate discovery.
• Longlist — recruiting-focused sourcing tool, a closer comparison for talent teams specifically.
• Zaplify — sales-prospecting tool combining list-building with outreach sequencing.
• Exa — AI search engine Clado's own cited benchmark places behind it on match quality; worth testing yourself given the source.
• Apollo.io — much larger contact database with built-in sequencing, a fit for teams that want data and outreach in one product.

Who should use Clado — and who shouldn't

Good fit: recruiters and sales teams whose ideal searches involve combinations standard filters can't express (specific niche experience, unusual title-plus-skill combos); teams comfortable paying per result and per enrichment rather than a flat seat price; buyers who need SOC 2/ISO documentation for procurement.

Poor fit: teams that want predictable monthly costs and a published rate card before committing; anyone who needs third-party proof of accuracy before buying, since none currently exists publicly; high-volume phone-enrichment use cases, where the $0.10-per-success rate adds up fast.