Dex vs Clay as a Personal CRM in 2025

With so many personal CRM options emerging, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the choice. If you’re weighing your options between Dex and Clay, you’re in the right place. Both platforms offer unique approaches to managing relationships but serve slightly different needs.

In this article, we'll break down the key features and differences of Dex and Clay to help you effortlessly elevate your networking game.

Overview: Dex vs. Clay

Both Dex and Clay cater to individuals who want to manage professional and personal relationships more effectively. They focus on people, not pipelines—ideal for freelancers, consultants, and relationship-driven professionals. However, their key distinctions lie in how they help users build routines around relationship management and which features they emphasize.

• Dex: Dex continues to be a leading option for users who want a seamless, cross-platform experience. Designed to integrate with multiple tools, Dex allows users to sync contacts from LinkedIn, Gmail, Outlook, and their phone, ensuring all their relationships stay up to date in one place.
• Clay: Clay’s strength lies in its automation and AI-enhanced networking capabilities. It builds a personal Rolodex by pulling in contacts from your email, calendar, and social networks while providing deep insights about them.

Both platforms offer a lot, but their differences shine when you break things down. Let’s dive deeper.

Feature Comparison

What's New in Dex

AI Copilot 🤖 (Beta)
An AI-powered assistant that helps with contact management, note-taking, and introductions.

Voice Input 🎤
Add notes through dictation by clicking the mic icon in the top left corner of Dex.

Automatic Contact Assignment 🔗
Copilot can search for relevant contacts and create notes/reminders based on your input.

AI-Powered Search 🔍
Search for relevant contacts based on queries in natural language.

AI-Generated Introductions ✉️
Draft introductions between contacts using profile data and interaction history.

WhatsApp Integration 📲
Sync contacts and conversations, update last interaction dates, and open conversations in one click.

Advanced Filtering 🔍
Users can filter contacts by all companies and educational institutions listed on LinkedIn.

What's New in Clay

Nexus AI v3
AI-powered assistant offering step-by-step reasoning, advanced search capabilities, and the ability to take actions like adding notes and creating groups.

Shared Workbook Templates
Allows users to share their Clay workbooks with others via a shareable link.

Notion Integration
Syncs contacts with Notion for real-time updates.

Google Docs Integration
Connects Clay seamlessly with Google Docs for enhanced document management.

These updates reinforce Clay’s position as a powerful, AI-driven personal CRM for users who want automation and smart networking insights.

Note: The information above is based on the latest updates available as of March 2025. For the most current features and integrations, please refer to Dex's and Clay's official documentation.

Key Differences Between Dex and Clay

1. Approach to Relationship Management

• Dex helps users stay proactive with reminders and prompts that ensure no important connection slips through the cracks. These proactive reminders are a core strength of Dex, making it ideal for individuals who want to maintain consistent outreach with their contacts.
• Clay, on the other hand, focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network. It consolidates data from various sources like email, social media, and calendars to create rich profiles for each contact. While Clay excels at organizing and presenting contact information, it relies more on the user to manually manage interactions, without offering as many proactive follow-up reminders as Dex.

2. User Experience & Simplicity

• Dex is built to be intuitive and quick to adopt, with minimal friction. The goal is for users to get set up in minutes and dive right into building their relationship routines.
• Clay offers a sleek and modern design, and provides extensive data enrichment and insights about your contacts by aggregating information from various sources. While this can be powerful for users who enjoy deep-diving into their data and appreciate having detailed profiles, it can feel overwhelming for new users or those who prefer a more straightforward experience.

3. Integrations & Flexibility

• Dex integrates seamlessly with Google Calendar, LinkedIn, and CSV imports, making it ideal for users who want to streamline follow-ups and appointments.
• Clay leans heavily on aggregating email and social media data. However, this makes it more suitable for people who want to track contacts in a more exploratory, visually immersive way.

Which Offers More Value?

Pricing can be a deciding factor, especially if you’re choosing a tool for personal use.

• Dex is available at a price of $12 per month, billed annually. This plan includes unlimited contacts, notes, and reminders, as well as unlimited contact views. Users also have access to advanced features like Map View, LinkedIn sync, and network updates. Additionally, Dex provides email and calendar integrations, custom fields, contact sync, and priority support to enhance the user experience.
• Clay's paid plan costs $10 per month billed annually or $20 per month billed monthly. While it includes unlimited contacts and priority support, Clay focuses more on aggregating contacts and social information, relying on users to manually manage their interactions. It lacks some of the proactive features that Dex offers for consistent relationship management.

Dex is more affordable and offers a free trial for users who want to explore the platform before committing. In contrast, Clay’s price point reflects its richer feature set however, it lacks some of the proactive features that Dex offers for consistent relationship management.

Who Should Use Dex?

Dex is perfect if:

✅ You want AI-powered reminders to follow up with contacts, ensuring you never lose touch.
✅ You prefer customization options for organizing notes, tags, and interaction history.
✅ You need a mobile-friendly CRM with a seamless experience across iOS, Android, desktop, and web.
✅ You want a system that integrates smoothly with your calendar, LinkedIn, and now WhatsApp for automatic contact and conversation syncing.
✅ You like using AI-driven features like Copilot for voice input, automatic contact assignment, and natural language search.

If you appreciate structure, smart automation, and tools that encourage follow-through, Dex is designed to fit perfectly into your workflow.

Who Should Use Clay?

Clay might be better for you if:

✅ You prefer a visually engaging, dynamic Rolodex for browsing and discovering connections.
✅ You rely on email, social syncs, and new hire signals to surface relevant contacts automatically.
✅ You want to explore and enrich contact data passively with AI-powered insights rather than manually tracking interactions.
✅ You need deep integrations with Notion, Google Docs, and Outreach for streamlined workflows.
✅ You benefit from AI-assisted features like Nexus AI v3 for advanced search, Metaprompter for crafting prompts, and Financial Filings Q&A for deeper business insights.

If your focus is on passively exploring connections with AI-driven insights and a visually engaging interface, Clay is a great choice.

Why Dex Stands Out as the Better Personal CRM for Most People

While both Dex and Clay offer personal CRM tools to help you manage relationships, Dex stands out for its focus on follow-through. If you’re serious about building meaningful connections and need a system that will remind you to stay on track, Dex offers the best value.

With Dex, you experience a streamlined, user-friendly interface backed by practical features like follow-up reminders and deep integrations. These powerful reminders make Dex the best tool for relationship maintenance, as it's specifically designed to drive engagement and consistency in your connections.

Final Thoughts

Choosing between Dex and Clay comes down to how you prefer to manage your relationships. If you want a proactive, mobile-friendly tool that encourages consistent follow-ups, Dex is the way to go. Clay offers a beautiful interface and strong data aggregation, but if follow-through matters to you (which it should), Dex will better meet your needs.

If you’re still exploring other personal CRM options, check out our complete guide to the best personal CRMs for more insights and recommendations.

At the end of the day, the best CRM is the one that has all your desired features and easily integrates into your workflow. Try Dex and see how it fits into your routine—you might just find it’s the tool you’ve been looking for.