AI lead generation in 2026: tools, prices in AED and SAR, and what you may do with the leads
Compare subscription prices with the credits your planned work requires, and check the rules before using contact data for outreach. Below are three tools priced in AED and SAR, a worked cost-per-lead example, and the rules a Gulf sales team should check first.
Nikolay Zuykov · Agenticum · 30 October 2026
What AI lead generation actually does in 2026
AI lead generation means using software with AI features to find potential buyers, research them, contact them, or capture them when they arrive on your website. This article looks at five jobs these tools can do.
- Finding contacts in a B2B database. You pay credits to reveal contact details. On Apollo.io and on Lusha a verified email costs 1 credit. A phone number costs 8 credits on Apollo and 5 on Lusha.
- Enriching records. In Clay, data credits buy data and AI from vendors in its marketplace.
- AI research and scoring. Apollo's AI Research costs 1 credit per run. Apollo says it identifies a prospect's pain points and refines your filters. Its Professional plan adds AI Lead Scoring. Clay's agent, Claygent, researches the web to produce custom data points.
- Outreach. HubSpot lists a Prospecting Agent that runs AI-powered outreach. Clay includes Clay Sequencer for email.
- Inbound capture. An AI agent answers questions from people who contact you, for example in chat or forms. This is covered in its own section below.
Lusha also makes its data available inside AI assistants and MCP clients, and one credit balance covers its workspace, browser extension, API and MCP.
Apollo, Clay and Lusha: prices, credits and features
AED and SAR amounts are converted from the USD list prices. Apollo states that its prices exclude taxes, so check the tax line at checkout for every vendor. "Not confirmed" means our sources do not state the figure.
| Field | Apollo.io | Clay | Lusha |
|---|---|---|---|
| Best suited to | Sales reps who need a database and outreach in one tool | An ops person building multi-source enrichment and AI research | Simple contact reveals at low volume |
| Priced per | Seat | Workspace (unlimited seats) | Plan; Starter includes 1 seat, Premium 5 |
| Free plan | $0, 900 credits per seat per year, granted monthly | Yes, unlimited seats, no phone enrichment | Yes, up to 40 credits a month |
| Cheapest paid plan, billed monthly | Not confirmed | Launch: from $185 / AED 679.41 / SAR 693.75 a month | Not confirmed for Starter (Premium is $399.90 / AED 1,468.63 / SAR 1,499.63) |
| Cheapest paid plan, billed annually | Basic: $49 / AED 179.95 / SAR 183.75 per seat a month | Launch: from $167 / AED 613.31 / SAR 626.25 a month | Starter: $37.45 / AED 137.54 / SAR 140.44 a month |
| Credits on that annual plan | 30,000 per seat per year, upfront | 30,000 data credits and 180,000 actions a year | 4,800 per year, upfront |
| 1 credit | Not confirmed | 1 credit | |
| Phone number | 8 credits | Not confirmed | 5 credits |
| Named AI feature | AI Research; AI Lead Scoring on Professional | Claygent | AI assistant from Starter; MCP access |
| Credit rollover | None; credits reset each billing cycle | Data credits up to 2x the monthly amount; actions do not roll over | Not confirmed |
| Annual discount | Not stated | 10% | 25% |
Higher tiers: Apollo Professional is $79 (AED 290.13 / SAR 296.25) per seat a month billed annually, with 48,000 credits per seat per year. Apollo Organization is $119 per seat a month billed annually, with a minimum of 3 seats. Clay Growth starts at $446 a month billed annually (AED 1,637.94 / SAR 1,672.50), or $495 billed monthly (AED 1,817.89 / SAR 1,856.25). The monthly plan includes 6,000 data credits and 40,000 actions a month. Lusha Pro is $52.45 a month billed yearly (AED 192.62 / SAR 196.69), with 7,200 credits a year.
What a lead really costs: a worked example in AED and SAR
Example only. Say a team needs 200 new contacts a month, each with an email and a phone number.
Apollo.io: 200 × (1 + 8) = 1,800 credits a month, or 21,600 a year. Basic on annual billing grants 30,000 credits per seat per year, so one seat's credit allowance covers this example. That costs $49 a month (AED 179.95 / SAR 183.75), or about AED 0.90 / SAR 0.92 per contact. Unused credits do not carry into the next billing cycle.
Lusha: 200 × (1 + 5) = 1,200 credits a month, or 14,400 a year. Starter (4,800 credits a year) and Pro (7,200 credits a year) do not provide enough credits for this example. Premium covers it: $299.95 a month billed yearly (AED 1,101.57 / SAR 1,124.81) with 40,800 credits a year, or $399.90 billed monthly (AED 1,468.63 / SAR 1,499.63) with 3,400 credits a month. On yearly billing that is about AED 5.51 / SAR 5.62 per contact, though Premium also includes 5 seats.
Emails only: 200 credits a month is 2,400 a year. That fits Lusha Starter at $37.45 a month billed yearly (AED 137.54 / SAR 140.44), and it also fits Apollo Basic. Neither free plan covers it: Apollo Free gives 900 credits a year and Lusha Free up to 40 a month.
Clay: this example does not establish a cost per contact. Our sources do not list Clay's credit cost for an email or a phone number. AI steps are priced in two ways: 80% of models cost a flat number of data credits per task, while token-heavy models are billed on actual token use.
In this example, Lusha charges fewer credits per phone number, but at this volume its plan costs more than one Apollo seat.
Using AI chat to capture inbound leads
Inbound tools handle enquiries from people who contact your business. HubSpot's Customer Agent is an AI agent that answers questions across chat, email, forms and calling, and passes the conversation to your team when needed. Apollo sells an Inbound add-on for website visitor identification, lead routing and form enrichment. It costs $119 a month for Essentials (AED 437.03 / SAR 446.25) or $639 for Max (AED 2,346.73 / SAR 2,396.25), per team and billed annually.
If a visitor submits their contact details through your chat or form, you receive those details directly. Where Saudi Arabia's PDPL applies, Article 26 requires consent before you use these directly collected details for marketing.
Saudi rules: PDPL limits on marketing with AI-sourced data
This is a summary of the official text, not legal advice.
| Provision | What it says | What it means for AI leads |
|---|---|---|
| Scope (Article 2) | Applies to processing of data of people residing in the Kingdom, including by parties outside it | A UAE or overseas company prospecting Saudi residents is covered |
| Article 25 | No advertising to personal means of communication, including email and post, without the recipient's prior consent and a clear opt-out | Cold email to a personal address needs prior consent and a clear opt-out |
| Article 26 | Marketing processing is allowed if the data was collected directly from the person and they consented | Contacts revealed from a third-party database were not collected by you directly from the person |
| Penalties | Violations not covered by Article 35: a warning or a fine of up to SAR 5 million, which can double for a repeat violation | A fine can be far larger than the cost of any plan in this article |
A note on UAE rules
This edition does not summarise UAE telemarketing or data-protection rules. Check them with counsel before you run calls, SMS or WhatsApp campaigns from the UAE. If you target Saudi residents, the Saudi rules above apply as well.
Channel rules: WhatsApp and LinkedIn
WhatsApp: the WhatsApp Business policy allows you to contact a person only if they gave you their phone number or username. They must also have opted in, confirming that they want to receive later messages or calls from your business. Finding a number in a database does not by itself show that either condition is met.
LinkedIn: the User Agreement bans software, scripts, robots, crawlers and browser plugins that scrape or copy profiles and other data. It also bans bots and unauthorised automated methods to access the service or to add or download contacts. Before you connect any tool to LinkedIn, check how it does so.
How to choose and pilot an AI lead generation tool
Choose Apollo.io if each rep needs a database and outreach in one seat. Choose Clay if an ops person will build enrichment from several providers and run AI research with Claygent. Choose Lusha for simple contact reveals at low volume, or if you want contact data inside an AI assistant over MCP.
- Define your ideal customer profile: industries, company size, roles and countries.
- Estimate monthly credits: contacts × (email credits + phone credits). Then pick the smallest plan that covers a year of use.
- Start on the free plan to check how well the data covers your Gulf targets before you pay.
- Check the law before any outreach. For Saudi residents, confirm consent under Articles 25 and 26. For WhatsApp, confirm the opt-in. For UAE campaigns, confirm the current rules with counsel.
- Measure cost per qualified lead, not cost per contact, and compare it with what your inbound channel produces.