CB

Clearbit

B2B data-enrichment platform now integrated into HubSpot as Breeze Intelligence — founded 2014 in San Francisco by Alex MacCaw (CEO 2014–2020), Matt Sornson (CEO 2020–2024 and through acquisition), Amit Vasudev, Harlow Ward, Rob Holland and Andrew O'Neal; scaled to ~$38M ARR before HubSpot acquired Clearbit for $150 million on 1 November 2023 (closed early 2024); standalone Clearbit API discontinued for new customers

B2B Lead Enrichment / Intent Data / ABM 4.2 / 5 (1 Rating) Free for HubSpot users (Breeze Intelligence) / Not sold standalone Updated May 2026 ⛔ Standalone product discontinued — see alternatives for non-HubSpot teams
⛔ Karza-class M&A: Clearbit acquired by HubSpot for $150M on 1 November 2023 — standalone product discontinued

Quick Verdict

Clearbit is no longer sold as a standalone product. On 1 November 2023, HubSpot announced the acquisition of Clearbit for $150 million (disclosed in HubSpot's Form 10-K filing on 8 November 2023), and the deal closed in early 2024. Since the close, Clearbit has operated as a wholly-owned HubSpot subsidiary, the standalone Clearbit API is not being sold to new customers, and the product capability has been integrated into HubSpot's customer platform — initially marketed as "Clearbit by HubSpot" and now repositioned as HubSpot Breeze Intelligence, the AI-powered B2B intelligence offering launched alongside the broader Breeze AI platform in late 2024 and 2025. The previous version of this page got two facts wrong that need correcting: (1) it said Clearbit was founded in 2013 — actually 2014; (2) it said Clearbit was acquired by HubSpot in 2019 — actually announced 1 November 2023, closed early 2024. The Clearbit company was founded in San Francisco in 2014 by six co-founders: Alex MacCaw (CEO 2014–November 2020, previously a developer at Twitter and Stripe), Matt Sornson (CEO from November 2020 through the HubSpot acquisition and integration), Amit Vasudev, Harlow Ward, Rob Holland, and Andrew O'Neal. At the time of the HubSpot deal Clearbit was at approximately $38 million in ARR per Starter Story / Sacra reporting — making the $150M purchase price a roughly 4x revenue multiple, characteristic of strategic acquisitions in the 2023 M&A environment. For Indian B2B sales, RevOps and marketing teams the right framing in 2026 is: if you're already a HubSpot customer, Clearbit / Breeze Intelligence enrichment is now bundled and is the obvious default; if you're not on HubSpot, do not adopt Clearbit — pick one of the alternatives below (Apollo.io is the most common Indian-B2B-SaaS destination, with RocketReach, Hunter.io, Seamless.ai and ZoomInfo as the next-tier options).

Is the product available standalone?
0
Value if you're already a HubSpot customer
4.5
Historic data quality (pre-acquisition)
4.2
Safe to adopt as new customer in 2026
0.5
India-specific data coverage
2.5

What was (and is) Clearbit?

Clearbit was an API-first B2B data-enrichment platform: send an email address or domain, get back enriched company and person data — company size, funding round and stage, tech stack, industry classification, headcount band, location; person-level job title, seniority, role, social profiles, phone numbers. The product was deeply integrated into modern marketing-automation and sales-engagement stacks: marketing teams used Clearbit to enrich inbound leads from forms before routing them through MEL-to-MQL-to-SQL workflows, sales teams used it to enrich outbound prospect lists, and product teams used Reveal.js (a JavaScript snippet) to identify anonymous website visitors at the account level for ABM (account-based marketing) campaigns.

The company was founded in 2014 in San Francisconot 2013 as some sources (including earlier versions of this review) have stated — by six co-founders: Alex MacCaw (CEO from January 2014 until November 2020; originally from London, previously a developer at Twitter and Stripe before starting Clearbit, and author of well-known programming books including "Asynchronous JavaScript"), Matt Sornson (CEO from November 2020 through the HubSpot acquisition and post-acquisition integration), Amit Vasudev, Harlow Ward, Rob Holland, and Andrew O'Neal. The Twitter / Stripe pedigree of Alex MacCaw shaped the product: Clearbit was built API-first, with clean documentation, predictable pricing, and an SDK-friendly developer experience that made it the default enrichment layer wired into thousands of B2B SaaS marketing and sales stacks through the late 2010s and early 2020s.

By the time of the HubSpot acquisition, Clearbit had scaled to approximately $38 million in annual recurring revenue per Starter Story and Sacra reporting, with a customer base concentrated in mid-market and enterprise B2B SaaS, plus a substantial long tail of smaller customers using the developer-friendly APIs for ad-hoc enrichment work. The product surface had expanded over the years from pure email + domain enrichment to include the Leads API (real-time CRM enrichment), Reveal.js (anonymous-visitor identification), Forms enrichment (shorter forms because more fields auto-populate), HubSpot / Salesforce / Marketo integrations, and Intent data (signals about which accounts are researching specific topics).

On 1 November 2023, HubSpot announced the acquisition of Clearbit. HubSpot's Form 10-K filing dated 8 November 2023 disclosed the deal price as $150 million. The deal closed in early 2024. Since the close, Clearbit has operated as a wholly-owned HubSpot subsidiary, initially marketed as "Clearbit by HubSpot", and from late 2024 / early 2025 the enrichment capability has been folded into HubSpot's Breeze AI platform as the Breeze Intelligence product. The standalone Clearbit API is no longer sold to new customers; legacy Clearbit API customers were given migration paths into HubSpot. This is a clean Karza-class M&A event — the product still exists in spirit but no longer exists as a standalone procurement choice for B2B sales and RevOps teams.

The HubSpot acquisition timeline

The Clearbit-to-HubSpot integration unfolded across approximately 18 months — useful context for Indian B2B teams trying to understand which features survived the transition:

  • 1 November 2023 — HubSpot announces the acquisition of Clearbit. Matt Sornson (Clearbit CEO) and Alex MacCaw (board member by then) both publicly endorse the deal. Definitive agreement signed.
  • 8 November 2023 — HubSpot's Form 10-K SEC filing discloses the deal price as $150 million.
  • Early 2024 — Deal closes; Clearbit becomes a wholly-owned HubSpot subsidiary. Product initially branded as "Clearbit by HubSpot". Legacy standalone API customers remain on existing contracts.
  • Mid 2024 — HubSpot begins limiting new standalone sign-ups for the Clearbit API; routing prospective enrichment customers toward HubSpot platform contracts.
  • Late 2024 — HubSpot launches the Breeze AI platform as the umbrella for HubSpot's generative-AI and intelligence features; Clearbit data + IP becomes the backbone of Breeze Intelligence (the B2B intelligence component of Breeze).
  • 2025 — Clearbit standalone is effectively retired for new customers. Breeze Intelligence is now the only way to access what was Clearbit's data, and it requires a HubSpot platform subscription.

The strategic logic of the deal was straightforward: HubSpot wanted first-party B2B intelligence data to power its AI features and ABM (account-based marketing) push without depending on a third-party enrichment vendor, and Clearbit at $38M ARR was the highest-quality acquisition target available at a price HubSpot could absorb. The execution has been smoother than many SaaS acquisition integrations — the Clearbit team mostly stayed through 2024, and the product has been visibly improved (rather than left to atrophy) as the foundation of Breeze Intelligence.

What this means for Indian buyers (decision tree)

✅ You're already on HubSpot

Use Breeze Intelligence (the new name for Clearbit) — it's bundled into eligible HubSpot tiers and is the obvious default. Enable enrichment in HubSpot settings and you get auto-enriched contacts. No additional procurement needed.

❌ You're not on HubSpot

Do not adopt Clearbit. New standalone customers are not being accepted. Pick from the alternatives section below — Apollo.io is the most common destination for Indian B2B SaaS teams in 2026.

⚠️ You're a legacy Clearbit API customer

Your existing contract continues to be honoured, but plan migration during your next renewal. HubSpot will route you toward Breeze Intelligence + a HubSpot platform contract or toward alternatives. Negotiate carefully on multi-year renewals.

🇮🇳 Indian SaaS company exploring

Indian-specific company / person data has always been weaker in Clearbit than US data — Indian B2B teams targeting Indian buyers should evaluate Apollo.io (broader Indian coverage), or Indian-built alternatives like Adapt.io (Bengaluru-built B2B database) and Slintel (acquired by 6sense).

📚 Just researching enrichment options

Skip Clearbit pages and go directly to the live-product comparisons. The 2026 landscape (Apollo.io vs Hunter.io vs ZoomInfo vs Adapt.io) has moved past the Clearbit-as-standalone framing entirely.

🔌 You built an integration on Clearbit API

Migration is unavoidable at some point. Build the integration against an actively-developed standalone API (Apollo.io API or Hunter.io API are the closest functional matches). Time-box this work; don't let it linger past Q4 2026.

What Clearbit did well (historic)

For the record — and because some of these capabilities now live inside Breeze Intelligence — here's what the standalone Clearbit product was genuinely good at:

  • Email Enrichment — submit an email address, get back high-quality company and person data with sub-second response times. The original product and still the cleanest API in the category.
  • Company Lookup — submit a domain, get back complete company profile including all enriched employees, funding history, growth stage, tech stack, industry tags.
  • Person Lookup — submit a name + company, get back email, phone, job title, social profiles, employment history.
  • Leads API — real-time enrichment integrated into your CRM or app via webhook. Wire Clearbit into your HubSpot / Salesforce / Marketo flow and contacts auto-enrich on insert.
  • Reveal.js — JavaScript snippet that identified anonymous website visitors at the account level. Foundational technology for B2B account-based marketing.
  • Forms enrichment — shorter forms because submitted email auto-populated company and person fields, materially improving conversion rates.

All of these capabilities continue to exist inside HubSpot Breeze Intelligence, but they now require a HubSpot platform subscription rather than being available as standalone APIs.

Pros & cons

✓ Pros (now Breeze Intelligence, for HubSpot customers)

  • Bundled into eligible HubSpot tiers — free incremental enrichment for HubSpot customers
  • Excellent data quality for US / European B2B accounts
  • Native HubSpot CRM integration — zero engineering overhead
  • Backbone of HubSpot Breeze AI features (ABM scoring, intent signals)
  • API-first heritage means clean documentation and predictable behaviour

✗ Cons

  • Standalone Clearbit API not sold to new customers since 2024
  • Requires HubSpot platform subscription to access (no standalone purchase)
  • Indian-specific company / person data thinner than US / European data
  • Brand is being phased out in favour of "Breeze Intelligence" naming
  • Locks you into the HubSpot ecosystem (procurement-wise)
  • Original Clearbit team has substantially churned post-acquisition

Alternatives — what Indian B2B teams adopt in 2026

For Indian B2B SaaS teams selling to Indian buyers, Adapt.io (Bengaluru-built) typically has materially better Indian company / person coverage than Clearbit ever did and is meaningfully cheaper. Apollo.io remains the most common 2026 destination for Indian B2B teams selling to global markets — the free tier + paid plans cover both prospecting and enrichment in one product. Hunter.io is the cheapest path for teams that just need email-finding. ZoomInfo is the enterprise choice but is dramatically more expensive than Clearbit ever was.

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