How Clay achieves six-figure savings with Vanta and Workstreet

The company

Powering GTM with AI and data 

Clay is transforming how go-to-market (GTM) teams operate by uniting AI and data to drive smarter, faster growth. With over 100 data source integrations and a flexible platform to connect and activate that data, Clay enables teams to move quickly, experiment at scale, and unlock new growth opportunities. The company is scaling rapidly, with a growing footprint in the enterprise market.

Everett Berry, who leads GTM Engineering at Clay, plays a central role in evangelizing how teams unlock the platform’s potential. “We’re the Clay sales team, but we’re also technologists,” he explains. “Our job is to show teams how to grow faster using better tools.”

From day one, security has been non-negotiable. “Security should enable the business, not slow it down,” says Everett. “It’s about being responsible stewards of customer data and putting practical controls in place that allow us to grow.”

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The challenge

Turning security into a growth accelerator 

As Clay’s customer base grew and enterprise interest surged, security and compliance evolved from an operational need into a strategic growth driver. “Strong security is often the difference between winning and losing enterprise deals,” says Everett. “It directly impacts how quickly we can move from contract to onboarding, and how much trust we can build from day one.”

Before adopting Vanta, Clay’s approach to compliance was highly manual and reactive. “We were managing everything in spreadsheets, chasing down evidence on an ad hoc basis, and responding to customer requests one at a time,” he recalls. “It was time-consuming, inefficient, and unsustainable.” With deals on the line and the internal team already stretched thin, Everett needed a way to demonstrate Clay’s security posture quickly and continuously, without diverting critical resources away from product and growth.

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The solution

From manual work to rapid progress with Vanta and Workstreet

To bring structure and speed to Clay’s compliance efforts, Everett turned to Vanta—the market leader in continuous compliance and the platform he trusted in past roles. “Vanta offered the right balance of automation and simplicity,” he says. “It didn’t require a big engineering lift and scaled with us from day one.”

Clay partnered with Workstreet, a top managed service provider and Vanta-exclusive partner to fast-track readiness and bring in hands-on expertise. “We needed real security guidance and hands-on help,” Everett explains. “Workstreet helped us move fast without overloading our team.”

That exclusive focus is Workstreet’s strength, says Travis Good, Co-Founder and CEO of Workstreet. “Building our services on top of the market-leading platform helps us move beyond manual work to offer deep, consultative support,” he says. “We don’t just help teams pass audits—we help them turn security into a growth engine.”

The impact was immediate. “Workstreet has been a true partner,” Everett says. “They took on the heavy lifting, kept us on track, and embedded security into our daily workflow.” Paired with Vanta’s automation, Clay had a compliance program that could keep pace with growth. 

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Together, Vanta and Workstreet enabled Clay to achieve SOC 2 audit readiness in record time—meeting key enterprise requirements while laying the groundwork to pursue additional frameworks and mature their overall security posture. 

They also removed a major sales bottleneck: security questionnaires. “Vanta and Workstreet have helped us move faster by unblocking security reviews without draining our team,” Everett says. Clay leverages Trust Center—powered by Vanta AI—to deflect many inbound requests. When questionnaires do arise, Workstreet uses Vanta’s Questionnaire Automation tool, which helps customers complete security reviews up to 5x faster—accelerating deals and reinforcing customer trust.

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The impact

Accelerating trust while building a strong security foundation

With Vanta and Workstreet, Clay rapidly achieved SOC 2 compliance. “The process felt fast, structured, and surprisingly manageable,” Everett says. 

The payoff was immediate. “Vanta has saved us hundreds of hours and well over six figures in potential lost deals or added headcount,” he notes. “It’s helped us move upmarket and shorten our deal cycles by 20%—it’s directly contributed to revenue growth.”

By automating evidence collection, leveraging Vanta’s robust continuous controls monitoring, and operationalizing best practices from Vanta and Workstreet, Clay has made security a scalable part of the business, not a distraction. “We’ve stayed focused on product and growth instead of getting bogged down in compliance busywork,” says Everett. 

Vanta and Workstreet have also helped elevate Clay’s overall security posture. From implementing stronger access and personnel controls to improving internal visibility into security, their partnership has built internal credibility and strengthened leadership confidence in the company’s security roadmap.

Looking ahead, Clay plans to deepen its enterprise presence, expand its AI and data capabilities, and pursue additional certifications, like ISO 42001. With Vanta’s AI Security Assessment, they’re also staying ahead of how AI is reshaping the market. “We’re building a security-first culture that scales with the business,” Everett says. 

At Clay, trust isn’t a checkbox—it’s a competitive edge. With Vanta and Workstreet, the Clay team is proving that even the fastest-moving teams can build strong security foundations from the very start. 

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