Why not just use a search or scraping API?

Use both, for plumbing. They return raw material you still have to read, judge, and format. Gumshoe returns the finished conclusion with the receipts attached. Different job, different tool.

How is this different from Clay?

Clay is a spreadsheet empire with credits priced like jewelry. Gumshoe is one API call, priced like infrastructure. If you live in tables, stay there. If you build systems, this is your layer.

What's a browser case?

When a target site needs real interaction (search boxes, filters, JS walls), the agent drives an actual cloud browser and screenshots every step. Flat 25 cases instead of 1 (still a single company: the premium pays for browser time), and only when you set fieldwork: true. A standard case that gets blocked still costs 1, and its report tells you exactly what blocked it so refiling with fieldwork is your call.

What if I'm bad at writing prompts?

Then you're normal. Describe the job in one plain sentence and Gumshoe drafts a structured brief back: target, signals, sources, output shape. Approve it or tweak a line before anything runs. The agency writes the prompt so your sloppy one-liner still closes a clean case.

Couldn't I just ask Claude or ChatGPT to research this?

For one company, sure, and it would do fine. Gumshoe exists for the other 9,999: same JSON schema every run, webhooks, retries, screenshot evidence, and a cost per case in cents. A chat is a conversation you supervise. Gumshoe is infrastructure your code calls.

Do I bring my own LLM key?

No. The platform model is included in every case. Your bill is one number: cases.

How many rows can one case return?

A case is one question with a bounded report: up to 20 findings, every one cited. Enriching 5,000 existing rows? One cases:batch call, one case per row. Building a list from scratch? One sweep call with a target count: we fan out, verify, and dedupe server-side, billed one case per unique row delivered. Sweeps reserve credits up front and refund every undelivered row. Bounded units keep the bill honest, yours and ours.

What if I run out of cases mid-month?

Top up at your plan's rate from the billing page, effective immediately. Top-ups need an active paid plan and expire at the end of the cycle. The free tier can't top up: upgrade instead.

Standard cases file in 10 to 30 seconds. Browser fieldwork takes a minute or two. Surveillance can't be rushed.

Gumshoe.Open a case

Private investigations for your pipeline · est. 2026

Send a question.
Get a closed case.

Gumshoe is an agentic company research API. It puts an AI private eye on any company: searches, reads, and drives a real browser when a site fights back, then files a verdict as structured JSON with citations and screenshot evidence.

Open your first case Read the case files

Free plan: 100 cases a month. No card. No small talk.

GUMSHOE INVESTIGATIONSCONFIDENTIAL

Case closed

HIRING SIGNALS ·FUNDING INTEL ·TECH STACK RECON ·ICP VERDICTS ·COMPETITOR MENTIONS ·PRICING CHANGES ·EXEC MOVES ·CASE CLOSED ·HIRING SIGNALS ·FUNDING INTEL ·TECH STACK RECON ·ICP VERDICTS ·COMPETITOR MENTIONS ·PRICING CHANGES ·EXEC MOVES ·CASE CLOSED ·

Screen-printed poster of a private eye holding out a magnifying glass

Doc 2 of 8 · internal memo

You own a shovel.
That doesn't make you a detective.

Search APIs hand you links. Scraping APIs hand you HTML. Then the real work starts: reading forty tabs at 2 a.m., deciding what counts, formatting it for your CRM. You didn't buy research. You bought homework.

Gumshoe is the layer above the plumbing. You file a brief in plain English. The agent works the case across search and primary sources, and when a JS-heavy site slams the door it drives a real cloud browser that clicks, filters, and reads like a human. What comes back isn't raw material. It's a verdict.

Keep your search API. It's a fine shovel. Hire the gumshoe for the cases that matter.

Attachment 2-A · the usual suspects

SUSPECT	M.O.	VERDICT
Search APIsSerper & associates	Hands you ten blue links and wishes you luck with the reading.	Fine shovel
Scraper APIsFirecrawl & co.	Delivers the raw HTML crime scene. Cleanup is your problem.	Good tweezers
Spreadsheet empiresClay	Sells you a beautiful table and credits priced like jewelry. You still do the judging.	Nice furniture
Deep research chatsClaude, Perplexity & co.	Brilliant on one case, if you paste, wait, copy, and reformat it yourself. Nobody does that ten thousand times a night.	Great sidekick
Gumshoethat's us	Works the case end to end. Returns the verdict with citations and photographic evidence.	Hired

Intake desk · your deposition

You bring the hunch.
We write the brief.

Prompt engineering is not your job. Mumble what you want in one sloppy line. Gumshoe reads it back as a structured brief: who to look at, which signals to check, what the report must contain. You approve it, or tweak a line, then open the cases. Bad prompts can't sink good research when the agency writes the prompt.

WHAT YOU SCRIBBLE

“find me companies kinda like the ones that already buy from us and might be ready to switch”

CASE BRIEF · DRAFT FOR APPROVAL

TARGET   B2B SaaS, 50-500 employees
LOOK FOR · runs a competing tool
         · hiring RevOps or GTM eng
         · raised in the last 12 mo
SOURCES  careers, news, tech traces
DELIVER  fit verdict + confidence
         + top 3 signals, cited

Approve & open casesTweak a line

Doc 3 of 8 · the caseload

What people hire us for

Everything you'd wire a Clay table to do, minus the table. One API call each.

ICP qualification

Does Acme fit? Headcount, motion, market, stack. A verdict with sources, not a hunch.

REPLACES A 6-COLUMN CLAY WATERFALL

Hiring signals

Who is hiring SDRs, engineers, RevOps. Read straight from careers pages, not stale job boards.

REPLACES A CLAYGENT HIRING PROMPT

Funding intel

Raises, rounds, investors, dates. Cited from primary coverage, not rumor mills.

REPLACES A NEWS ENRICHMENT COLUMN

Tech stack recon

Which CRM, which cloud, which tooling. Assembled from public traces and product pages.

REPLACES 2 TO 3 STACK DETECTION TOOLS

Competitor watch

Pricing moved, feature shipped, logo landed. Diffed on a schedule, alerted by webhook.

CLAY DOES NOT EVEN DO THIS

List sweeps

Re-verify 10,000 accounts every Monday morning. One loop, one webhook, zero tabs.

REPLACES THE WHOLE TABLE

Doc 4 of 8 · standard procedure

How a case gets worked

Illustration of an open case folder with a paperclipped photograph

Step 1 · File the case

Brief the agency

POST /v1/case with a mission in plain English. “Does Acme run Salesforce? Are they hiring SDRs? Did they raise?” Attach your JSON schema if you want the report typed your way.

Illustration of a detective walking under a street lamp at night

Step 2 · Fieldwork

We walk the streets

The agent searches, cross-references, reads primary sources. When a site resists (logins, filters, infinite JS), it drives a real browser and takes timestamped screenshots as it goes.

Illustration of a hand stamping a document in red ink

Step 3 · Case closed

The report lands

Structured JSON hits your webhook: verdict, confidence, citations, exhibits. Pipe it into your CRM, your outbound tool, your warehouse. Every claim traceable to its source.

Doc 5 of 8 · dispatch board

File one case.
Or ten thousand.

This is not a deep research chat you babysit one tab at a time. One detective works one lead at a time. Gumshoe is a bureau: file a thousand briefs in a loop and hundreds of investigators work them concurrently, each report fanning back to your webhook the second its case closes.

Sweep your whole TAM before lunch. Qualify every signup from last night. Re-verify 10,000 accounts every Monday. One case is a question. Ten thousand cases is a pipeline.

TONIGHT'S SHIFT · LIVE

CASE 0114Does Acme still run Salesforce?CLOSED
CASE 0115Is Initech hiring SDRs this quarter?CLOSED
CASE 0116Did Globex raise a Series B?CLOSED
CASE 0117Who owns data engineering at Hooli?WORKING
CASE 0118Pricing page changes at Umbrella Corp?WORKING
CASE 0119Which CRM does Vandelay Industries use?QUEUED

9,994 MORE IN THE QUEUE · REPORTS FAN BACK AS THEY CLOSE

Screen-printed illustration of dozens of identical detectives typing reports in parallel rows of desks — THE BUREAU FLOOR, 2:47 AM · EVERY DESK IS ONE OF YOUR CASES

Doc 6 of 8 · evidence locker

Every verdict ships
with the evidence.

These aren't mockups. They're actual frames from a Gumshoe browser investigation: 13 steps through a JavaScript-heavy directory, shot by shot. Your report links every claim to a screenshot you can defend in a QBR.

Timestamped browser screenshot used as investigation evidence, EXHIBIT A · ycombinator.com · step 1 of 13 — EXHIBIT A · ycombinator.com · step 1 of 13

EXHIBIT B · company profile · step 5 of 13

Timestamped browser screenshot used as investigation evidence, EXHIBIT C · final source · step 13 of 13 — EXHIBIT C · final source · step 13 of 13

WHAT THIS EXACT CASE RETURNED · 53 SECONDS, 13 STEPS

{
  "case_id": "case_yc_ai_sales",
  "brief": "Top AI sales companies in recent
            YC batches, with sites",
  "verdict": "5 companies identified",
  "findings": [
    { "name": "Palisade",
      "note": "AI sales agents for marketplaces",
      "url": "palisade.run" },
    { "name": "Quotain",
      "note": "AI sales simulations on real deals",
      "url": "quotain.com" },
    { "name": "AiSDR",
      "note": "AI sales prospecting",
      "url": "aisdr.com" }
  ],
  "exhibits": ["ex/a.png", "ex/b.png", "ex/c.png"],
  "steps": 13,
  "duration_seconds": 53
}

Doc 7 of 8 · the paperwork

One endpoint. Typed reports.

No SDK ceremony, no eight-step pipeline builder. A case is one POST. The report is JSON your warehouse already understands.

THE BRIEF · REQUEST

curl -X POST https://api.gumshoe.run/v1/case \
  -H "X-API-Key: gum_your_key" \
  -d '{
    "brief": "Is Vercel hiring web engineers
              right now? Cite sources.",
    "webhook": "https://you.com/hooks/gumshoe"
  }'

THE REPORT · WEBHOOK PAYLOAD

{
  "case_id": "case_0001",
  "verdict": "yes",
  "confidence": 0.96,
  "summary": "14 open engineering roles
    on the official careers page.",
  "citations": [
    { "url": "vercel.com/careers", "claim": "..." }
  ],
  "exhibits": [
    { "screenshot": "cdn.gumshoe.run/ex/a1.png",
      "captured_at": "2026-08-28T02:47:11Z" }
  ]
}

Also in the file · bulk work

One call. Not fifty.

Batch: you already have the list.
POST your 5,000 companies to cases:batch and 5,000 investigators clock in, one per row, filling in the facts.

Sweep: you don't have a list yet.
Give a brief and a target count. We fan out the searches, verify every candidate, dedupe server-side, and deliver unique companies. You never file the same request twice, and you never pay for a duplicate.

THE SWEEP · ONE CALL, 500 UNIQUE ROWS

curl -X POST https://api.gumshoe.run/v1/sweep \
  -H "X-API-Key: gum_your_key" \
  -d '{
    "brief": "Companies selling AI agents
              built on LangChain",
    "count": 500,
    "webhook": "https://you.com/hooks"
  }'

// We fan out, verify, dedupe.
// 500 unique rows = 500 cases.
// Duplicates are never billed.
// Credits reserved up front,
// undelivered rows refunded.

Also in the file · agent-first

Your agents can hire ours.

Gumshoe ships as an MCP server. Claude, Cursor, or your own agent mounts the agency and gets file_case and get_report as native tools. Your agent decides what needs investigating. Ours does the legwork and returns the closed case.

Read the MCP field manual

MOUNT THE AGENCY · MCP

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "gumshoe": {
      "url": "https://api.gumshoe.run/mcp",
      "headers": {
        "X-API-Key": "gum_your_key"
      }
    }
  }
}

Doc 8 of 8 · rate card

Pick your caseload

One case = one company investigated = one credit. LLM included, math included, surprises not included.

The meter, in plain English

One case is one company.
Whatever you ask about it, that's one credit.
Up to 20 cited facts per company.
One fact or twenty: same credit. Depth is included.
Many companies, many cases.
Batches and sweeps just multiply the rows. You pay per company delivered, never per fact.
Real browser work: 25 credits.
Only when you ask for it, never by surprise.

SPECIMEN · ONE MONTH ON THE METER

"Qualify acme.com against our ICP"
  1 company .................... 1 case

"Enrich last night's 250 signups"
  cases:batch, 250 companies
  (up to 20 facts each) ...... 250 cases

"Find 100 LangChain agent startups"
  sweep: 93 unique delivered,
  7 undelivered, refunded ..... 93 cases

"Read Umbrella Corp's pricing page
  with a real browser"
  1 company at fieldwork rate . 25 cases

TOTAL DEBITED ................ 369 cases

WALK-IN

100 cases / month

No card. Kick the tires, close some cases. Standard cases only: browser fieldwork starts on a paid plan.

Start free

Best value

DETECTIVE

$99

2,000 cases / month

Webhooks, JSON schemas, priority lane, pay-as-you-go top-ups. Browser fieldwork billed at 25 cases.

Hire your detective

BUREAU

Custom

Volume + concurrency

Negotiated volume pricing, dedicated support, SSO, and annual invoicing on net terms.

Talk to the chief

Exhibit D · full disclosure

Side by side, no squinting

Two honest ways to do this today: rent a spreadsheet empire, or glue search and scrape APIs together yourself. Here is exactly what each one costs you, in dollars and in evenings.

	CLAY (CLAYGENT)	DIY: SEARCH + SCRAPE	GUMSHOE
1,000 COMPANIES COST	$150 to $250 in credits	Cheap per call, plus the pipeline you build and babysit	$50, pipeline included
WHAT COMES BACK	Enriched cells in a spreadsheet	Raw links and HTML you still have to read and judge	Typed JSON: verdict, confidence, up to 20 cited facts
PROOF ATTACHED	Source links	Whatever you remember to log	Citations + timestamped screenshots
REAL BROWSER ON JS SITES	No	Only if you build and host it	Yes, opt-in, flat 25 cases
LIST BUILDING DEDUP	Your problem	Your problem	Server-side, duplicates never billed
BUILT FOR	Ops teams who live in tables	Engineers who enjoy the glue code	Systems that act on verdicts

Ran dry mid-month? · top-up packages, your plan's rate

Cases

+500

$25

Cases

+2,000

$89

SAVE 10%

Cases

+10,000

$371

SAVE 25%

INSTANT, FROM THE BILLING PAGE. ACTIVE PAID PLAN REQUIRED. TOP-UP CASES EXPIRE WITH THE CYCLE. BUREAU PLANS TOP UP AT THEIR NEGOTIATED RATE.

When does the meter jump to 25?

Fieldwork is a real browser.
A cloud Chromium clicks buttons, fills forms, passes JS walls, and screenshots every step. The screenshots become your exhibits.
It only runs when you flag it.
Set fieldwork: true on a case, or let your agent request it over MCP. Never triggered on its own, never billed silently.
Flat 25 cases, all included.
Still one company, one report: the 25 pays for the Chromium shift, not for extra facts. No per-minute meter in the trunk.
Blocked standard case? Still 1.
If a site stonewalls a standard case, the report says exactly what blocked it. Refiling with fieldwork is your call, never ours.

FIELDWORK · SAME COMPANY, TWO RATES

// CASE A - one company, no browser
POST /v1/case
{ "brief": "Is Acme hiring SDRs?" }

// Search + read. No Chromium needed.
DEBIT ........................ 1 case


// CASE B - one company, browser on
POST /v1/case
{
  "brief": "Which plans are live on
            umbrella.corp/pricing?",
  "fieldwork": true       // you opt in
}

// A real cloud browser clocks in,
// clicks, filters, screenshots.
// The +24 is the browser, not
// more companies. Still 1 report.
DEBIT ....................... 25 cases

Appendix · interrogation transcript

Questions, answered under oath

Q: Why not just use a search or scraping API?: A: Use both, for plumbing. They return raw material you still have to read, judge, and format. Gumshoe returns the finished conclusion with the receipts attached. Different job, different tool.
Q: How is this different from Clay?: A: Clay is a spreadsheet empire with credits priced like jewelry. Gumshoe is one API call, priced like infrastructure. If you live in tables, stay there. If you build systems, this is your layer.
Q: What's a browser case?: A: When a target site needs real interaction (search boxes, filters, JS walls), the agent drives an actual cloud browser and screenshots every step. Flat 25 cases instead of 1 (still a single company: the premium pays for browser time), and only when you set fieldwork: true. A standard case that gets blocked still costs 1, and its report tells you exactly what blocked it so refiling with fieldwork is your call.
Q: What if I'm bad at writing prompts?: A: Then you're normal. Describe the job in one plain sentence and Gumshoe drafts a structured brief back: target, signals, sources, output shape. Approve it or tweak a line before anything runs. The agency writes the prompt so your sloppy one-liner still closes a clean case.
Q: Couldn't I just ask Claude or ChatGPT to research this?: A: For one company, sure, and it would do fine. Gumshoe exists for the other 9,999: same JSON schema every run, webhooks, retries, screenshot evidence, and a cost per case in cents. A chat is a conversation you supervise. Gumshoe is infrastructure your code calls.
Q: Do I bring my own LLM key?: A: No. The platform model is included in every case. Your bill is one number: cases.
Q: How many rows can one case return?: A: A case is one question with a bounded report: up to 20 findings, every one cited. Enriching 5,000 existing rows? One cases:batch call, one case per row. Building a list from scratch? One sweep call with a target count: we fan out, verify, and dedupe server-side, billed one case per unique row delivered. Sweeps reserve credits up front and refund every undelivered row. Bounded units keep the bill honest, yours and ours.
Q: What if I run out of cases mid-month?: A: Top up at your plan's rate from the billing page, effective immediately. Top-ups need an active paid plan and expire at the end of the cycle. The free tier can't top up: upgrade instead.
Q: How fast is a case?: A: Standard cases file in 10 to 30 seconds. Browser fieldwork takes a minute or two. Surveillance can't be rushed.

Send a question.Get a closed case.

You own a shovel.That doesn't make you a detective.

You bring the hunch.We write the brief.

What people hire us for

ICP qualification

Hiring signals

Funding intel

Tech stack recon

Competitor watch

List sweeps

How a case gets worked

Brief the agency

We walk the streets

The report lands

File one case.Or ten thousand.

Every verdict shipswith the evidence.

One endpoint. Typed reports.

One call. Not fifty.

Your agents can hire ours.

Pick your caseload

The meter, in plain English

WALK-IN

DETECTIVE

BUREAU

Side by side, no squinting

When does the meter jump to 25?

Questions, answered under oath

Send a question.
Get a closed case.

You own a shovel.
That doesn't make you a detective.

You bring the hunch.
We write the brief.

File one case.
Or ten thousand.

Every verdict ships
with the evidence.