Head to head
AutoCruitment vs Clara Health
Referral volume versus navigated conversion.
AutoCruitment
Clara Health
Model
AutoCruitment
Patient recruitment agencyClara Health
Patient recruitment agencyIn one line
AutoCruitment
Direct-to-patient digital recruitment with a proprietary pre-screener.Clara Health
Patient-experience-led recruitment with concierge-style support.What they do
AutoCruitment
Runs paid digital campaigns (largely social and search) into a branded pre-screening funnel, then routes qualified referrals to sites. The pitch is speed: campaigns can be live within days of protocol sign-off, and sponsors see referral volume quickly.Clara Health
Runs digital and community outreach paired with human patient navigators who stay with candidates through screening — an attempt to fix the drop-off between referral and first visit.Pricing
AutoCruitment
Typically a campaign fee plus media spend, sometimes with per-referral or performance components. Publicly listed pricing is not available; ask for cost per randomized patient, not cost per referral.Clara Health
Program fees plus media; navigator support usually scoped separately.Strengths
AutoCruitment
- Fast campaign launch and high top-of-funnel referral volume
- Well-developed pre-screening technology and site-facing portal
- Markets dermatology and other visible-symptom indications heavily in its published case studies
Clara Health
- Navigator model targets the referral-to-first-visit drop-off directly
- Positioned for complex protocols that deter patients
- Publicly active in rare disease and patient advocacy
Watch for
AutoCruitment
- Referral volume is not enrollment. Ask for the referral-to-randomization ratio on studies like yours.
- Ask how many referrals per week your coordinators will be expected to work, and what happens if they cannot keep up.
- Its public materials centre on paid digital channels. Ask what share of referrals came from non-paid sources, and how performance held up when media costs rose.
Clara Health
- Ask for the referral-to-visit and referral-to-randomization rates the navigator model produced on comparable studies — the added cost only pays back if those move
Best for
AutoCruitment
Sponsors with a broad, self-identifying patient population and sites that have coordinator bandwidth to work a large referral queue.Clara Health
Burdensome protocols and rare indications where every candidate matters.Poor fit
AutoCruitment
Ultra-rare indications where the addressable population cannot be reached economically through paid social.Clara Health
High-volume, low-complexity studies where cheap volume wins.When AutoCruitment is the right call
Pick AutoCruitment when the funnel is empty and you need referrals into sites quickly across many locations.
When Clara Health is the right call
Pick Clara Health when referrals already exist but drop out between first contact and first visit — a navigator model only pays back if that gap is where your study is losing people.
How to actually decide
Pull your own funnel first: referrals, contacted, pre-screened, consented, randomized. If the biggest loss is at the top, buy volume. If it is between referral and first visit, buy navigation. Ask Clara for the referral-to-visit lift it produced on comparable protocols, in writing.
Do not pick on capability decks. Give both the same brief — your protocol, your countries, your screen failure assumptions — and ask each for the referral-to- randomization ratio they achieved on the three most similar studies they have run. Then price both on cost per randomized patient. The comparison usually resolves itself at that point, and often reveals that neither is the problem: the enrollment assumptions in the protocol were wrong from the start.
Our sister publication Rock Enroll covers that diagnosis in depth for sponsors and CRO teams.