I build dealflow CRMs on Attio for a living, so you know where I stand. But Affinity is a serious product and pretending otherwise would waste your time. Here is where each one genuinely wins, and how to choose for your fund.
It reads every inbox and calendar across the firm and builds the warm-intro graph automatically. Large multi-partner funds live in it, and for that job it is genuinely hard to beat.
Funds, LPs, portfolio companies, deals, intros, all as custom objects that match how your firm actually works. Modern automation and an API-first build, from free to $79 a seat.
If the answer is "mine ten partners' networks automatically", that's Affinity. If it's "run our dealflow properly without a five-figure annual contract", that's Attio. Most emerging managers are in the second camp.
Pricing checked September 2026, against each vendor's own published figures.
| Affinity | Attio | |
|---|---|---|
| Built for | Established VC and PE firms, typically multi-partner, where the network is the asset. | Any team that wants the CRM shaped around its own motion. Increasingly the default for emerging managers and modern B2B teams. |
| Relationship intelligence | Affinity wins Automatic capture across every inbox and calendar in the firm. Warm-intro pathfinding across the whole network. This is the moat. | Email and calendar sync per user, enrichment on top. Good, but it does not rebuild the firm-wide relationship graph automatically. |
| Data model | Fixed around deals and relationships. Solid for the standard dealflow shape, rigid when your process isn't standard. | Attio wins Fully custom objects and attributes. Funds, LPs, co-investors, portfolio companies, follow-ons, modelled the way your firm actually thinks. |
| Automation & workflows | Reminders, statuses and integrations aimed at the dealflow use case. | Attio wins Native workflow builder, AI functions for scoring and research, and clean hooks into Clay, n8n and the rest of a modern data stack. |
| API & extensibility | API exists, but the product is the platform. Custom builds swim against the current. | Attio wins API-first. Everything in the UI is reachable programmatically, which is what makes signal feeds and portfolio GTM builds possible. |
| Pricing | $2,000 to $2,700 per user per year across the three published plans, with annual contracts that typically land in the tens of thousands for a firm. | Attio wins Free tier, then $35 or $79 per user per month billed annually. A five-seat fund runs on Pro for under $5k a year. |
| Contract | Annual, negotiated, sales-led. | Self-serve, monthly or annual, cancel when you like. |
| Best fit | 10+ investment professionals, network-led sourcing, budget already allocated. | Emerging managers, first funds, syndicates graduating off Airtable and Notion, and any fund that wants its portfolio companies on the same rails. |
My honest read. If you are a large fund already living in Affinity, the switching cost probably isn't worth it and I'll tell you that on a call. The relationship graph it builds across a big partnership is real value.
If you are raising fund one or two, running dealflow out of Notion, Airtable or a spreadsheet, the maths is different. You get a CRM modelled on how you actually invest, automation Affinity can't match, and the annual saving pays for the entire build.
Other comparisons: Attio vs HubSpot · Attio vs Salesforce
I'm an official Attio Expert Partner. For funds, a build usually covers both sides of the house.
Partially, and it's worth being precise. Attio syncs email and calendar per user and enriches contacts well, and with a data layer on top you can get a long way. What it does not do is automatically mine every inbox across a ten-partner firm into one warm-intro graph. That firm-wide graph is Affinity's moat. If that graph is the reason you're buying, buy Affinity. Most smaller funds find they need it less than they thought.
Yes. Organisations, people, deals, notes and statuses come across, and the data model gets redesigned properly on the way in rather than copied. The relationship history that lives in Affinity's automatic capture doesn't transfer like-for-like, so we map what you actually use before anything moves. Same rule as every migration I run: read the model first, migrate second.
A five-seat fund on Attio Pro pays under $5k a year in licences. Affinity's published pricing puts the same seats at $10k to $13.5k before any negotiated minimum. The build itself is a one-off scoped project, and in most cases the first year's licence saving covers a meaningful chunk of it. Exact numbers land in the proposal, after the audit.
Very. Half the point of putting a fund on Attio is that its portfolio companies can run go-to-market on the same rails. If your investor pointed you here, this is the build: CRM, data layer and outbound infrastructure, shaped to how you sell. Start with the intro call.
Fifteen minutes. Tell me how your firm sources and decides, and I'll tell you straight which tool fits, including if the answer is Affinity.
Book a 15-minute intro callPrefer email? sonny@weareapexai.com