{"id":199,"date":"2026-09-02T10:42:22","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T10:42:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.zedconsulting.co.uk\/crm-blogs\/?p=199"},"modified":"2026-09-02T10:42:23","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T10:42:23","slug":"attio-vs-affinity-how-to-choose-your-funds-crm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zedconsulting.co.uk\/crm-blogs\/general\/attio-vs-affinity-how-to-choose-your-funds-crm\/","title":{"rendered":"Attio vs Affinity: How to Choose Your Fund\u2019s CRM"},"content":{"rendered":"

This one is for investors. If you run a venture fund, a private equity firm, a family office, a property fund or a private credit vehicle, these are probably the two names on your shortlist. <\/p><\/div>\n\n\n

If you sell software or services instead, this comparison will not help you much, because Affinity is not built for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here is the short version. Affinity is better at knowing who you know. Attio is better at holding everything else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If your firm wins deals through warm introductions, and the budget is there, Affinity is a fair answer. If your problem is that half of what you do does not fit in the CRM at all, Attio is the one that bends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We should declare an interest. We build on Attio and we earn a referral fee if you buy it. We also work across seven CRM platforms, and a referral fee is worth far less to us than a firm that ends up on the wrong system and says so. The four cases where we would tell you to stay on Affinity are below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Affinity is<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Affinity is a CRM built only for investors. It is not a general CRM with a venture template added on top. It is aimed at venture capital firms, private equity, investment banking and other firms that run on relationships. Everything in it is built around your network, your introductions and your deal flow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In venture it is close to the default. Around 3,000 firms use it, in more than 70 countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Affinity does better<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

It knows who you know.<\/strong>
Affinity reads your team’s email and calendar, builds the contact records for you, and scores how well you know each person. It checks that against an outside network of more than 50 million people. A partner types a founder’s name and sees which colleague already knows them, how well, and when they last spoke. In venture, warm introductions win deals. Attio cannot do this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It works out of the box.<\/strong>
Affinity is already set up for the way investment firms work, so there is nothing to configure. If your firm works the way Affinity expects, you will be running quickly and you will not need a partner at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Its AI is built for the sector.<\/strong>
Affinity now has AI agents made for private capital. They prepare you for meetings, take notes from conversations and update the pipeline. If you were told that Attio has AI and Affinity does not, that is out of date.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Attio does better<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

You can build your own objects.<\/strong>
This is the whole difference. In Attio you can create Funds, Commitments, Capital calls, Investments, or anything else your firm runs on. Affinity does not let you. That is why firms on Affinity still keep their investor tracking in a spreadsheet. There is nowhere else to put it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Price.<\/strong>
Attio is free for up to three seats. After that you pay per seat per month. Affinity CRM pricing is not published; reported figures put it at around $2,000 a seat, with a minimum of about $20,000. Treat those as rough and get your own quote. Either way the gap is large, and it puts Affinity out of reach for most first-time managers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fit beyond finding deals.<\/strong>
A fund does two jobs. The first is finding and doing deals. The second is the money side: which investors committed what, when you called capital, how much has been drawn down, how the companies you already own are doing, and what goes into the quarterly report. Affinity is built for the first job and has nowhere to put the second. If that second job takes up a real part of your week, you are paying full price for a tool that covers half of what you do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is not only for investors.<\/strong> As an Affinity CRM alternative, Attio can hold all of it if you also run an advisory arm, an accelerator or a property vehicle. Affinity holds the investing and nothing else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Side by side<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
<\/th>Attio<\/strong><\/th>Affinity<\/strong><\/th><\/tr><\/thead>
Built for<\/strong><\/td>Any business, shaped to fit<\/td>Investment firms only<\/td><\/tr>
Your own objects<\/strong><\/td>Yes, up to 12 on Pro<\/td>No<\/td><\/tr>
Relationship data<\/strong><\/td>Your own inbox and calendar<\/td>Yours, plus an outside network of 50m+ people<\/td><\/tr>
Warm introductions<\/strong><\/td>Manual, using a field we build<\/td>Found and scored for you<\/td><\/tr>
Investor and fund tracking<\/strong><\/td>Yes, built as your own objects<\/td>Not built in<\/td><\/tr>
Setup effort<\/strong><\/td>Needs building, or a partner<\/td>Works out of the box<\/td><\/tr>
Entry price<\/strong><\/td>Free for up to 3 seats<\/td>Reported minimum around $20,000<\/td><\/tr>
Suits<\/strong><\/td>Firms whose work does not fit a template<\/td>Firms whose work is mostly finding deals<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

When we would tell you to stay on Affinity<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Four cases. We would rather say them now than after you have paid us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  • Your whole job is finding deals, and warm introductions are how you win. That is exactly what Affinity is built for.
    <\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • You have nobody to set the system up and no wish to do it yourself. Affinity works out of the box. Attio expects you to build it, or to pay someone to build it.
    <\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Your team knows Affinity, they use it, and the cost is not hurting. Moving is disruptive, and “it might be cheaper” is a weak reason on its own.
    <\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • You need the outside network data. Attio reads your own inbox and calendar, but it cannot tell you who else in the world knows a person.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

    When Attio is the better answer<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    Five signs. Any one of them is usually enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      \n
    • Your commitments, drawdowns or fund totals sit in a spreadsheet and you want them in the system.
      <\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • Your firm does something Affinity did not plan for, and you keep working around the tool.
      <\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • The bill is hard to justify for the number of seats you actually use.
      <\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • You are on Fund I or Fund II and Affinity’s minimum is more than your whole software budget.
      <\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • You want to own the system and change it yourself later.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

      What moving involves<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

      Most of the work is in the data. Contacts, companies, deals and notes all come across. Relationship scores do not, because they are built from Affinity’s own network data rather than yours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      The rest of the work is building the parts Affinity could never hold, which is usually why a firm moves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Can you keep both?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

      Some firms do. They use Affinity to find deals and Attio for everything else. It works. You are also paying twice and keeping two systems in step, so we would usually talk you out of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      How to decide<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

      Ask yourself what the most valuable thing in the system would be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      If the answer is the network, buy Affinity. If the answer is everything the network is attached to, build Attio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      If it is honestly both, and you can only afford one, the question becomes how much of your week is actually spent finding deals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      zedConsulting is a CRM consultancy working across seven platforms. We are not owned by either company. A client who is better off on Affinity costs us one project and saves us a bad one. If you want thirty minutes to talk it through, there is no charge and no pitch. If the answer is stay on Affinity, we will say so.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

      <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      This one is for investors. If you run a venture fund, a private equity firm, a family office, a property fund or a private credit vehicle, these are probably the two names on your shortlist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":200,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zedconsulting.co.uk\/crm-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zedconsulting.co.uk\/crm-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zedconsulting.co.uk\/crm-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zedconsulting.co.uk\/crm-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zedconsulting.co.uk\/crm-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.zedconsulting.co.uk\/crm-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":201,"href":"https:\/\/www.zedconsulting.co.uk\/crm-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199\/revisions\/201"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zedconsulting.co.uk\/crm-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zedconsulting.co.uk\/crm-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zedconsulting.co.uk\/crm-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zedconsulting.co.uk\/crm-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}