Best CRM Software for Private Equity: 7 Tools Compared

CRM Software for Private Equity at a glance

How we chose

Seven CRMs, one question: what does each one actually cost a PE firm, and what PE work does it cover? Prices, plan names and free-plan limits were read from each vendor's pricing page or site on 14 November 2026, and the list is ordered by fit for a private equity team buying a deal CRM. No hands-on testing was done. All prices below are based on published pricing and documentation, checked on 14 November 2026. Three vendors in this category publish no prices at all, so those picks say so plainly instead of quoting a figure from a review site.

1 1. Affinity: best for PE and VC teams that win deals through relationships

Starting price: $2,000 per user per year, Essential, billed annually | Best for: PE and VC teams that win deals through relationships | Skip if: your budget is under $2,000 per user a year

Affinity is a relationship intelligence CRM built for venture capital and private equity. It captures email and calendar activity automatically, maps who in your firm knows whom at a target company, and scores relationships so partners can find a warm introduction instead of a cold email. That is the core of PE deal sourcing: most deals arrive through people, not inbound forms. Essential costs $2,000 per user per year, Scale costs $2,300 and Advanced costs $2,700, with Enterprise quoted on request. All plans are billed annually, so there is no monthly option and the full year is paid up front. Scale adds AI workflows and a notetaker; Advanced adds PitchBook, Dealroom and Crunchbase enrichment plus workflow automations. There is no free plan. Skip Affinity if your firm has fewer than five users and a small budget, because the per-user annual price puts a five-person team at $10,000 a year before any enrichment add-ons.

2 2. DealCloud: best for large PE firms and investment banks

Starting price: Pricing on request | Best for: Large PE firms and investment banks | Skip if: you need a published price or a short implementation

DealCloud, from Intapp, is the deal and relationship platform most large PE firms and investment banks already run. It covers the full deal lifecycle from sourcing through close, plus fundraising, investor relations and portfolio monitoring, with compliance and conflicts tools from the wider Intapp suite alongside it. That breadth is the point: a large firm gets one system for deals, LPs and compliance instead of three. Intapp publishes no pricing, so every quote comes through sales, and implementations are reported to take months rather than weeks. Published procurement data puts DealCloud contracts far above the per-seat tools on this list, starting around $85,000 a year. There is no free plan. Skip DealCloud if you are a small or emerging fund: the price floor and the implementation effort only make sense once the firm has the deal volume and headcount to fill the system.

3 3. Dynamo Software: best for firms wanting CRM plus fund accounting in one platform

Starting price: Pricing on request | Best for: Firms wanting CRM plus fund accounting in one platform | Skip if: you want a CRM-only tool without fund operations

Dynamo Software is an end-to-end alternative investment platform, not just a CRM. It joins deal management, fundraising, investor relations, portfolio monitoring and cloud fund accounting on one data foundation, with capital calls, distributions and waterfall calculations built in. For a GP that currently runs a CRM, a spreadsheet for the portfolio and separate accounting software, that consolidation is the selling point. Dynamo publishes no public pricing, so the price comes from a sales conversation, and there is no free plan. Skip Dynamo if you only need deal tracking: you would be paying for fund accounting, investor portals and reporting that a CRM-only tool covers more cheaply. Pick Dynamo when the firm's pain is fragmented systems across the front and back office, not just the pipeline.

4 4. Altvia: best for PE firms already running Salesforce

Starting price: Pricing on request | Best for: PE firms already running Salesforce | Skip if: you do not already pay for Salesforce licences

Altvia is a Salesforce-native platform built for the private capital fund lifecycle: CRM, fundraising, investor engagement, a virtual data room and LP portal, and analytics, all running on Salesforce. A firm already licensed on Salesforce keeps its data, permissions and integrations and adds PE workflows on top, instead of migrating to a separate system. Altvia publishes no pricing on its own site. G2 lists a starting price of $1,800 per user per year, supplied by Altvia, and that figure excludes the Salesforce licence underneath, which you pay separately. There is no free plan. Skip Altvia if your firm does not already run Salesforce: buying Salesforce plus Altvia for a small team costs more than a standalone PE CRM and adds a second vendor to manage.

5 5. Salesforce Sales Cloud: best for firms that want to build a custom PE CRM on Salesforce

Starting price: $25 per user per month, Starter Suite | Best for: Firms that want to build a custom PE CRM on Salesforce | Skip if: you want PE workflows out of the box

Salesforce Sales Cloud is the general-purpose CRM that PE-specific tools are most often compared with, and it earns its place as the build-your-own option. The Starter Suite costs $25 per user per month, and higher suites run to $100, $195, $395 and $550 per user per month on annual billing. A firm with Salesforce skills can model funds, LPs, portfolio companies and deal stages as custom objects, and connect PitchBook or Preqin data through the AppExchange. A Free Suite exists at $0 per user per month. What Salesforce does not give you is PE structure out of the box: no fund lifecycle, no capital call tracking, no LP portal. Skip Salesforce if you want a tool that understands private equity on day one, because the build and the admin that follows will cost more than the licences.

6 6. HubSpot: best for emerging managers and search funds starting out

Starting price: Free $0; Sales Hub Starter $20 per seat per month | Best for: Emerging managers and search funds starting out | Skip if: you need fund or LP workflows

HubSpot is the cheapest credible start for a new fund. The free CRM costs $0 for up to 2 users and covers contacts, deal pipelines, meeting scheduling and email tracking. Sales Hub Starter costs $20 per seat per month at list, though HubSpot regularly shows new-customer promotions from $7 to $10 a seat. Professional costs $90 per seat per month on annual billing with a mandatory $1,500 one-time onboarding fee. For a one- or two-person search fund tracking a handful of deals, HubSpot is enough, and the price is hard to beat. What it lacks is everything PE-specific: no fund records, no LP onboarding, no portfolio monitoring, no relationship intelligence. Skip HubSpot once the firm runs a fund with LPs to report to, because the workarounds in custom properties will not scale.

7 7. Zoho CRM: best for small PE teams on a tight budget

Starting price: $14 per user per month, Standard, billed annually | Best for: Small PE teams on a tight budget | Skip if: you need PE-specific deal or LP tools

Zoho CRM is the lowest-cost paid CRM on this list. Standard costs $14 per user per month billed annually, or $20 billed monthly, with Professional at $23 and Enterprise at $40 on annual billing. The free plan covers up to 3 users. Standard includes forecasting, lead scoring and more than 900 Marketplace extensions, so a small team can track deals, log meetings and build a simple pipeline for very little money. Like HubSpot, Zoho CRM knows nothing about funds, LPs or capital calls out of the box, and its AI assistant only arrives on Enterprise. Skip Zoho CRM if the firm needs investor reporting or portfolio tracking, because those will live in spreadsheets beside it. Pick Zoho CRM when the budget is the deciding factor and the deal flow is still small enough to manage by hand.

Which PE CRM fits your firm?

What five seats cost on each PE CRM

A five-person deal team pays very different amounts across this list. Affinity Essential at $2,000 per user a year costs $10,000 a year, and Advanced at $2,700 costs $13,500. Altvia at the $1,800 per user a year reported on G2 costs $9,000 a year, plus five Salesforce licences at $25 a user a month, another $1,500 a year, for $10,500 in total. Zoho CRM Standard at $14 a user a month on annual billing costs $840 a year. HubSpot costs $0 on the free plan for two users, or $1,200 a year for five Starter seats at $20 each. Salesforce Starter Suite at $25 a user a month costs $1,500 a year. DealCloud and Dynamo are quoted, and reported DealCloud contracts start around $85,000 a year, which is more than eight times the Affinity bill for the same five seats. The gap buys enterprise depth, compliance tooling and implementation support that a five-person team may not need.

Mistakes to avoid with PE CRM software

• Comparing a per-seat price with a quoted contract. Affinity and Zoho CRM publish seat prices; DealCloud and Dynamo do not. A $2,000 seat and an $85,000 contract are not the same kind of number.
• Forgetting the licence underneath. Altvia needs Salesforce licences on top of its own price, and the Salesforce bill is easy to miss in the comparison.
• Paying for fund accounting you will not use. Dynamo is good value when the firm needs it; it is an expensive CRM when the firm only tracks deals.
• Buying the enterprise tool before the deal flow exists. A two-person search fund does not need DealCloud. Start on HubSpot or Zoho CRM and move when the pipeline outgrows it.
• Ignoring the annual-only billing. Affinity bills annually, so the first invoice is the full year. Budget for $10,000 up front, not $833 a month.

What to check before you pay

Ask each vendor for a written quote that includes implementation, data migration and the first year of support, then compare that total, not the headline seat price. Run the trial or demo on your real deal list, not a sample: import ten live opportunities, log a call with a founder, and check that the relationship view shows who in your firm already knows them. If you also need to find the people to put in the CRM, the best lead intelligence software comparison covers tools that feed a CRM, and the best CRM software for enterprise post covers the large-team options in more depth. For small teams weighing a general CRM, best CRM tools for B2B startups covers the cheaper end. For reporting on the pipeline once it is running, the marketing report metrics guide shows which numbers to track, and Adziq's analytics service explains how CRM data fits into wider reporting.

Common questions

Sources

• Affinity pricing
• Intapp DealCloud
• Dynamo Software
• Altvia platform
• Salesforce Sales Cloud pricing
• HubSpot Sales Hub pricing
• Zoho CRM pricing

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