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Affinity vs Hercule

Two fact sheets from our own research, side by side — pricing, platforms, API access and status re-checked by us rather than quoted from the vendors. Affinity starts at $2000, Hercule at $99. Only Affinity ships a public API.

AffinityRelationship CRM for venture and private equity teams, built from email and calendar trafficHerculeCentralizes deal documents and company data into a searchable knowledge base for venture capital due diligence.

Side by side

FactAffinityHercule
CategoryCRM PlatformsInvesting & Market Analysis
Pricing modelPaidPaid
Starts at$2000 year$99 seat_month
Public APIYesNo
PlatformsWeb, APIWeb
CompanyAffinityHercule
Last verifiedSep 6, 2026Sep 1, 2026

What our research says

Affinity

The strongest argument for Affinity is that dealmakers do not update CRMs, and this one does not ask them to — the pipeline is assembled from mail and calendar activity that already exists. Add the private-capital data sources and the MCP endpoint and it is a defensible category leader for firms whose asset is their network. The price is the whole objection: 2,000 dollars per seat per year before anything is customised, with annual commitment and no trial figure in sight.

Pros

  • Contacts, activity and relationship scores captured automatically from email and calendar
  • Warm-path surfacing across the whole firm's network, not just one user's contacts
  • Integrations with 40-plus data sources including Pitchbook and Preqin
  • Open API and an MCP endpoint that exposes the CRM to Claude, ChatGPT and Snowflake
  • Pricing is published rather than hidden behind a demo

Cons

  • Entry tier costs 2,000 dollars per user per year, billed annually
  • No free tier and no monthly billing option
  • Automatic capture means the firm's mailboxes and calendars are ingested, which is a governance conversation
  • Enrichment and the deeper integrations sit on the Advanced tier, not the entry one

Hercule

Hercule is narrowly built for one job — turning a pile of deal documents into a searchable base an analyst can question directly — rather than trying to be a general research tool. The per-user, report-capped pricing is steep for a solo angel investor but plausible for a fund with a dedicated deal team, and there is no free tier to test report quality first.

Pros

  • Centralizes scattered deal documents into one searchable base per company
  • AI assistant answers direct questions instead of just returning document snippets
  • Report cap scales with plan tier, so heavier users have a clear upgrade path

Cons

  • No free tier — the report cap starts counting from the first paid month
  • Per-user monthly pricing scales up fast for a larger deal team
  • Report volume is capped even on the higher Professional tier

Which one fits

Choose Affinity if you need

  • Venture and private equity firms tracking relationships across a partnership
  • Deal teams that need warm-intro paths rather than lead lists
  • Firms that want CRM data queryable from Snowflake or an AI assistant

Choose Hercule if you need

  • VC and growth-equity teams doing repeated company due diligence
  • Analysts who need to search across data-room documents quickly instead of reading each one

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