By Brett Kaufman. 8 years using relationships to build sales pipelines, from political fundraising to a 7 figure business to running matchmaking for two communities. Over 1,000 introductions facilitated.

The best CRM for a search fund is the one you will still update in month 14. For most solo searchers that means a free or low cost pipeline tool (a spreadsheet, HubSpot free, or Attio) plus a daily layer that tells you which brokers, owners and advisors to reach out to today.

Full disclosure: I built FRONT OF MIND, the last tool on this list. I will be straight about where the others win.

Here is the scene. You are a year into your search. You have talked to well over a hundred owners and dozens of brokers. Your tracker has 600 rows. The owner who said “call me after tax season” is somewhere in there, and so is the broker who told you about a listing in your sector before it went wide. The tracker knows they exist. It does not tell you that today is the day to text them.

That is the test I use for every tool below.

What a searcher actually needs from a CRM

Search is a long run of conversations. In the IESE and Stanford International Search Funds 2024 study, the average searcher had personal conversations with 159 owners and signed about four letters of intent before acquiring, over a median of 21 months. I covered the sourcing side in deal sourcing for search funds.

So you need two things:

• A record. Every owner, broker and target company, what stage it is in, what was said, what you sent.
• A trigger. Something that tells you who to reach out to this week, before another buyer does.

Most tools do the first job. Few do the second. Keep that split in mind as you read.

Spreadsheet

What it is. A Google Sheet or Excel file with a row per owner or company and columns for stage, source, last contact and notes.

Cost. Free, or included in software you already pay for.

Best for. The first months of a search, and searchers who want total control over their columns.

Where it strains. Nothing in a spreadsheet taps you on the shoulder. You have to sort, scan and remember.

I know this one well. I raised $3M in political fundraising on a manual tracking system, and it cost me hours a week by hand. A spreadsheet can carry a search. It just charges you in time.

HubSpot (free)

What it is. A general CRM with contacts, companies and deal pipelines.

Cost. HubSpot’s free CRM has no expiration date and no credit card required, and covers up to two users and 1,000 contacts. It includes contact management, deal pipelines, import and reporting dashboards. Paid tiers start at $15 per seat a month for Starter, as of October 2026.

Best for. Searchers who want a real pipeline with stages for free, and partnered searchers splitting the work between two people.

Where it strains. It is built for sales teams, so you will spend time removing what you do not need. And like any CRM, it is only as current as your last data entry.

Attio

What it is. A flexible CRM that calls itself “the CRM for agentic revenue.” You build your own objects and records, which suits a searcher who wants to model owners, brokers and target companies separately.

Cost. Per Attio’s pricing page, as of October 2026: Free for up to 3 seats, Plus at $35 a month billed annually or $44 monthly, Pro at $79 a month billed annually or $99 monthly, and custom Enterprise pricing.

Best for. Searchers who like to design their own system and want something more modern and configurable than a spreadsheet, without firm level pricing.

Where it strains. Flexibility means setup. You decide the structure, and you keep it fed.

Affinity

What it is. “The CRM built for deal teams,” aimed at private equity, venture capital, investment banking, family offices and similar firms. It captures activity from email and calendar and scores relationships.

Cost. Per Affinity’s pricing page, as of October 2026: Essential at $2,000 per user a year, Scale at $2,300, Advanced at $2,700, and custom Enterprise pricing, billed annually.

Best for. A searcher who has acquired and is now building a small investment team, or a funded search backed by investors who already run Affinity.

Where it strains. For one person in month three of a search, it is a firm tool at a firm price.

DealCloud

What it is. Intapp DealCloud, which Intapp now describes as an AI powered deal and relationship intelligence platform, used across private capital, investment banking, legal, accounting and consulting firms.

Cost. No price is listed on the DealCloud page. You book a demo.

Best for. Established firms running origination and execution across many people.

Where it strains. Almost no solo searcher needs it. If you are reading a comparison to pick your first CRM, this is not it yet.

Dex

What it is. “A personal CRM built for people, not sales pipelines.” Dex pulls contacts from many sources, including email, calendar, LinkedIn, WhatsApp and iMessage, and adds notes, tags, a timeline and keep in touch reminders.

Cost. Per Dex’s pricing page, as of October 2026: Premium at $12 a month billed annually or $20 monthly, Professional at $20 a month billed annually or $34 monthly, Team at $40 per user a month. Both main plans start with a 6 day free trial, with no free plan.

Best for. Searchers who want one clean address book for everyone they know, with reminders.

Where it strains. It stores and reminds. You still decide who matters for the deal this week. I compared it directly in FRONT OF MIND vs Dex.

FRONT OF MIND

What it is. Not a deal pipeline database. It is the layer that tells you which brokers, owners and advisors to reach out to today and why, with a drafted text ready. Many searchers run it alongside a pipeline tool like a spreadsheet, HubSpot or Attio.

It opens on your 10 minutes for today. Each person comes with a one line reason why today: they posted, a follow up is due, you met at an event days ago and never followed up, their company was in the news, a pipeline deal has been quiet 7 days or more, or the relationship is going cold. Posts are only shown if they are confirmed to belong to that person.

Every draft reads like a text, 40 words max. Nothing sends without your tap, and it learns from your edits. You can ask Liala, the built in assistant, questions out loud like “who do I know that is an M&A advisor” or “who lives in Miami” and get the right people with why.

Met a broker at a conference? Say their name and a sentence out loud, snap the badge or business card, or take a selfie together, and it is filed under the event.

Cost. Free for your first 25 contacts and 1 intro, then $29 a month. Contacts are encrypted. No one on our team looks at them. Export and delete anytime.

Best for. Searchers whose deal is likely to come from a broker, owner or advisor they already know, and who will not spend an hour a day working a tracker.

Where it strains. It will not replace your stage by stage pipeline, your LOI tracking or your diligence workspace. I did not build it to. Keep your record where it is.

How I would choose

• Month one, solo, tight budget: a spreadsheet or HubSpot free.
• You want your own structure: Attio.
• You are a team inside a firm, or your investors already use it: Affinity or DealCloud.
• You want a clean personal address book: Dex.
• You want to know who to text today about your deal: FRONT OF MIND, next to whichever record you picked.

Prices change, so check each pricing page before you buy.

The record tells you what happened. The deal comes from whoever you reach this week. Start free with your first 25 contacts and see which broker or owner comes up first.

See how it works