The right Crunchbase alternative depends on what you used Crunchbase for. If you mainly wanted to hear about new rounds, AyeWatch is our pick, because it alerts you from founders' own posts and company pages; if you need company records to search and export, Tracxn, Dealroom and CB Insights are the database-style options. Here is how they compare as of November 2026.
What Crunchbase's free tier shows
Crunchbase lists four products on its help center comparison: Crunchbase Free, Crunchbase Pro, Crunchbase Business and the Crunchbase API. The free account is meant for looking up a company. It returns up to 5 results per search, keeps company activity alerts to a single list called My First List, and leaves out exports and funding predictions. Pro raises the cap to 1,000 results per search, adds up to 2,000 export rows a month and comes with a 7-day trial that turns into a paid plan unless you cancel. Crunchbase's pricing page did not load for us, so we do not quote its prices.
That free tier is fine for checking one company. It is thin for watching a market.
The alternatives, ranked
1. AyeWatch, for rounds as they are announced
AyeWatch is an AI monitor, not a database. You give it a LinkedIn post search or an X search for funding phrases, or paste the newsroom and portfolio pages you care about, and describe in plain English what should trigger an alert. It sends the matching post or page change with a short summary. For developers, every paid plan includes a REST API for creating and managing monitors, plus signed webhooks that deliver each alert with its AI summary, so funding news can feed your own scripts, a Slack channel or a spreadsheet. There is a free preview, and paid plans start at $9 a month. It has no company profiles, investor graphs or exports.
2. Tracxn, for startup research on a free plan
Tracxn offers a free Lite plan for personal use with strict usage limits, and a Premium plan for commercial use through its sales team. It also sells API and data dump access.
3. Dealroom, for team research with exports
Dealroom prices per seat, billed annually, with a minimum of three seats. Its Premium plan has a 3-day free trial with no card, and API access is priced on call volume on top of any plan.
4. CB Insights, for market research at company scale
CB Insights quotes seat-based pricing on request and offers a free trial and demos.
5. Free public sources
Crunchbase News publishes weekly lists of the biggest rounds and a feed you can pull into any RSS reader. In the US, SEC EDGAR lists Form D notices, which many private companies file within 15 days after the first sale in a round.
Side by side
| Option | Best for | How you pay | Free way in |
|---|---|---|---|
| AyeWatch | Hearing about rounds as they are posted | Monthly plans from $9 | Free preview, no card |
| Crunchbase Free | Looking up one company | Free | It is the free tier |
| Tracxn | Startup research by sector | Premium through sales | Lite plan for personal use |
| Dealroom | Team research and exports | Per seat, billed annually | 3-day trial on Premium |
| CB Insights | Market research | Seat pricing on request | Free trial |
| Crunchbase News and EDGAR | Reading and filings | Free | Free |
When Crunchbase is still the better choice
If your work depends on clean records, such as a round with every field filled in, an investor's portfolio or a list you push into a CRM, stay with Crunchbase Pro or Business. Business adds Salesforce, HubSpot and Zapier integrations and larger exports. AyeWatch can tell you that a round was announced; it will not hand you a database row for it.
For everyone else, a simple setup is a free Crunchbase account for lookups plus AyeWatch for the alert.