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CRM · head to head

Affinity vs Bigin

Affinity logo

Affinity

CRM

Relationship intelligence platform for professionals

From
$2000/year
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Bigin logo

Bigin

CRM

Zoho pipeline CRM for small businesses, priced well below Zoho CRM itself

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Bigin has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: Affinity enterprise tier requires custom quote, pricing not transparent; Bigin the plan limits are the product boundary, not a soft guideline: three pipelines on Express and thirty automations will constrain any business with more than a couple of distinct sale types, and the only fix is to pay up a tier.
  • They diverge on capability: Affinity covers Contact management, Bigin covers Multiple pipelines.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Affinity and Bigin actually diverge.

Attributes where Affinity and Bigin differ
AttributeAffinityBigin
Starting price$2000/yearFree
Pricing modelsubscriptionPer user per month
Free tierNoYes
PlatformsWebWeb, iOS, Android, macOS, watchOS
Founded2013Unknown

Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated), category (CRM).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Affinity

  • Contact management
  • Deal tracking
  • Intelligence engine
  • Relationship mapping
  • Integration aggregation
  • Gmail
  • Outlook
  • LinkedIn

Only in Bigin

  • Multiple pipelines
  • Teampipes
  • Built-in telephony
  • Email integration
  • Workflow automation
  • Mobile apps
  • Zoho ecosystem
  • Free onboarding

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Affinity

  • Deal sourcing and pipeline management for venture capital and private equitynot Bigin
  • Automatic capture of email and meeting activity into relationship recordsnot Bigin
  • Finding warm introductions through existing relationship networksnot Bigin
  • Investor relations and fundraising trackingnot Bigin
  • Portfolio company support and reportingnot Bigin

Bigin

  • A five-person sales team wants a real CRM for under 50 US dollars a month total and will never use the territory management or forecasting depth in Zoho CRM.not Affinity
  • A business already running Zoho Books or Zoho Mail wants a CRM in the same account with native links rather than a bridged third-party tool.not Affinity
  • A services firm wants to run client onboarding and delivery as pipelines alongside sales, which is what Teampipes exists for, without buying a separate project tool.not Affinity
  • A buyer evaluating Zoho CRM Standard should price Bigin first, because for straightforward pipeline selling it is roughly a third of the cost on the same platform.not Affinity

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Affinity

  • Enterprise tier requires custom quote, pricing not transparent
  • Scale tier API calls capped at 100000 per month
  • All plans charge per user annually

Bigin

  • The plan limits are the product boundary, not a soft guideline: three pipelines on Express and thirty automations will constrain any business with more than a couple of distinct sale types, and the only fix is to pay up a tier.
  • Outgrowing Bigin means migrating to Zoho CRM, a different product with different objects and configuration, so the cheap start becomes a project later rather than a plan upgrade.
  • The free plan is one user with 500 records and no automation, which makes it a trial rather than a usable free tier of the kind Zoho CRM competitors offer.
  • Reporting and analytics are basic compared with Zoho CRM, with no serious forecasting, territory management or custom module building, so sales operations functions have nothing to work with.
  • Zoho runs two overlapping CRMs and has an obvious incentive to keep Bigin limited, so features that would make it a genuine competitor to Zoho CRM are unlikely to arrive however much customers ask.

Pricing, plan by plan

Affinity

$2000/year
  • Essential$2000/year
    • Activity capture (email and calendar)
    • Relationship scoring and interaction history
    • Deal pipeline tracking
  • Scale$2300/year
    • Automatic meeting capture (Notetaker)
    • AI Chat conversational access
    • Affinity Ascend agent platform
  • Advanced$2700/year
    • Third-party data enrichment (PitchBook, Dealroom, Crunchbase)
    • Company growth insights
    • Packaged integrations (Slack, Salesforce, Box)
  • Enterprise$null/year
    • Fund-level permissions
    • Enterprise SSO
    • Custom data retention

Bigin

Free
  • FreeFree
    • One user only
    • 500 records
    • One pipeline
  • Express$7/month
    • Three pipelines
    • 50,000 records
    • 30 workflow automations
  • Premier$12/month
    • Five pipelines
    • 100,000 records
    • 50 workflow automations
  • Bigin 360$18/month
    • Fifteen pipelines
    • One million records
    • 100 workflow automations

Which should you pick?

Choose Affinity if

  • You need contact management.
  • You also want deal tracking.
Affinity review

Choose Bigin if

  • You need multiple pipelines.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, iOS, Android, macOS, watchOS.
  • You also want teampipes.
Bigin review

Questions people ask

Is Affinity or Bigin better?
Neither clearly leads. Affinity starts at $2000/year and Bigin at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Affinity or Bigin?
Bigin has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at $2000/year for Affinity and Free for Bigin.
Does Affinity or Bigin run on more platforms?
Affinity runs on Web. Bigin runs on Web, iOS, Android, macOS, watchOS.
Can I use Bigin for free?
Yes. Bigin has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Affinity starts at $2000/year.
What is Affinity best used for?
Affinity is most often used for deal sourcing and pipeline management for venture capital and private equity, automatic capture of email and meeting activity into relationship records, finding warm introductions through existing relationship networks, investor relations and fundraising tracking. Of those, deal sourcing and pipeline management for venture capital and private equity and automatic capture of email and meeting activity into relationship records are not what Bigin is typically brought in for.
What can Affinity do that Bigin cannot?
Affinity covers Contact management, Deal tracking, Intelligence engine, Relationship mapping. Bigin covers Multiple pipelines, Teampipes, Built-in telephony, Email integration.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Affinity: How much does Affinity CRM cost per user?

Affinity CRM pricing starts at 2000 USD per user per year for the Essential plan, 2300 USD for Scale, and 2700 USD for Advanced. Enterprise tier requires custom pricing.

Source
Bigin: Is Bigin the same as Zoho CRM?

No. It is a separate, cheaper product on its own domain with its own pricing, aimed at small businesses, and it is deliberately capped so it does not compete with Zoho CRM.

Affinity: What is the API call limit on Affinity's Scale tier?

The Scale and Advanced tiers provide 100000 API calls per month. Enterprise tier customers receive unlimited API access.

Source
Bigin: How much cheaper is it?

Express is 7 US dollars per user per month annually against Zoho CRM Standard at a higher rate, and the gap widens against the upper Zoho CRM tiers.

Affinity: Which Affinity tier includes Notetaker and MCP integration?

The Scale tier (2300 USD per user per year) includes automatic meeting capture via Notetaker and Model Context Protocol server integration for AI tool connections.

Source
Bigin: What happens when I outgrow the pipeline limits?

You move up a Bigin tier to five or fifteen pipelines, and beyond that you migrate to Zoho CRM, which is a data and configuration migration rather than a switch.

Affinity: When does Affinity offer Enterprise SSO capabilities?

Enterprise SSO (single sign-on) capability is included only in the Enterprise tier, which requires custom pricing and is designed for established firms with multi-fund complexity.

Source
Bigin: Is the free plan usable?

Only for one person with a very small contact list. It is one user, 500 records, one pipeline and no automation.

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