Connect the Dots (CTD) Alternatives

By Shankar Ganapathy, Co-founder, Boomerang AI. Updated October 27, 2026.

Short answer: Connect the Dots (ctd.ai) builds a relationship graph from your email, calendar, contacts and LinkedIn, with a free plan, a $20 a month Professional plan, and a custom Business plan that searches the whole company's network and adds probabilistic paths from public data. Alternatives are The Swarm and Vieu for more data, Happenstance for free personal search, Affinity for fund CRMs, and Boomerang AI if you want the introduction run for you rather than the graph. Checked on each vendor's site on October 27, 2026. If you are a small team, see our CTD alternatives for SMBs page.

What does Connect the Dots do well?

• A real free plan. Free forever for individuals: unlimited data sources, 10 AI contact searches a month, five ghost emails and two lists.
• Sources an individual can connect. Email, calendar, contacts and LinkedIn, enriched and deduped.
• Company rollout. Business adds AI search across the company's network, CRM integration, SSO, and unlimited free external members such as board members, advisors, partners and customers.
• API and MCP. Basic on Professional, full on Business. CTD is SOC 2 Type II audited and has a mobile app with its Dottie assistant.

Why do teams look for alternatives?

• Search is not the same as sending. CTD's ghost emails let an executive approve an AI drafted request. Routing the ask to the right owner, chasing it and attributing the meeting is mostly left to the team.
• The company graph is on Business. Searching everyone's network together needs the custom plan.
• Probabilistic paths need checking. Two people who worked together years ago may not be a usable introduction.

How do Connect the Dots alternatives compare?

• Connect the Dots. Source of the graph: Email, calendar, contacts, LinkedIn; public data on Business. Runs the intro: Partly. Price (checked Oct 27, 2026): Free; $20 a month; Business custom. Pick it if: You want a free start and CRM sync later
• The Swarm. Source of the graph: Imported connections plus 500M+ profiles. Runs the intro: No. Price (checked Oct 27, 2026): From $99 a month. Pick it if: You want relationship data through an API
• Vieu. Source of the graph: Business graph from public, enterprise and LinkedIn data. Runs the intro: No. Price (checked Oct 27, 2026): Not published. Pick it if: You want graph scale and ranking
• Happenstance. Source of the graph: Each person's connected accounts, including X and Instagram. Runs the intro: No. Price (checked Oct 27, 2026): Free; Pro $30 a month. Pick it if: You want personal network search, free
• Affinity. Source of the graph: Firm email and calendar capture. Runs the intro: Partly. Price (checked Oct 27, 2026): $2,000 to $2,700 per user per year. Pick it if: You are a fund choosing a CRM
• Boomerang AI. Source of the graph: Team, investors, customers and partners from CRM, calendars, transcripts and overlaps. Runs the intro: Yes, to the booked meeting. Price (checked Oct 27, 2026): From $80 a month on annual (pricing). Pick it if: You run warm intros as a pipeline channel

How is Boomerang AI different from Connect the Dots?

CTD is a strong graph. Boomerang AI is built for what happens after the path: Rudy picks who inside your company should ask, applies each connector's limits (deal size, cadence, exceptions), drafts the note in their voice, routes it through Slack or email for them to send, follows up, and writes the outcome back to Salesforce, HubSpot or Attio. Connectors never pay and do not need to install anything. Full detail is in Boomerang AI vs Connect the Dots.

When should you choose Connect the Dots?

Choose CTD if one person or a small group wants a capable free graph today, or if your team will run the asking process by hand and mainly needs paths inside the CRM. Choose an orchestration tool when intros are a named channel with a pipeline target attached.