By Shankar Ganapathy, Co-founder, Boomerang AI. Updated November 4, 2026.
Short answer: a relationship intelligence platform maps who your company already knows and how well, then shows the warm path into a target account. The software comes in three shapes. Graph and data providers (Vieu, The Swarm, Connect the Dots, Happenstance) build and sell the map of who knows whom. Firm CRMs with relationship scoring (Affinity, Introhive) put that map inside a system of record for deal teams. Intro orchestration (Boomerang AI) uses your relationships to get introductions made: it finds the path, picks who should ask, drafts the ask and tracks it to the meeting. Competitor prices below were checked on each vendor's site on October 27, 2026. Boomerang AI prices were checked on November 4, 2026.
What is a relationship intelligence platform?
It is software that reads the traces relationships leave (email and calendar metadata, CRM history, LinkedIn connections, work and board overlaps) and turns them into a scored graph. The graph answers one question a spreadsheet cannot: who on our side can get us to this person, and how well do they know them.
The category name is shared by products that do very different jobs. Pick by the job, not the label.
How is a relationship intelligence platform different from a CRM?
A CRM records the contacts and deals your team entered by hand or by sync. A relationship intelligence platform records person to person ties, with evidence and recency, such as who worked with whom or who sits on a board with an investor. The two work together: the platform finds the path and the CRM keeps the account and deal record. For the data model behind this, see the relationship graph your CRM cannot hold.
Which type of tool do you actually need?
| Type | What you are buying | Examples | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Graph and data provider | The map: profiles, connections, strength scores, often via API | Vieu, The Swarm, Connect the Dots, Happenstance | Teams that want the data and will run the motion themselves, or builders piping it into other tools |
| Firm CRM with relationship scoring | A system of record that captures every interaction | Affinity, Introhive | Private capital and professional services firms choosing a CRM |
| Intro orchestration | The outcome: introductions made and tracked to a meeting | Boomerang AI | B2B revenue teams running warm intros as a pipeline channel |
| Signal and champion tracking | Alerts when contacts change jobs, with outbound on top | UserGems, Champify | Teams whose main trigger is a champion moving companies |
How do the main platforms compare on price and data?
| Tool | Where the graph comes from | Runs the intro for you | Published price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vieu | A business graph built from public data, your CRM, email, Slack and HR data, and each person's LinkedIn file | No | Not published (checked Oct 27, 2026) |
| The Swarm | Your team's imported connections plus a dataset of 500M+ profiles with daily job changes | No | SaaS from $99 a month; API plans scale with usage (checked Oct 27, 2026) |
| Connect the Dots | Email, calendar, contacts and LinkedIn, enriched and deduped; Business adds probabilistic paths from public data | Partly, through AI drafted "ghost emails" | Free; Professional $20 a month; Business custom (checked Oct 27, 2026) |
| Happenstance | Each person's connected accounts: Gmail, Outlook, Google Calendar, Google Contacts, LinkedIn, X, Instagram | No; drafts a request for you to send | Free; Pro $30 a month or $24 billed yearly (checked Oct 27, 2026) |
| Affinity | The firm's captured email and calendar, enriched | Partly, through its Ascend agents | $2,000, $2,300 or $2,700 per user per year; Enterprise custom (checked Oct 27, 2026) |
| UserGems | CRM contacts tracked as they change jobs | Runs outbound off the trigger | From $40,000 a year (checked Oct 27, 2026) |
| Boomerang AI | Your team, investors and advisors, customer champions and partners, from CRM history, calendars, call transcripts, Slack, investor databases, work overlaps and social engagement | Yes: finds the path, drafts the ask, routes it, follows up, tracks to the meeting | Starter $80 a month billed annually with a 7 day free trial; Team $1,000 a month billed annually; Company $30,000 a year (annual only); Enterprise custom (pricing, checked Nov 4, 2026) |
Introhive and Champify are named above by category but their prices were not rechecked for this update.
Should you buy the graph or the outcome?
Buy the graph when you have people who will work it: a RevOps or GTM engineering team building their own workflow, or a VC platform team answering ad hoc "who knows X" questions. The Swarm and Connect the Dots both expose their data through an API and MCP for exactly this.
Buy the outcome when the bottleneck is not knowing the path but getting the ask made. A map with hundreds of paths changes nothing if nobody owns the follow through. That is the job Path to Power does: Rudy, the Boomerang AI referral agent, picks the right person inside your company to ask, checks that connector's limits, drafts the note in their voice for them to send, chases it, and records the meeting.
How do you choose one? A two week pilot scorecard
Run every shortlisted tool against the same 20 real target accounts for two weeks, then score them on the same sheet.
| Criterion | How to test it | What good looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Coverage | Count how many of the 20 accounts have at least one path | You set the bar before the pilot, not the vendor |
| Evidence | Open 10 paths and check whether each shows why the tie exists | Every path shows its source and date |
| Willingness | Ask 5 connectors whether the top ranked path is the person they would actually ask | Connectors agree with the ranking |
| Action | Count asks sent, approved and meetings booked | Meetings, not a longer list of names |
| Privacy | Read the security page and confirm in writing what is read and stored | Metadata only, with a SOC 2 report on request |
| Cost | Convert price to cost per meeting on the same billing basis | A like for like number across vendors |
What should you check before you buy?
- Source of the graph. Interaction data (email, calendar, CRM) shows two people did talk. Inferred data (shared employers, schools) shows they could know each other. Ask which one a path rests on.
- Whose networks count. Your team only, or investors, board, customers and partners too, without each of them installing anything.
- What happens after the path. Who sends the ask, in whose voice, and how a connector says no without friction. See relationship scoring and how Rudy scores a warm path.
- Evidence behind each path. Look for tools that show why a path exists, as in warm path evidence.
- Where it lives. Slack, the CRM, and AI assistants such as Claude over MCP. Boomerang AI includes MCP from the Team plan up.
- Billing basis. Per user, per company or per path, and whether the quoted rate is monthly or annual. Compare on the same basis.
Where does Boomerang AI lose?
If you want a self serve graph for one person for free, Happenstance and Connect the Dots are cheaper. If you want raw relationship data at internet scale for your own product, The Swarm and Vieu sell that and Boomerang AI does not. If you are a fund choosing a CRM, Affinity is built for it. Boomerang AI is built for revenue teams that want introductions made, and its proof is in that motion: Armis created 26,000 warm intro paths across its enterprise accounts, and at 1mind nearbound deals closed at 3x the rate of outbound. Both figures come from the customers' published case studies.
Setup for Boomerang AI is about 60 minutes of technical setup, the graph builds in under a day, and full go live takes about a week. For the method, see relationship mapping.
Frequently asked questions
What is relationship intelligence software?
Relationship intelligence software maps who your company already knows, scores how strong each relationship is, and shows the warm path into a target account or person. It reads metadata from email, calendar, CRM and LinkedIn rather than message content. Products differ on where the graph comes from and whether they also run the introduction.
What is the best relationship intelligence software in 2026?
It depends on the job. For raw relationship data and an API, The Swarm or Vieu. For an individual or small team searching their own network, Happenstance or Connect the Dots. For a fund CRM, Affinity. For a B2B revenue team that wants introductions made and tracked to meetings, Boomerang AI.
How much does relationship intelligence software cost?
Prices checked October 27, 2026: Happenstance is free with Pro at $30 a month; Connect the Dots Professional is $20 a month; The Swarm starts at $99 a month; Affinity is $2,000 to $2,700 per user per year; Boomerang AI starts at $80 a month on annual; UserGems starts at $40,000 a year. Vieu does not publish pricing.
Is relationship intelligence the same as warm introduction software?
They overlap but are not the same. Relationship intelligence finds and scores the path. Warm introduction software, or intro orchestration, also runs the ask: choosing who should make the introduction, drafting it, routing it, following up and tracking the result. Some teams buy one of each.
Does relationship intelligence software read my emails?
Most vendors say they read metadata such as who emailed whom and when, not message bodies. Happenstance states it reads email headers only. Boomerang AI uses metadata and does not upload connectors' data, and mailbox and LinkedIn connections are optional. Check each vendor's security page and SOC 2 report before you connect accounts.
How do I choose a relationship intelligence platform?
Start with the job: raw data, searching your own network, a fund CRM, or getting introductions made. Then run a two week pilot on 20 real target accounts and score each tool on paths found, evidence per path, asks sent and meetings booked. Pick the tool that produces meetings, not the longest list of names.
What is the difference between a relationship intelligence platform and a CRM?
A CRM records the contacts and deals your team entered. A relationship intelligence platform records person to person ties with evidence and recency, such as who worked with whom or who knows an investor. They work together: the platform finds the path and the CRM keeps the account and deal record.