Market intelligence tools, enterprise and small team

Market intelligence tools split cleanly into two groups. Enterprise platforms such as AlphaSense, CB Insights, Crayon and Klue are sold on annual contracts, publish no prices and are built for strategy, investment and sales teams. A second group, including Similarweb, Crunchbase, Owler and Exploding Topics, mostly publishes prices and suits a small team that needs answers rather than a programme. This page covers both, so you can tell which group your question belongs to.

Market intelligence here means information about a whole market: who the players are, how big they are, how fast it is growing and where it is heading.

How we chose

Each tool had to be the strongest option for a specific market question, such as "who is raising money in this space" or "how big are these sites compared with each other". We noted what each tool's data is built from, because that decides what it can and cannot tell you.

Prices below were read from each vendor's own pricing page on 4 October 2026. Where a vendor publishes nothing, we quote Vendr's public purchase data and name it as such.

Market intelligence tools compared

The enterprise platforms

AlphaSense, for research-grade evidence

AlphaSense searches content you cannot get on the open web: company filings, earnings calls, broker research and Tegus expert call transcripts. Its AI search and Deep Research feature cite answers back to the sentence. Strategy, corporate development and investment teams use it to answer "what are the incumbents saying about this market" with evidence.

No published price; Vendr reports a median of $18,375 a year across 40 purchases, with a range of $9,750 to $51,300. Wrong tool if you need consumer or small-business markets, which filings and analysts barely cover.

CB Insights, for private company landscapes

CB Insights covers private companies, funding rounds, acquisitions and market maps, with its own scores for growth potential and exit probability. It is the tool for "who are the 40 startups in this category, who funded them and who is likely to be acquired".

No published price. A 10 day trial is available through a request form, and Vendr reports a median of $46,984 a year. The cost makes sense for corporate venture and M&A teams; it rarely does for marketing.

Crayon and Klue, for competitive intelligence at scale

These are competitive intelligence platforms more than market intelligence ones: they track named rivals and push battlecards and alerts to sales teams. Crayon summarises competitor news and scores changes by importance; Klue leans into win-loss and answering sellers' questions. Vendr reports a median of $30,000 a year for each. The competitive intelligence software roundup compares them properly.

Sensor Tower, for app and ad markets

Sensor Tower, which has also acquired data.ai, sells mobile app data, digital advertising data and audience insights. If your market lives in app stores, nothing in the small-team group comes close. Pricing is custom, per product.

Tools a small team can afford

Similarweb, for who is biggest online

Similarweb estimates each website's traffic and where it comes from, which makes it the quickest way to rank players in an online market. Its self-serve plans start at $125 a month according to its own pricing page metadata; bigger packages go through sales. Estimates are rough on any single site and absent for sites under about 5,000 visits a month.

Crunchbase, for funding and company profiles

Crunchbase holds profiles of over 6 million private companies, with funding rounds and investors. Pro is $99 a month on monthly billing, or $49 a month billed annually for the first year (shown against a struck-through $79), with a 7 day trial. Good for "who raised money in my category this year". For revenue questions, estimating a private company's revenue explains the methods and their limits.

Owler, for company news on a budget

Owler follows companies and sends news, funding and leadership changes, with a competitor graph showing who competes with whom. Community is free for 5 companies; Pro is $39 a month billed annually for unlimited companies. It tells you nothing about a rival's marketing. Owler alternatives covers what to pair it with.

Exploding Topics, for where demand is heading

Exploding Topics surfaces topics and products with rising search interest. Entrepreneur is $39 a month; Investor at $99 adds forecasting. Use it to spot a category before it is crowded, then confirm with your own customers.

Figo, for what named competitors changed

Ours, so judge accordingly. Figo is narrower than everything above: it watches the competitors you name (3 to 20 on the self-serve plans) and reports once a week on their new Google, Meta and TikTok ads, page and pricing changes, rankings, social posts, Reddit threads and reviews, in a briefing every Monday. Starter is $49 a month for 3 competitors.

It does not do market sizing, funding data, app data or trend spotting. If your question is about the market rather than your rivals, pick one of the others.

Which group is your question in

• "How big is this market and where is it going?" Exploding Topics and Similarweb for a small team; AlphaSense if you need analyst-grade evidence.
• "Who are all the players, and who is funded?" Crunchbase, or CB Insights with a corporate budget.
• "What are my rivals doing?" Owler for headlines, Figo for marketing moves, Crayon or Klue if a sales team needs it.
• "What is happening in apps?" Sensor Tower.

A useful test before any enterprise demo: write down the three decisions the data will change in the next year. If you cannot, a $39 tool and an afternoon of market research will serve you better.