CB Insights

CB Insights is a market-intelligence platform for tracking companies, technology markets, and competitive activity. It is best suited to corporate strategy, M&A, venture, and innovation teams that need broad coverage and analysis tools. Its paid service brings together extensive company and market data, but the lack of a free plan and custom-priced options make a trial and a pricing request sensible first steps.

Overview

CB Insights combines market intelligence, analytics, and predictive data science to help businesses assess technology markets and competitor strategies. It tracks more than 12 million companies across more than 1,600 technology markets, with data spanning funding, acquisitions, hiring, financials, business relationships, patents, news, product launches, and other company signals.

That breadth makes the platform relevant to teams evaluating markets and businesses from several angles, rather than only monitoring one type of activity. Competitor tracking, change alerts, and extensive historical data add context over time. The trade-off is commitment: there is no free plan, and several specialized offerings require a pricing request.

Key features

Company and market intelligence

The platform’s coverage of companies and technology markets gives strategy and investment teams a wide base for scouting and comparison. Its data includes funding and investment activity, M&A, revenues and financials, customers, partners, vendors, competitors, earnings calls, customer sentiment, and hiring. Historical data and change alerts help users follow developments instead of relying only on a current snapshot.

Predictive analysis and research

Strategy Terminal uses predictive data science and AI agents to surface signals about private companies, markets, and competitors. That is a useful distinction for teams looking to identify emerging activity, though the offering is separately priced on request. Research access is included in the listed User License and Team Access plans.

Browser Analyst and data delivery

Browser Analyst analyzes webpages, creates scouting reports and SWOT analyses, and supplies company, executive, funding, customer, partner, and competitor information. Its separately priced plan includes unlimited scouting reports, company profile data, executive contact information, and webpage and document analysis.

Turnkey integrations connect CB Insights with Microsoft Copilot and Salesforce, while Snowflake Marketplace and APIs and data feeds provide routes into data lakes, CRMs, applications, and models. The feeds include company and market profiles, research reports, and ChatCBI responses, making the product usable beyond its web terminal.

Mobile, security, and support

The iOS and Android apps include company search, scouting reports, ChatCBI, personalized feeds, and research access. CB Insights states that its infrastructure is SOC 2 Type II certified and GDPR compliant; controls include AES-256 encryption at rest, TLS 1.2 in transit, audit trails, role-based access control, SSO, and MFA. It also says customer data is not used to train the AI models it uses.

Strategy Terminal includes a dedicated forward-deployed strategist, onboarding and migration assistance, and chat support. Those services may matter to organizations integrating the platform into established workflows, but they are attached to a custom-priced offering.

Pricing

CB Insights is paid software with a 10-day trial and no free plan. The listed annual-billing prices are:

• User License: $417 a month, billed $5,000 annually. Includes full platform access, AI-powered insights, coverage of 12 million companies and 1 billion data points, web terminal, Browser Analyst, mobile app, email alerts, and research access.
• Team Access: $1,700 a month, billed $20,400 annually. It lists the same included features and coverage as User License, at a substantially higher annual commitment. Teams should weigh the added spend against their access needs; no seat count is given for either plan.
• Strategy Terminal: custom pricing. Includes 12 million companies, 1,600+ markets, AI agents, research, Salesforce and Microsoft Copilot integrations, and SSO.
• Browser Analyst: custom pricing. Includes unlimited scouting reports, company profile data, executive contact information, and webpage and document analysis.
• Feeds / Data Solutions: custom pricing. Includes company and market datasets, ChatCBI responses, APIs, Snowflake Marketplace, and integrations.

The User License is the lower-cost listed route to the full platform, while Team Access carries the same stated scope at a much higher price. The trial provides a short evaluation window, but there is no ongoing free tier; annual billing is explicit for the two priced plans.

Platforms

CB Insights supports web, iOS, Android, APIs, and a browser extension. The range suits teams that want both a central research terminal and ways to access insights on mobile or within other systems.

Who it's for

CB Insights is aimed primarily at corporate strategy, mergers and acquisitions, corporate venture capital, and corporate innovation teams. It is a stronger fit for organizations that need wide technology-market coverage, company tracking, and analysis or data-delivery options than for individuals seeking a free research tool.

Pros and cons

• Pro: Coverage of more than 12 million companies and 1,600+ technology markets supports broad scouting and comparison.
• Pro: Extensive historical data, competitor tracking, and change alerts help teams follow market and company shifts.
• Pro: Web, mobile, integrations, APIs, and Snowflake Marketplace offer multiple ways to use the data.
• Pro: Strategy Terminal adds predictive signals and dedicated implementation and support services.
• Con: There is no free plan, so users cannot keep access after the 10-day trial without paying.
• Con: The least expensive listed full-platform plan still costs $417 a month with annual billing, which may not suit individual or occasional users.
• Con: Team Access lists the same features as User License at $1,700 a month, and no seat counts clarify the difference.
• Con: Strategy Terminal, Browser Analyst, and Feeds / Data Solutions use custom pricing, making their cost harder to assess before requesting a quote.

Alternatives

For broader category browsing, see Competitive Intelligence Software and Startup Databases.

• AppTweak is a freemium option with a free plan, free trial, and a three-seat Market Intelligence Starter plan with past-month historical data, downloads, and revenue estimates; consider it when those limits fit the need for a no-cost starting point.
• Visualping offers a free plan with 150 checks per month across five pages, checked every 60 minutes for one user; choose it when the task is limited website monitoring rather than broad market intelligence.
• AlphaSense Generative Search is a paid enterprise-intelligence option with annual, request-based pricing, per-seat or enterprise packages, internal document search, and private-cloud availability; consider it when internal document search is central.
• Contify is another paid, web-based option.
• Sensor Tower is another paid, web-based option.
• ChangeTower has a free plan covering three pages with daily checks and 30 days of snapshot history; it may suit users who need a small website-change monitoring setup at no cost.
• Wachete is a freemium option available on web, mobile, API, extension, and Windows platforms.
• Fluxguard is a freemium web and API option with a Standard plan priced at $110 a month, including 25 sites per month and three users; consider it when monitored-site coverage and those stated limits match the job.

Verdict

CB Insights is a strong fit for corporate strategy, M&A, venture, and innovation teams that need broad company and technology-market coverage alongside predictive analysis and multiple data-delivery routes. Its breadth is the main reason to choose it; its paid-only access, high annual commitment, and custom pricing are the reasons smaller teams and individual researchers may prefer a narrower or free alternative.