I work on People by Sniff, which is one of the options below. Every claim about other products links to that company’s own pages, checked on October 19, 2026. Prices change, so check before you buy.
What Happenstance does well
Happenstance is an AI search over the people you know. It connects Gmail, Google Contacts and Calendar, Outlook, LinkedIn, X and Instagram, ranks results by how well you know each person, and shows the warm path to each one. You can add friends or join groups to search their networks too. It runs on the web, on iPhone, through an API, an MCP server and a CLI, and inside ChatGPT and Claude, and it says it has more than 500,000 users and teams.
LinkedIn comes in as an upload of your data export, optionally with message headers (who and when, not content) so it can tell real relationships from a one-time handshake. It says your data is never used to train AI models. Pricing is simple: a free-forever plan with chat usage limits, Pro at $24 a month billed yearly, and Team at $24 per seat per month. Sharing your network is always free.
Who should just use Happenstance: people whose relationships are spread across inbox, calendar and social accounts, people who want to search friends’ networks, developers who want an API, and anyone for whom price matters most. The tools below fit better when you want deeper LinkedIn workflows, a company-wide relationship graph, an agent that runs the ask for you, or a CRM built for investors.
At a glance
| Tool | Best for | How you search | Free plan | Paid from |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Happenstance (for reference) | One search across email, calendar, LinkedIn and social | Plain English | Yes | $24/mo billed yearly |
| People by Sniff | LinkedIn network search, call prep, who to tag, team search | Plain English, ranked with reasons | Yes | $99/mo or $990/yr |
| Village | Team intros with funding and public work data | Person or company search (credits) | Yes | $1/seat/mo |
| The Swarm | Company-wide relationship mapping piped into your CRM | Target company or person; Claude via MCP | Yes | $99/company/mo |
| Boomerang | B2B revenue teams that want intro requests run and tracked | AI agent; plain English on Team plan | 7-day trial | $80/mo billed annually |
| LeadDelta | A LinkedIn CRM and inbox, with warm intros as one feature | Filters; plain English via its MCP | 7-day trial | $69.30/user/mo billed yearly |
| Sales Navigator (TeamLink) | Sales teams who already live in LinkedIn | Filters | Trial only | $159.99/mo (Advanced) |
| Affinity | VC and private equity firms | CRM with relationship scoring | No | $2,000/user/yr |
| Metal | Founders raising a venture round | Investor ranking and intro pathways | Not listed | Custom |
1. People by Sniff
People by Sniff is AI search over your own LinkedIn network. You connect LinkedIn, your connections are indexed with role, company, shared history and activity, and you ask in plain English. You get a ranked list of connections, each with the reason they made the list. A power score weighs relationship strength, recent activity and relevance.
It goes further on LinkedIn-specific work than Happenstance does: call prep from any LinkedIn profile, connected or not; who to tag in a post you wrote (Sniff never writes posts); and job-change alerts. On Pro, teammates’ networks combine into one search that names the teammate to ask, and you can upload a lead list as a CSV and see who can get you to each lead, with emails and phone numbers. It never messages anyone for you, and your network is private, never shared or sold. There’s a free plan with a daily search allowance; Pro is $99 a month or $990 a year.
Pick it if LinkedIn is where your professional network lives and you want intros, call prep and posting help in one place. Skip it if many of your relationships live in your inbox or on X, or price matters most: Happenstance covers more sources and costs less. The full comparison is in People by Sniff vs. Happenstance.
2. Village
Village describes itself as relationship intelligence for teams that close deals, recruit and raise capital. You connect email, calendar, contacts and LinkedIn, and it maps each connection’s network with public work, funding and education data to find 1st, 2nd and 3rd-degree paths. It also runs inside Claude and ChatGPT and has a REST API. Plans run on credits: free with 100 credits a month, Core at $1 per seat per month, and Business at $149 a month.
Pick it if your team wants paths beyond direct connections, with investor and funding data built in, and you’re comfortable budgeting in credits.
3. The Swarm
The Swarm calls itself “the relationship intelligence leader.” It combines its own people and company dataset with your team’s LinkedIn connections, email and calendar contacts, and work and education overlaps, then maps paths into target companies. It integrates with HubSpot, Attio, Clay and others, has an API, and can be queried from Claude through MCP. The free plan covers up to 10 connectors; Premium is $99 per company per month ($2,990 a year) with a 14-day trial.
Pick it if you’re a go-to-market team that wants relationship data for the whole company, synced into your CRM and outbound tools.
4. Boomerang
Boomerang is built for B2B revenue teams. Its AI agent, Rudy, finds warm paths to target accounts using CRM history, calendars, call transcripts, Slack, inbox and LinkedIn engagement. It drafts the intro request for the connector to send, routes it to the person most likely to say yes, nudges when it stalls, and logs each step to the CRM. Starter is $80 a month billed annually ($100 month to month) with a 7-day trial; natural-language queries and CRM integrations start on Team at $600 a month billed annually.
Pick it if you want intro requests run as a tracked process across a sales team, not just a search box. It’s more than an individual needs.
5. LeadDelta
LeadDelta calls itself “the #1 LinkedIn CRM with an AI inbox.” It combines your team’s LinkedIn connections into a shared workspace, and its Warm Intro AI finds the teammate with the strongest connection to a prospect. Growth is $69.30 per user per month billed yearly, with a 7-day trial and no free plan.
Pick it if you want a LinkedIn CRM, inbox and campaigns first, with warm intros as one feature. More options in LeadDelta alternatives.
6. LinkedIn Sales Navigator with TeamLink
TeamLink highlights coworkers who can introduce you to a lead. It’s included in Sales Navigator Advanced and Advanced Plus, not Core. Advanced is $159.99 a month (or $1,799.88 a year) per seat, with a free trial for eligible members. Search is filter-based and covers your company’s connections, not your personal email or social accounts.
Pick it if your sales team already pays for Sales Navigator Advanced and you’d rather not add another tool.
7. Affinity and Metal, for investors and fundraising
Affinity calls itself “the AI-first CRM for private capital.” It captures email and calendar activity across a firm, scores relationship strength from it, and surfaces warm intro paths to decision-makers. Essential is $2,000 per user per year, sold through sales, with no free plan listed.
Metal is the founder-side counterpart: an AI platform for founders raising venture rounds that ranks likely investors, finds intro pathways through your connections, and drafts intro requests. Pricing is custom and starts with a demo.
Pick Affinity if you run deal flow at a VC or PE firm. Pick Metal if you’re a founder in the middle of a round and want investor research and intros in one place. For a lighter approach, see how to find investors in your LinkedIn network.
How to choose
- Relationships spread across email, calendar and social, on a budget? Stay with Happenstance.
- LinkedIn is your main network and you want call prep, who to tag and team search too? People by Sniff.
- A team that wants 2nd and 3rd-degree paths with funding data? Village.
- A go-to-market team that wants relationship data in its CRM? The Swarm.
- A revenue team that wants an agent to route and track intro asks? Boomerang.
- Need a LinkedIn CRM and inbox first? LeadDelta.
- Already on Sales Navigator Advanced? Try TeamLink first.
- Investor or founder raising? Affinity or Metal.
Most of these have a free plan or trial, so the best test is to run the same three questions through two of them on your own network. For a wider view, see Best Tools to Find Warm Intros on LinkedIn.