Metal Alternatives: Tools With Prices You Can See

At a glance

Investor Match — AI-matched shortlist from your actual pitch deck

Full disclosure: Investor Match is our product, so judge this section accordingly. Instead of giving you a database to filter, Investor Match reads your pitch deck, extracts your stage, sector, traction and raise, and returns 20 ranked investor matches with written fit reasoning, contact channels and three drafted outreach emails per investor.

Behind the matching sits a directory of 13,000+ published investor profiles (thesis, check sizes, partners, portfolio) that you can browse free without uploading anything. It was built by Martin Tobias, a GP at Incisive Ventures, so founders without VC networks get the same quality of targeting.

Best for: Founders who want a ranked, reasoned shortlist instead of doing the filtering themselves

Pricing: Free to upload and preview all 20 matches; $20 one-time for the full list on a campaign. No subscription. A $10 deck teardown is optional. (source: investormatch.pro)

Falls short: It is not a CRM, a data room or an investor-update tool, and it covers VC firms far better than individual angels.

Try Investor Match free

Metal — AI fundraising platform, sold through a demo

Metal describes itself as an AI-driven operating system for founders raising venture rounds: investor discovery and ranking, warm-intro paths, a pipeline and meeting intelligence, plus an "Autopilot" service. Its pricing page lists two plans and no prices; both lead to a demo booking.

Best for: Later-seed and Series A founders who want one platform for the whole raise and will take a sales call

Pricing: No public price; the pricing page routes to a demo, as of Oct 2026 (source: metal.so)

Falls short: You cannot see the cost before a demo, and the price is set per stage and round.

OpenVC — Free investor database with a pitch workflow

OpenVC lists about 16,700 investors, per a third-party review (Angels Partners, October 2026), with filters for stage, sector and geography, and a flow for sending your deck to investors who accept cold pitches. The core product is free; Premium adds more daily intros, extra filters and an intro finder.

Best for: Founders who want a free database and will do their own filtering and outreach

Pricing: Free core (about one platform outreach a day); Premium $99/month or $299/year, as of Oct 2026 (source: angelspartners.com)

Falls short: You still turn 16,000+ profiles into a target list yourself, and the free tier rations outreach.

Foundersuite — Fundraising CRM with an investor database

Foundersuite is a CRM built for running a raise: pipelines, follow-ups and investor updates, with access to its investor database on every plan. Plans differ mainly in how many investors fit in a pipeline, from 75 on the free plan to 1,500 on Platinum.

Best for: Founders who want a dedicated CRM to run outreach and follow-ups

Pricing: Basic free (75 investors per pipeline); Silver $745, Gold $1,069, Platinum $1,609 per year billed annually, as of Oct 2026 (source: foundersuite.com)

Falls short: It does not publish its database size, and it tracks the list you build rather than building it for you.

Visible — Investor updates, pipelines and data rooms

Visible combines investor updates, a fundraising CRM (pipelines), deck analytics and data rooms. Its free Starter plan includes the Visible Connect investor database, two pipelines and updates to 100 investors.

Best for: Founders who want updates, pipeline and data room in one subscription

Pricing: Starter free; Base $59, Core $129, Growth $199 per month billed annually ($69/$149/$249 billed monthly), as of Oct 2026 (source: visible.vc)

Falls short: Investor discovery is one feature among many, not the core of the product.

Signal by NFX — Public investor lists by stage, sector and region

Signal, built by the VC firm NFX, publishes investor lists cut by stage, sector and region. The lists are large: its FinTech seed list shows 8,766 investors. Founders can browse them without paying; investors request an invite to create a profile.

Best for: A free first look at who invests in your stage and sector

Pricing: No pricing published; investor lists browsable without paying, as of Oct 2026 (source: signal.nfx.com)

Falls short: Lists run to thousands of names, so the prioritizing is still on you.

DocSend — Deck sharing with page-level analytics

DocSend (owned by Dropbox) shares your deck as a tracked link, so you see who opened it and how long they spent on each page. Higher tiers add lightweight data rooms.

Best for: Knowing which investors actually read your deck

Pricing: Personal $10/user/month, Standard $45/user/month, Advanced $150/month, as of Oct 2026 (source: docsend.com)

Falls short: It does not find investors; it tracks the ones you already sent a deck to.

Where Investor Match wins

• You start from your deck, not a search box: 20 ranked matches, each with written fit reasoning, in minutes.
• Contact channels and three drafted emails per investor come with the paid list, so the list turns into outreach the same day.
• One price, paid once: $20 per campaign with no subscription to cancel when the round closes.
• Price you can see: $20 per campaign is on our pricing page, with a free preview before you pay anything.

Where Investor Match doesn't win

• Whole-raise platform: Metal bundles discovery, intro paths, pipeline and meeting notes. We cover discovery and first outreach.
• Angel-heavy rounds: our directory is built around VC firms, so pair it with an angel source.
• Running the raise: we track outreach, but we are not a full CRM, data room or investor-update tool. Foundersuite, Visible or DocSend do that job.

Frequently asked questions

How much does Metal cost?

Metal does not publish a price. As of October 14, 2026, metal.so/pricing lists two plans with no figures and sends both to a demo booking, and the page says plans depend on your stage and round. Ask for the number on the demo call before you commit time to onboarding.

What is the cheapest alternative to Metal?

Several have free plans: OpenVC's core database, Foundersuite Basic and Visible Starter cost nothing as of October 2026, and Signal's lists are free to browse. Investor Match is free to preview and $20 once for the full 20-investor list.

Is there a Metal alternative without a subscription?

Yes. Investor Match charges a one-time $20 per campaign, with no subscription. Foundersuite and Visible also have free tiers if you only need a CRM, though their paid plans are annual or monthly subscriptions.

Should a pre-seed founder use Metal?

Metal's pricing page tags its platform plan "Late Seed / Series A+". At pre-seed, most founders get further with a tight list worked in tranches of 20 to 30 investors and a simple tracker than with a full platform.