Compare Capital IQ pricing, features and alternatives

Multiples is a modern financial data platform designed for M&A firms, VC, PE, and family offices to track public and private company valuations and transaction data. Multiples is powered by institutional data sources like FactSet and Morningstar.

Plans start at $239/month with annual billing, with a free tier and a 3-day trial. The Excel and Google Sheets add-in comes with every paid plan. 165,000+ M&A transactions and 330,000+ funding rounds are included in every plan, not sold as a separate module. Deals carry revenue and EBITDA multiples where financials were disclosed.

Multiples and S&P Capital IQ are both financial data platforms used for valuation and comparable company analysis, but they cater to different needs, workflows, and budgets. Cap IQ is an exhaustive, enterprise-grade legacy terminal, whereas Multiples is a lean, modern, valuation-focused SaaS tool.

Compared to Capital IQ, the price is $239/month against a reported $13,000-$30,000 seat.

While Capital IQ offers exhaustive product, its interface can feel rigid and expensive for smaller teams. Choose Multiples for agile experience (yet equally high quality data), or Capital IQ for more enterprise workflows.

FactSet is an investment research workstation for public markets. It covers global public companies with fundamentals, consensus estimates, ownership data and portfolio analytics. Its estimates history is the deepest among the major platforms. It also licenses its fundamentals and estimates data to other platforms, including Multiples.

While Capital IQ is sometimes perceived as slightly more modular for cost-conscious corporate finance teams, they are both very expensive platforms. Pricing is not officially published and is quoted per package. Reported figures state $12,000-$40,000 per user per year, annual contract only - a similar range to Cap IQ.

FactSet and S&P Capital IQ are both legacy, institutional financial workstations, but they cater to slightly different primary workflows. FactSet is widely favored by asset managers and buy-side portfolio analysts for its robust analytics and charting features, whereas Capital IQ is traditionally viewed as the investment banker's staple for financial modeling and comps.

The two platforms differ fundamentally in their access methods and architecture. FactSet is predominantly a desktop app. In contrast, S&P Capital IQ operates primarily through a web-based platform.

Bloomberg Terminal is the industry gold standard for real-time market data, live global pricing across all asset classes, and instant news feeds. It features the proprietary Instant Bloomberg (IB) chat network, which is vital for institutional traders and portfolio managers. The UI is complex and requires a steep learning curve. It relies heavily on specialized keyboard shortcuts and a legacy command structure.

Pricing is widely known: $31,980 per seat per year, or $28,320 per seat on multi-seat contracts (2026 figures), with a two-year minimum. Data feeds (Data License, B-PIPE) are priced separately.

Bloomberg requires dedicated hardware or specialized software leases locked into rigid multi-year agreements. Cap IQ offers web app and modular pricing tailored to specific research needs.

Compared to Capital IQ, Bloomberg is better for real-time data, news and chat, and costs more. For comps and modelling alone it is not a great buy: it valuation workflows are weaker and the seat is more expensive.

LSEG Workspace is the successor to Refinitiv Eikon. It integrates deep macro tools like Datastream and I/B/E/S consensus estimates, making it a preferred choice for macro-focused funds, trading firms, and corporate treasuries requiring live multi-asset monitoring and integrated global news feeds.

Pricing is not published. Reported figures run $12,000-$24,000 per user per year - usually the cheapest of the big workstations.

LSEG excels in real-time cross-asset market data, FX tools, and exclusive Reuters news access. Capital IQ serves a different use case, heavily favored in investment banking for fundamental company research, dealflow tracking, and public comps coverage.

Compared to Cap IQ, LSEG is stronger on news, FX and fixed income, and weaker on equity screening, private comps and financial modelling use case.

Koyfin and S&P Capital IQ represent two distinct tiers of financial market research tools. They are tailored for different types of users (and very different budgets). Koyfin is a lightweight analytics platform designed for individual investors and independent analysts. It delivers charting, macro overviews, and screening tools at a fraction of the price. It is not, however, an enterprise-ready platform - it lacks deep institutional workflows, proprietary private market intelligence, and compliance tools.

Koyfin offers a generous free tier, paid plans range from roughly $39 to $299 per month, making it accessible to individual market participants. Cap IQ typically charges between $13,000 and $30,000 or more per user seat annually.

Capital IQ wins over Koyfin for a professional use case. It offers what Koyfin does not have - depth in transaction comparables, private company intelligence, more robust public comps data, detailed debt structures, and Excel modeling plug-ins.

PitchBook and Capital IQ Pro are both well-known, premier market intelligence platforms, but they cater to slightly different financial workflows. PitchBook is the industry standard for private markets, offering robust data on VC, PE, M&A, and LP intelligence. It shines in early-stage deal sourcing, cap table tracking, industry mapping, and getting contact data. Capital IQ is the legacy workstation for public equities, credit research, and financial modeling.

PitchBook's reported pricing is $25,000-$40,000 per year for a team license with a 2-3 seat minimum, and $70,000+ with API access. Contracts are annual only.

What to choose? Clients covering mostly the private ecosystem generally lean toward PitchBook for its granular deal data, whereas teams looking at public market analysis and valuation work rely on Capital IQ. A great alternative to both is Multiples - it is a lightweight challenger to both PitchBook and Cap IQ, having licensed public comps data, and full M&A and VC deals coverage.