Zero vs Attio

The short version

The feature lists look alike on the surface. Both have contacts, companies, deals, email sync, enrichment, sequences and AI. The difference is what each product is for.

Attio is a system of record: a well designed database with objects, attributes, views and an API, and you, or your RevOps person, decide what it becomes. That flexibility is real, and it is why larger teams like it.

Zero is a system of action: an opinionated product for people who sell. There is a full CRM underneath, with a complete customer record, contacts, emails, pipeline and a database of more than 20 million companies, and that is exactly why the agents can do the work rather than describe it. You do not design the CRM. You start selling, and the record keeps itself.

One more difference worth naming early: Attio out-markets us. Bigger budget, louder brand, more of the internet talking about them. That is a real advantage and we will not pretend otherwise. We would rather win the product comparison, which is what the rest of this page is about.

How we wrote this

We build Zero, so read this as a competitor's comparison. Every page under /compare follows the same three rules: we name where the other product is better, we re-verify competitor prices monthly and print the date we checked, and we cite our own customers only where a published story backs the number.

Where the two products came from

Attio started life as Fundstack, a CRM for venture capital firms, in 2017. The founders rebuilt it as a horizontal CRM from late 2019 and launched publicly in 2023. It is a mature product with a large ecosystem, and it now describes itself as AI-native.

Zero was started in 2024 by a team that had just left a Salesforce-run sales org and tried the new generation of CRMs first, Attio included. We liked the design and did not want to build another database. We wanted the CRM to do the admin and the outreach. That is the product decision everything below follows from: Zero was designed around agents from the first commit, so the agents have the full context and the permission to act on it.

Neither starting point is a moral win. It explains why Attio optimizes for configurability and Zero optimizes for work getting done.

Section by section

Data model and customization

Attio's object model is the best in this category. Custom objects, custom attributes, relationships between records, list based workflows and a strong API. If your business has non-standard entities, such as portfolio companies, properties, cohorts or multi-entity deals, Attio models them cleanly. Objects are tiered, though: the free plan allows up to three, and unlimited objects sit on Enterprise.

Zero ships with an opinionated core of contacts, companies, deals and activities, and extends it with custom activities that have their own schemas, plus custom properties and lists. Model quarterly reviews, site visits, product events or whatever your motion produces, and report on them like anything native. What Zero does not try to be is a general purpose relational database. Attio's object model goes deeper if that is what you are building.

Verdict:Attio if you are building a bespoke relational database. Zero for custom data that serves a sales motion, with no design phase first.

Outreach and sourcing

This is the biggest practical gap. Attio has sequences and call intelligence on the Pro plan, and the rest of the outbound motion, which is finding leads, enriching at volume, LinkedIn and a dialer, typically comes from the tools around it: Apollo, Clay, a LinkedIn tool and some glue.

Zero has sourcing, multi-channel sequences across email and LinkedIn, a dialer, enrichment and intent signals built in, on the same record the pipeline lives on. Agents draft the follow-ups, and you approve anything that reaches a customer. Pantera consolidated their sales stack into Zero this way and came out at a quarter of what their legacy CRM tiers cost.

Verdict:Zero. Attio plus a stack can match it, and that stack is what Zero exists to replace.

AI and agents

Both products call themselves AI-native. Only one was built that way. Attio launched in 2023 as a customizable database and added AI to it afterwards. AI added to a finished product inherits that product's shape: Attio's AI operates whatever you have configured in Attio, and anything living in Apollo, your inbox tool or a spreadsheet is out of view.

An agent is only as good as the context it can see. Zero's agents run on the whole relationship, which is emails, meetings, enrichment, pipeline, product and billing signals, because all of it is in one record. That is why they can keep records on their own and draft outreach that reads like it knows the account.

Verdict:Zero, for agents that do the work rather than describe it.

Pricing

Attio, checked 21 August 2026: free for up to three seats, Plus at $35 per seat a month on annual billing and $44 monthly, Pro at $79 per seat a month annual and $99 monthly, Enterprise custom. Sequences and call intelligence start at Pro. On top of seats, usage runs on credits: Plus includes 500 seat credits and 1,500 workspace credits a month, Pro 1,000 and 10,000. Extra workspace credits run from roughly $70 for 5,000 to several hundred for 50,000 a month. If you run real outbound volume, budget for Pro plus credits plus the tools around it.

Zero is one plan for the whole workflow. Pro is $60 per seat a month at the launch price, held twelve months on annual billing and three on monthly, with 500 credits per seat a month and a fourteen day trial. Scale is custom priced from ten seats. Sourcing, enrichment, outreach and agents are in the plan rather than on a separate credit line.

Verdict:Attio's free tier is hard to beat for a small team with no pipeline yet. Once you are running outbound and inbound, compare Zero's price to Attio Pro plus credits plus Apollo or Clay, not to Attio alone.

Setup speed

Attio's flexibility has a setup cost. You design objects, attributes, views and workflows, and most teams with a good Attio setup had a RevOps or go-to-market engineering person build it.

Zero starts more opinionated. Connect email and calendar, import or source your first leads, and the record fills itself. Pantera reached full team adoption in two weeks.

Verdict:Zero for speed to a working pipeline. Attio if you want to design the system and have someone to do it.

Reporting

Attio's advanced reporting sits on Pro and above, and third party reviews call it basic below Enterprise.

Zero reports across the whole record: deals, companies, contacts, stage history and activities, which includes emails, meetings, tasks, LinkedIn touches and custom events, plus connected product analytics, support issues and Stripe billing data. Metrics run from deal value and weighted pipeline to conversion rates, time in stage and recurring revenue, broken down by time, stage, owner, region, industry, company size or any custom field. Zero's custom activities are reportable like native objects. Attio's remaining edge is reporting across a bespoke relational model.

Verdict:Zero for pipeline to revenue reporting on one record, including product and billing data. Attio if your reporting follows a bespoke relational model.

Where Attio is the better choice

• You are building a bespoke relational database: arbitrary object types with relationships between them, beyond what a sales motion produces. Zero's custom objects cover the sales motion, and Attio's model goes further.
• You already run a best-of-breed stack you are happy with, and you want a clean database in the middle of it.
• You want the larger ecosystem and the longer track record: more integrations, more third party guides, and people on the market who already know the tool. Zero is younger on all of those.
• You want the better known brand. Attio markets more and louder than we do, and name recognition has real value when you are selling a tool internally.
• You want fully automatic sending. Zero holds anything customer facing behind an approval, by design.
• Your motion is relationship only, with no outbound. You would be paying Zero for sourcing and sequences you will not use.

Where Zero is the better choice

• You want sourcing, enrichment and multi-channel outreach in the CRM, rather than synced into it from three other tools.
• You want the record to keep itself, with nobody logging in to do admin.
• You want agents with the whole relationship in view, including product and billing signals, not only the objects someone configured.
• You want a working pipeline in days, without hiring RevOps to design the system first.
• You report on revenue: weighted pipeline, conversion rates and recurring revenue next to product and billing data.

Zero and Attio at a glance

Frequently asked questions