ApexMake vs AlphaSights
AlphaSights built the fastest human sourcing operation in the industry. ApexMake asks whether sourcing needs to happen at query time at all.
- Sourcing: recruited fresh per brief, against interviewed before you ask
- Speed: a shortlist in hours and a call in days, against roughly 6 seconds
- Output: a scheduled conversation, against something you can cite
The short answer
- AlphaSights started in 2008 and runs a service-led expert network with more than 2,000 staff across nine offices and over three million client-expert interactions to date. Its differentiator is custom-sourcing: experts get recruited fresh against each brief rather than pulled from a static database.
- ApexMake takes sourcing off the critical path. Experts are recruited, screened and deeply interviewed by an AI agent before any client asks anything, so a query returns a cited answer in roughly six seconds.
- AlphaSights invests heavily in matching technology. The AlphaGraph applies machine learning to more than 25 million expert-to-company relationships. But it speeds up finding a person, not answering a question.
- Pricing works differently on each side. AlphaSights charges per interaction, with annual commitments commonly reported between $20K and $150K and third-party rate benchmarks around $1,350 an hour. ApexMake charges one subscription covering corpus answers and expert calls, and a call books in a couple of clicks because the vetting already happened.
- AlphaSights is the better call when you need a bespoke expert found from scratch, in any sector or language. ApexMake is the better call when the question is technical, recurring, and due before a shortlist would land.
Which should you use?
Both companies started from the same complaint, that traditional expert networks are too slow, and arrived at opposite answers. AlphaSights made the human sourcing operation faster: more staff, better matching technology, round-the-clock coverage, shortlists in hours. ApexMake took sourcing out of query time altogether by doing the interview in advance. If your questions are unpredictable and span every sector, AlphaSights has built the better machine for that. If your questions cluster in technical domains and you ask them constantly, waiting for any shortlist, however fast, is the bottleneck ApexMake exists to delete.
What sets ApexMake apart
| Dimension | ||
|---|---|---|
| Core model | Experts interviewed once by an AI agent, then queried on demand by every client | Experts custom-sourced and qualified fresh for each individual brief |
| Time to first answer | About 6 seconds (median) | Shortlist in hours, completed call typically same-day to a few days |
| What the technology speeds up | Answering the question | Finding and matching the right person |
| Unit of delivery | A structured, cited answer with follow-ups | A scheduled call or survey, plus your analyst's notes |
| Live expert calls | Included. Pre-vetted experts, previous answers visible, booked in a couple of clicks. | The product itself. Each call is custom-sourced and scheduled against your brief. |
| Coverage | Deep and narrow by design: AI infrastructure, inference, training, and 1,000+ software and infra products | Effectively unbounded. Any sector, geography or language, sourced on request. |
| Reusability | Every interview compounds. The next client's query benefits from it. | Each brief starts a new sourcing cycle |
| Attribution | Every claim links back to the named expert behind it | Notes and recordings where permitted. Attribution is manual. |
| Pricing shape | Subscription, with marginal cost per question near zero | Annual commitment plus per-interaction charges |
| Compliance record | MNPI screening plus a timestamped audit trail on every interaction | Rigorous legal framework, risk-management technology, compliance team oversight |
What AlphaSights is
- 2008, London
- Service-led expert network. Experts are custom-sourced and qualified individually against each client brief.
- More than 2,000 staff across 9 offices, over 3M client-expert interactions, and support for 60+ languages.
- Per interaction, with annual commitments commonly reported at $20K to $150K. Third-party rate benchmarks sit around $1,350 an hour.
- AlphaGraph, machine learning applied to more than 25M expert-to-company relationships, plus a client platform for scheduling, surveys and messaging.
Custom-sourcing is the strongest version of the old model
AlphaSights made an architectural choice early on that still separates it from most of the industry. Rather than maintaining a large static database and searching it, it recruits experts fresh for each brief and qualifies them individually. The argument is that a database goes stale, whereas somebody recruited today for your specific question is current by construction.
It works. AlphaSights has grown past 2,000 staff across nine offices, supports 60+ languages, and has run more than three million client-expert interactions since 2008. Round-the-clock service coverage means a brief submitted at 11pm is being worked before you wake up. Among the traditional networks it is generally reckoned the fastest and the most service-led.
Custom-sourcing carries one unavoidable property, though. The work happens after you ask. Every brief restarts a recruitment cycle. That cost is paid in delay, and paid again by the next client with a similar question, because nothing about the first cycle shortened the second.
Two different things to point machine learning at
The AlphaGraph is serious engineering: machine learning over more than 25 million expert-to-company relationships, used to surface matched experts instantly. As answers to “who should we call?” go, it is one of the better ones in the industry.
ApexMake points machine learning one step further down the workflow. The router that matches your question to experts is only half of it. The other half is that those experts have already been interviewed in depth, so what comes back is a sourced answer rather than a name and a calendar link.
That is the crux. AlphaSights made finding the expert nearly instant. ApexMake made hearing from the expert nearly instant. Which matters more comes down to whether you can afford to wait for the conversation.
Knowledge that compounds versus effort that resets
Under custom-sourcing, the value an interaction creates accrues almost entirely to the client who paid for it. The expert was recruited for your brief, spoke to your analyst, and depending on the terms the transcript may never surface again.
In ApexMake's model the interview is the durable asset. An expert is interviewed once, deeply and in a structured way, and that knowledge answers questions from then on, for anyone with the right question, with attribution back to them. The network sharpens with use instead of getting more expensive.
It changes the economics for the expert too. Rather than being paid for the hours they happened to be free, they earn when knowledge they already contributed proves useful. For the client, the tenth question of the week costs no more effort to answer than the first.
The output problem
An expert call produces a memory and, if the analyst is disciplined, a page of notes. Six weeks later, when the IC asks where a specific number came from, reconstructing it becomes archaeology.
What ApexMake delivers is a structured answer where every claim carries a citation to the named expert and source behind it, along with an explicit view of where multiple experts agree and where they diverge. You can put that in front of an IC and defend it line by line.
None of which is a knock on AlphaSights' service quality, which is high. It is a difference in what you are buying: access to a conversation, or an artefact you can cite.
Cost per answer, not cost per hour
AlphaSights prices per interaction, with annual commitments commonly reported between $20K and $150K and third-party rate benchmarks around $1,350 an hour. For what it is, a bespoke human conversation with a well-matched expert arranged fast, that is competitive.
The number that matters to a deal team, though, is cost per answered question. If a diligence workstream throws off forty questions and the budget covers four calls, thirty-six questions get answered by inference or not at all. A subscription with near-zero marginal cost per query changes that arithmetic.
Plenty of teams end up running both. ApexMake for the volume, the speed and the calls inside its sectors, where the expert is already vetted and their previous answers sit in front of you before you book. AlphaSights for the conversations that need a fresh recruitment cycle outside that coverage.
Choosing between them
AlphaSights fits better when
- You need an expert in a sector, geography or language no pre-built network would have anticipated. Custom-sourcing is exactly right for the long tail.
- The engagement is a survey, a multi-expert project or a series of conversations rather than a question that needs an answer.
- You want a dedicated service team managing scheduling, compliance briefing and follow-ups on your behalf.
- The conversation itself is the deliverable, because you want your analyst building a relationship with a named operator rather than reading a synthesis.
ApexMake fits better when
- The question is technical and sits in AI infrastructure, inference, training or the software and infra stack around them.
- You need the answer during the meeting, not once the shortlist arrives.
- Your team's question volume runs well past what per-interaction pricing can absorb.
- You want something citable in an IC memo, with every claim traceable to a named expert.
- Compliance requires a complete, machine-readable record of every interaction, not only the ones that became calls.
- You want calls as well as answers, booked in a couple of clicks with experts who were vetted before you ever asked.
ApexMake vs AlphaSights, explained
How is ApexMake faster than AlphaSights if AlphaSights delivers shortlists in hours?
AlphaSights' clock starts when you submit a brief, because the sourcing, screening and scheduling all happen after you ask. ApexMake's expert interviews happen before you ask, conducted up front by an AI agent, so a query is a retrieval rather than a recruitment cycle. Median time to answer is around six seconds.
Does ApexMake custom-source experts for a specific brief?
ApexMake recruits continuously against the sectors it covers rather than per brief, which is what makes instant answers possible. Where a question needs somebody outside the existing network, ApexMake will source and interview for it, but that is the exception rather than the default path.
Is AlphaSights better for non-English or emerging-market research?
For breadth of language and geography, yes. AlphaSights supports 60+ languages across nine offices and recruits fresh in any market. ApexMake concentrates its depth in AI infrastructure and software rather than in geographic coverage.
What does ApexMake give me that a call recording does not?
A structured answer where each claim cites the named expert behind it, an explicit view of where multiple experts agree and diverge, and the ability to ask follow-ups immediately. A recording gives you one expert's view and an hour of audio to listen to again.
Can I use both AlphaSights and ApexMake?
Most firms that adopt ApexMake keep a traditional network relationship. ApexMake absorbs the high-volume, deadline-driven technical questions while AlphaSights handles the bespoke, long-tail conversations that warrant a fresh recruitment cycle.
Sources
Figures describing AlphaSights are drawn from the company’s own published materials and third-party reporting, and were accurate as of the date of publication. Product and pricing details change; verify with the provider before making a purchasing decision.