M&A software tools are sold to firms of every size with the same pitch, and the size is what decides whether the pitch is true. A twenty-partner firm with a dedicated operations person can run a stack. A six-person boutique cannot, and buying like one produces a set of half-configured systems that everybody works around. This page sets out the three things a small desk genuinely needs, the two it gets sold anyway, and the order to buy in.
Need one: a record of the mandate and its buyers
This is the gap a spreadsheet fills adequately right up until the week its author is away. Which processes are live, at what stage, with which buyers approached and where each one got to. It is the first thing to buy because it is the thing whose absence costs you a deal rather than an afternoon.
Need two: somewhere to run the diligence list
Hundreds of items with owners, dates and states. This can live in the data room or in a shared sheet and both are fine; what is not fine is nobody owning the chase, because the cost is real and measurable at $228 per request left open for six weeks.
Need three: a way to price the mandate honestly
The fee, the retainer and what is credited at close, computed rather than remembered. This is a worksheet rather than a system, and it is free on this site, because the value is in doing the arithmetic before the engagement letter is signed rather than in owning software that does it.
The two you get sold: integration planning and market intelligence
Integration planning belongs to the acquirer's operations team, not to the adviser, and advisers who buy it do not use it. Market intelligence subscriptions are genuinely useful at scale and genuinely expensive below it, and a small desk that needs one target list a quarter is better served buying the list than the subscription.
Questions people ask about m&a software tools
What should a six-person boutique buy first?
The mandate and buyer record. It is the only one whose absence costs a deal rather than an afternoon.
Is a market intelligence subscription worth it?
At scale, often. For a desk that needs one target list a quarter, buying the list beats buying the subscription.
How much should this cost?
The worksheets here are free and the record is $69 a month for the whole desk. Anything priced per seat gets expensive at exactly the point it becomes useful.