Data sourced from Joe, the private fund performance platform powered by Dakota. Learn More | Request Access
BlackRock closed its $3.2 billion acquisition of Preqin in March 2025, and by July 2026 had folded Preqin's benchmarks and indices directly into Aladdin, eFront, and Aladdin Wealth. For a team using Preqin as a standalone fund performance tool, that consolidation raises a real question: is Preqin still the product you signed up for, or is it now one module inside a much larger BlackRock platform.
Pricing has always added to that uncertainty. Preqin doesn't publish list pricing, and contracts are negotiated individually based on asset class coverage, seat count, and module access. Enterprise deployments typically run $25,000 to over $250,000 a year, with a median customer paying roughly $58,000, and opening quotes often land 20-40% above what's actually achievable in negotiation.
In this article, we're looking at why teams search for a Preqin alternative right now, and how Joe, Powered by Dakota compares directly.
Preqin is one of the broadest private markets intelligence platforms available, covering private equity, venture capital, private credit, real estate, infrastructure, and hedge funds in a single research tool, with fundraising and institutional investor data alongside fund performance. For a team that needs broad market intelligence across every strategy in one login, that breadth is real, and it's the reason Preqin built the customer base BlackRock just paid $3.2 billion for.
Quote-only pricing means you don't know what you're paying until you've been through a sales process, and negotiated contracts make it hard to compare costs against other tools up front.
Preqin's benchmarks are pooled and anonymized: an aggregate median IRR for a vintage-year cohort, not a named, fund-level record. That answers a directional question well but can't tell you how one specific fund actually performed.
Since the BlackRock acquisition, Preqin's product direction runs through Aladdin and eFront integration rather than as an independently developed, standalone tool, which matters if your team isn't already inside BlackRock's ecosystem.
Reviewers have also flagged data completeness issues: missing fields left blank instead of explained, and contact information that doesn't always hold up for outreach.
See a different approach to fund data: request access to Joe, Powered by Dakota.
Joe tracks Net IRR, TVPI, DPI, and RVPI on 18,000+ funds across seven asset classes, reported at the level of the specific, named fund rather than folded into an anonymized cohort. Every fund record connects to GP and sponsor intelligence on 20,000+ investment firms, so a benchmark comes with the firm context a pooled database strips out.
Custom benchmarking lets you build a peer group by vintage, strategy, geography, and size on your own terms, instead of accepting a vendor's predefined category. Joe also tracks funds currently raising capital, so you're not limited to looking backward at historical performance.
It's built on the same data infrastructure that already powers Dakota Marketplace, priced at $9,500 a year for up to five users, published openly with no sales process required just to see what it costs.
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Joe, Powered by Dakota |
Preqin |
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Pricing |
$9,500/year for up to 5 users, published |
Individually negotiated, typically $25,000-$250,000+/year |
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Sales Process |
No quote required |
Quote-only, negotiated by seat and module |
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Data Approach |
Named, fund-level performance |
Pooled, anonymized cohort benchmarks |
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Ownership |
Built on Dakota’s data infrastructure |
Owned by BlackRock since March 2025, integrated into Aladdin/eFront |
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Coverage |
18,000+ funds, seven asset classes |
Private equity, venture capital, private credit, real estate, infrastructure, hedge funds |
If what you actually need is a specific fund's named track record rather than a pooled cohort position, and a price you can see before you talk to anyone, Joe was built for that exact gap.
Request access and compare it against your current Preqin contract.