Alternatives
Close is built around the phone, and it is priced accordingly. If your team stopped cold calling, most of what you pay for stopped being useful. This page compares the alternatives on current pricing.
The price is set for a calling team. Close sits at the top of the per-seat range in this comparison, and the reason is the built-in phone, the power dialler, and the calling workflow. A team that sells through referrals and inbound is buying a call centre and using it as an address book.
It is deliberately narrow. Close is an inside sales CRM and does not pretend to be anything else. There is no account workspace after the sale, no delivery, no invoicing, and the reporting is built around activity volume rather than the shape of a client book.
Contact-level features are thin for relationship selling. Close models a lead and a series of touches. Firms whose value is in a five-year relationship with four people at one company find the data model does not have much to say about that.
Seat count is unforgiving. The per-seat rate applies to everyone who needs to look, so giving a delivery lead read access to their own client is an expensive decision.
Every row on the same billing basis, at the same seat count, from each vendor own professional-band plan. Switch the basis to see how annual commitment changes the total, or use the CRM cost calculator at your own seat count.
Close benchmark: Essentials, $280 per month for 8 seats (billed annually). Vendor pricing
| Best for | Free | Compared / seat | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Premier Source record: 15 September 2026 | A small team with a simple pipeline | $7 | $12 | $96 | |
Complete Source record: 7 September 2026 | Relationship-led B2B service firms | $24.17 | $24.17 | $193 | |
Growth Source record: 15 September 2026 Priced in EUR, converted | Simple sales and project handoff | $16.30 | $30.43 | $243 | |
Growth Source record: 15 September 2026 | The same pipeline for much less | $14 | $39 | $312 | |
Pro Source record: 15 September 2026 | Phone plus AI scoring | $9 | $39 | $312 | |
Pro Source record: 15 September 2026 | Sequences without the dialler | $13 | $42 | $336 | |
Premium Source record: 5 October 2026 | Contacts, outreach and lightweight deals | $24 | $48 | $384 | |
Pro Source record: 15 September 2026 | Nobody logs anything | $29 | $49 | $392 | |
Professional Source record: 12 October 2026 | Sales linked to project delivery | $29 | $49 | $392 | |
Breakcold Source record: 15 September 2026 | Social-first outbound | $79.20 | $79.20 | $634 | |
Sales Hub Professional Source record: 15 September 2026 Free CRM: up to 2 users and 1,000 contacts | When marketing is the next problem | $7 | $90 | $720 | |
Pro Source record: 14 September 2026 | Calling, cheaper | n/a | n/a |
8 users, USD, list price, cheapest professional-band plan, pricing source dates 20 July 2026 to 12 October 2026. A vendor with no published price for that plan on this basis shows “Not published” rather than a price borrowed from a cheaper plan. Verify on the vendor own pricing page.
What each one is, the kind of team it fits, what it costs to start, and the one thing that will annoy you. Cheapest first.
Recorded from $7 per seat; $96 per month at 8 seats
Zoho's lightweight pipeline CRM, with a free plan for one user and 500 records.
Fits: solo sellers and small teams that want fewer configuration choices than a broad CRM suite.
The drawback: record limits count more than contacts. Check automation, reporting and integrations before growing into a paid plan.
Recorded from $24.17 per seat; $193 per month at 8 seats
Our product. A full-funnel CRM that captures email, meetings, and LinkedIn on its own, ranks who needs attention with a reason attached, and carries a won deal into delivery and invoicing on the same client record.
Fits: agencies, consultancies, and software firms where clients come back and referrals matter more than lead volume.
The drawback: we are young. The app marketplace is small next to the platform vendors, and we do not do resource planning.
Recorded from $16.30 per seat; $243 per month at 8 seats
A CRM with contacts, opportunities and project boards. Its free plan supports two users and 250 contacts.
Fits: small service teams that want a straightforward sales-to-delivery handoff.
The drawback: email sync, automation and advanced reporting require paid tiers. Marketing is an additional product.
Recorded from $14 per seat; $312 per month at 8 seats
A focused deal pipeline with a large app marketplace, and calling available as an add-on rather than as the centre of the product.
Fits: teams that want the Close workflow without paying for the dialler.
The drawback: a won deal leaves the board, so account work needs a second system.
Recorded from $9 per seat; $312 per month at 8 seats
Freshworks CRM with native phone, email, chat, and lead scoring.
Fits: outbound teams that want the calling and also want the pipeline to prioritise itself.
The drawback: the automation and AI worth having are in the upper plans.
Recorded from $13 per seat; $336 per month at 8 seats
A small-team B2B CRM with outbound email sequences and reporting included.
Fits: teams whose outbound moved from the phone to email and want the bill to follow.
The drawback: no serious calling, and nothing after the sale.
Recorded from $24 per seat; $384 per month at 8 seats
A CRM for contact management, outreach and shared pipelines, with a browser extension.
Fits: small teams that start from people and conversations rather than a complex sales process.
The drawback: check reporting, permissions and deal features on the plan you would buy; it does not replace an enterprise suite.
Recorded from $29 per seat; $392 per month at 8 seats
A small-team CRM that builds records from email and calendar traffic on its own.
Fits: founder-led teams that liked how little admin Close demanded and want less still.
The drawback: built for a handful of users. Permissions and reporting are thin above that.
Recorded from $29 per seat; $392 per month at 8 seats
A CRM with relationship links, pipelines and project management.
Fits: service businesses that need to carry sales context into delivery.
The drawback: Marketing and Service are separate products. Compare the CRM plan rather than a bundle headline price.
Recorded from $79.20 per seat; $634 per month at 8 seats
A prospecting CRM built around engaging on LinkedIn and X before the email goes out.
Fits: teams whose outbound moved from calls to social touches.
The drawback: narrow, and much lighter as a system of record than Close.
Recorded from $7 per seat; $720 per month at 8 seats
One contact record across marketing, sales, and service, with calling included at the higher tiers.
Fits: teams leaving Close because the next constraint is demand, not call volume.
The drawback: required Sales Hub Professional onboarding and separate hub charges. There is no Sales Hub seat minimum.
price unverified
A sales CRM with built-in phone, texting, and sequences at a lower seat price than Close.
Fits: teams that genuinely do call all day and are leaving on cost alone.
The drawback: a smaller ecosystem and a less polished calling experience than the category leader.
Close has a well-documented API and CSV export, and it is one of the easier CRMs to leave, which is a point in its favour. The thing that does not travel neatly is call recordings and their transcripts: export them deliberately if there is any chance you will want them, because a link to a recording in a system you no longer pay for is not a record.
Moving to Lumenbase runs through Portage, which scans the source, maps fields and owners, shows you a preview with record counts, then imports in the background with rollback. It comes with the plan rather than as a paid service.
Prices come from each vendor's own pricing page, on whichever basis the table is set to: annual-billed or month-to-month. A basis is never calculated from the other, so a vendor publishing only one shows a dash on the other rather than an estimate. The 8-seat column always uses the cheapest plan in a vendor's professional band, and a vendor with no published price for that plan is left blank instead of being quoted from a cheaper tier. This page lists 12 CRMs, 11 of them priced on the default basis. Pricing source records span20 July 2026 to 12 October 2026. See the CRM feature comparison for the full method, capability data, and treatment of flat and quote-only plans. Plan bands are our categories and do not guarantee equal features. Taxes, onboarding, usage charges and add-ons are excluded.
Close is a trademark of Elastic Inc. (close.com). Lumenbase is independent of the vendors named here.
Bigin by Zoho CRM, Lumenbase, Capsule, Pipedrive, Freshsales, Nutshell, folk, Salesflare, Insightly, Breakcold, HubSpot, Salesmate, and other names are trademarks of their respective owners. Lumenbase is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by them. Pricing source records span 20 July 2026 to 12 October 2026; products, pricing, and features change and vary by plan, so verify on each vendor's pricing page before deciding.
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