Close is a sales CRM solution with modern and simple features. It prioritizes helping marketing and sales teams increase selling efficiency and slimming business tech stacks by offering a multitude of built-in tools. Examples include omnichannel communication, calendar syncs, video meeting, and reporting.

Close markets itself as a solution best for startup or small business teams that are looking to enhance their remote CRM strategy. While its premium tiers can be considered costly, it does offer onboarding assistance and guided platform setup. If your business can allocate a budget for Close, it can facilitate sales productivity improvements in agile-style teams.

Close CRM pricing

• Free trial: 14 days.
• Startup: $49 per user per month when billed annually. $59 per user per month when billed annually. This plan offers built-in calling, texting, and email solutions plus pipeline reporting and account management.
• Professional: $99 per user per month when billed annually. $109 per user per month when billed annually. This plan includes all Startup features, plus custom activities, follow-up automations, and multiple pipeline views.
• Enterprise: $139 per user per month when billed annually. $149 per user per month when billed monthly. This tier includes all Professional features, plus predictive dialer, call coaching, and enhanced customizable reports.

Close CRM key features

Workflow automations

Close allows users to implement automations throughout their sales CRM cycle. Businesses can start with multi-channel outreach by automating emails, calls, and SMS communication. From there, reps can identify and optimize outreach strategies with a KPI-based report dashboard. The automations that are performing best can be cloned into templates for easy access.

AI call assistant

Close’s suite of AI tools includes a built-in call assistant. This feature automatically transcribes and summarizes all phone calls. Reps can focus on the conversation and rely on Close to produce an accurate and searchable summary with generated action items. This tool also has multi-language support for over 20 languages and can work through the desktop or with the Close mobile app.

Video meetings

Close’s video tool functions through an integration with Zoom. Businesses can connect their Zoom account, and previous cloud recordings will come to Close automatically. Close will notify sales reps 5 minutes before their next Zoom call, join the Zoom call right from the Lead view in Close, and then save the call recording. This is best for remote sales teams that have to video sell.

Search and Smart Views

The pairing of search with the Smart Views feature can help reps prioritize leads and begin lead nurturing from the same screen. The built-in search function helps reps find contact information by searching important phrases, contract mentions, past conversations, and more. This will create a Smart View of the top lead data, like recent email opens, renewal updates, or other firmographics. Then, outreach workflows can be automated around those saved views.

Close CRM pros

• Offers easy-to-adapt templates.
• Real users report effective reminders and notifications.
• SOC2 Type 2, GDPR, and CCPA compliant.

Close CRM cons

• Real users report a learning curve with the interface.
• Expensive compared to other similar solutions.
• Users report minor bugs with the platform.

Alternatives to Close CRM

Pipedrive

Pipedrive is an intuitive CRM provider with a highlighted focus on clean and simple pipelines for sales reps to follow. Compared to Close, Pipedrive’s reporting dashboards offer more collaboration and custom field reports. And while both Pipedrive and Close offer email syncs and outreach automations, Pipedrive’s marketing tools are more advanced with email analytics and segmentation.

For more information, head over to this Pipedrive review.

HubSpot

HubSpot offers a suite of business tools, including a popular CRM software option. It has the ability to integrate with over 1,500 tools for the ultimate customization. HubSpot’s software itself isn’t open source, but its integrations are developer-friendly. Although it doesn’t have the option for a free trial like Close, HubSpot does offer a forever free tier as well as an enterprise plan, which makes it a more scalable platform.

To learn more about this alternative, check out the full HubSpot review.

monday CRM

monday CRM is another flexible and customizable CRM software with advanced project management functionality. It does offer a free version, but only to nonprofits or students, once approved. Compared to monday CRM, Close does offer more built-in communication features like the calling and SMS tools.

Read the monday CRM review for more details.

Review methodology

To review Close, I used our in-house rubric that has defined criteria around the most important evaluation points when considering the best CRM providers. I compared Close’s top features, pricing, and benefits against industry standards. All of this helps me identify standout features and ideal use cases.

Here’s the exact criteria I used to score Close’s CRM software:

• Cost: Weighted 25% of the total score.
• Core features: Weighted 25% of the total score.
• Customizations: Weighted 15% of the total score.
• Integrations: Weighted 15% of the total score.
• Ease of use: Weighted 10% of the total score.
• Customer support: Weighted 10% of the total score.

For a further breakdown of these criteria, read the TechRepublic review methodology page.