HubSpot vs Close

HubSpot is one of the easiest ways for a small business to get a real CRM, email marketing and pipeline in one place, and the free plan is genuinely usable. Starter is cheap, especially on the current new-customer deal. The catch is the jump to Professional, which starts at $890/month for Marketing Hub, so plan for that before you build your whole business on it.

• ✓Free CRM with no expiry, covering contacts, deals, email tracking, forms, live chat and quotes
• ✓Starter is $20 per seat per month, with a limited new-customer offer of $7 annual or $10 monthly
• ✓Over 2,000 integrations in the HubSpot Marketplace

• –Free plan is limited to two users and 1,000 contacts, with HubSpot branding
• –Marketing Hub Professional starts at $890/month and Enterprise at $3,600/month

Close is a CRM built for teams that sell by phone and email. Calling, SMS, email and a central inbox are built in from the Essentials plan, and every plan includes Chloe, an AI sales agent. Automated workflows and the power dialer need Growth, which is where most teams land, and calling minutes are billed on top.

• ✓Calling, SMS and email built in from Essentials
• ✓Chloe AI sales agent included on every plan
• ✓Unlimited contacts and leads on Essentials and above

• –Automated workflows start at Growth, around $99-$109/user/month
• –Calls and SMS are billed on top, about $0.02/minute outbound