Close vs HubSpot CRM
An independent, review-free comparison compiled by the SaaSTracker editorial team. Both products are profiled in full, and neither can pay for placement here.
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The short answer
Both sides assessedClose compared with HubSpot CRM
HubSpot's free CRM covers two users indefinitely and is complete enough to run a small company's sales, which Close cannot match with no free tier. The gap opens later: Sales Hub Starter at $7 a seat has no workflow automation, and the step up to Professional is $90 a seat plus a mandatory $1,500 onboarding fee. Close includes native calling, SMS, and power and predictive dialers that HubSpot sells separately, and Smart Views turn the CRM into a prioritized work queue. Marketing-led teams that will grow into one platform should start on HubSpot; inside sales teams that live on the phone should buy Close and keep the dialer in the same timeline.
HubSpot CRM compared with Close
Close is built for teams that talk on the phone all day: native calling, SMS, power and predictive dialers, and Smart Views that turn the CRM into a prioritized queue, from $9 a seat annually. It is bootstrapped, thirteen years old, and deliberately simple, which also means no custom objects, no landing pages, no nurture campaigns, and no attribution. HubSpot gives you a free tier for two users, one record shared across marketing, sales, and service, and a thousand-app ecosystem, then charges $90 a seat plus $1,500 onboarding when you need real automation. Choose Close for call volume; choose HubSpot when marketing and sales have to be the same system.
Choose Close if
SMB inside sales teams (2 to 50 reps) that live on the phone and follow up across calls, email, and SMS: lending, insurance, home services, logistics, agencies, and any high-velocity B2B or B2C motion where speed-to-lead and volume of conversations decide revenue.
Choose HubSpot CRM if
One and two-person businesses that want a genuinely capable CRM at no cost, and small companies that want a free system of record today with a credible upgrade path to one shared marketing, sales, and service platform later.
Side by side
13 attributes| Attribute | Close | HubSpot CRM |
|---|---|---|
| Category | CRM | CRM |
| Starting price | $9/user/mo (Solo, billed annually; $19 monthly) (14 days trial) | $0 for up to 2 users |
| Pricing model | Per-seat subscription across four tiers with steep annual discounts, plus usage-based billing for calling minutes, phone numbers, SMS, and enrichment, and metered AI credits for Chloe and AI features. | Free forever for up to two users, with no credit card. The paid path is the separately priced Sales Hub subscription, sold per seat, plus Core Seats for staff who only need shared CRM access and free unlimited view-only seats. |
| Free plan | No | Free CRM for up to two users covering contacts, companies, deals, and tickets on one timeline, one deal pipeline, email and calendar sync, meeting links, forms, live chat, a shared conversations inbox, tasks, email tracking, standard dashboards, and the mobile apps, with HubSpot branding on public-facing assets and low caps on custom properties, templates, and documents. No multi-step workflow automation and no sequences at working volume. |
| Free trial | 14 days, no credit card required, with $5 of calling and enrichment credit included; 30-day money-back guarantee after purchase | Not applicable: the free plan is permanent and is itself the evaluation path for the paid tiers above it |
| Best for | SMB inside sales teams (2 to 50 reps) that live on the phone and follow up across calls, email, and SMS: lending, insurance, home services, logistics, agencies, and any high-velocity B2B or B2C motion where speed-to-lead and volume of conversations decide revenue. | One and two-person businesses that want a genuinely capable CRM at no cost, and small companies that want a free system of record today with a credible upgrade path to one shared marketing, sales, and service platform later. |
| Setup time | Days, not weeks: importing leads, connecting email, and provisioning numbers is self-serve, and a small team can be making tracked calls the first afternoon. Porting existing phone numbers and tuning workflows adds a week or two. | The free CRM is usable in under an hour: sign up, connect the mailbox, import a CSV. A Professional implementation with workflows, lifecycle stages, custom reports, and lead routing is a 4 to 8 week project, which is precisely why the mandatory onboarding fee exists. |
| Learning curve | Low for reps; the interface is opinionated and queue-driven. Managers need modest ramp on Smart View logic, workflow design, and AI-credit governance. | Low for reps, who mostly work from the inbox extension and the prospecting workspace. Moderate to high for administrators, because lifecycle stages, workflow enrolment logic, association labels, and permission structures all interact and are easy to get wrong in ways that surface months later. |
| Platforms | Web app, Desktop apps (Mac and Windows), iOS and Android apps, REST API | Web app, iOS, Android, Gmail and Outlook extensions, Chrome extension |
| Compliance | SOC 2 Type 2, GDPR (controller and processor obligations), CCPA | SOC 2 Type 2, GDPR, HIPAA support on eligible higher-tier subscriptions |
| Founded | 2013 | 2006 |
| Headquarters | Fully remote (US-incorporated); no central office | Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States |
| Ownership | Bootstrapped, founder-owned, profitable | Public company (NYSE: HUBS) |
Strengths and limitations
Close
Strengths
- Native calling, SMS, and email in one timeline remains the best-executed communication stack in the SMB CRM category, with power and predictive dialers that genuinely raise rep throughput.
- Smart Views turn the CRM into a prioritized work queue, an operational model built by people who ran sales teams themselves.
- Bootstrapped, profitable, and thirteen years old: no pivot risk, no acquisition-driven roadmap whiplash, and pricing that has to make unit-economic sense.
- Chloe is one of the more concrete AI-agent implementations in the category, doing bounded jobs (qualify, book, summarize, update) inside the existing workflow engine rather than as a demo feature.
Limitations
- The simple schema cuts both ways: no custom objects and limited data-model flexibility make Close a poor fit once a business needs to model more than leads, contacts, and opportunities.
- Real costs stack: seats plus calling minutes plus SMS plus AI credits plus add-ons make the effective per-rep price meaningfully higher than the sticker for heavy users.
- Workflows gated to the $99 Growth tier leaves the two cheaper plans without the automation most buyers now expect at entry level.
- Not a marketing platform: no landing pages, nurture campaigns, or attribution, so marketing-led orgs need a second system.
HubSpot CRM
Strengths
- The strongest free tier in the category by a wide margin, usable indefinitely and complete enough to run a two-person company's sales.
- One shared record across marketing, sales, service, content, and commerce, which delivers closed-loop attribution that stitched-together stacks rarely achieve.
- Enormous ecosystem: over a thousand marketplace apps, a mature API, a certified partner network, and a hiring pool that already knows the product.
- The Professional workflow builder and custom report builder are genuinely excellent, and materially deeper than Pipedrive or Capsule at any tier.
Limitations
- The Starter to Professional gap is a cliff, not a step: $7 to $90 per seat plus a $1,500 onboarding fee, with sequences at volume, workflow automation, custom reporting, and forecasting all on the far side.
- The free plan is capped at two users, so the third hire forces a paid decision earlier than most buyers expect.
- Custom objects are Enterprise-only, so unusual data models are handled with custom properties until you are paying $150 a seat.
- AI credit metering adds a variable line item and makes total cost harder to forecast than flat per-seat competitors.
Pricing compared
Close
Per-seat subscription across four tiers with steep annual discounts, plus usage-based billing for calling minutes, phone numbers, SMS, and enrichment, and metered AI credits for Chloe and AI features.
- Solo$9
- Essentials$35
- Growth$99
- Scale$139
Judged as CRM plus dialer plus SMS platform, Close is priced fairly: replacing a generic CRM, an Aircall-style phone system, and an outreach tool with one $99-per-user Growth seat is competitive even before counting the integration work saved. Judged purely as a CRM against Attio's $35 Plus tier or folk's $24 Standard, it looks expensive, which is the point: you are paying for the conversation infrastructure. The value case therefore rises and falls with call volume; teams that dial all day get their money's worth, teams that do not are overpaying for a phone they rarely pick up.
HubSpot CRM
Free forever for up to two users, with no credit card. The paid path is the separately priced Sales Hub subscription, sold per seat, plus Core Seats for staff who only need shared CRM access and free unlimited view-only seats.
- Free CRM$0
- Sales Hub Starter$7
- Sales Hub Professional and Enterprise$90 and $150
As a free product this is unbeatable and should be judged as one: two users, a real CRM, no expiry, and a public company behind it, for nothing. The value question only becomes hard at the upgrade, and it should be asked there rather than assumed. Starter at $7 a seat is worth it purely to remove branding. Professional at $90 a seat plus $1,500 of onboarding is a different order of decision, and one where Pipedrive Growth at $39 and Zoho CRM Professional at $23 do the pipeline job for a fraction. The honest summary is that the free tier is a gift and the paid ladder is a market-rate platform purchase, and the two deserve to be evaluated separately.
Editorial verdict on each
Close
Close is the best CRM you can buy for a team whose revenue scales with conversations: the dialer stack, unified timeline, and queue-driven workflow remain unmatched in the SMB bracket, and thirteen bootstrapped, profitable years mean it will still be here, unpivoted, in five more. Chloe makes the AI story concrete rather than cosmetic, though credits and telephony usage mean the true per-rep cost sits well above the sticker. If your team does not live on the phone, cheaper and more flexible CRMs like Attio will serve better; if it does, Close is the shortlist and probably the answer.
Read the full Close profileHubSpot CRM
Category LeaderTake it. HubSpot CRM is the best free CRM available and there is no catch worth worrying about at two users: contacts, deals, email sync, meeting links, forms, and live chat, permanently, with a NYSE-listed company behind it. Use it until a limit actually bites, and know in advance which one will, because it is almost always the third user or the first request for automated follow-up. What matters is that the upgrade is then a genuine decision rather than a formality. The paid step is Sales Hub at $90 per seat per month plus $1,500 of required onboarding for the tier that carries the automation, and at that price Pipedrive Growth and Zoho CRM Professional deserve a serious hearing. Start free without hesitation, then price the alternatives properly when the wall arrives.
Read the full HubSpot CRM profileClose profile last reviewed 2026-09-26; HubSpot CRM last reviewed 2026-09-27. Pricing is compiled from public sources and can change without notice. See our methodology.
The best in Sales CRM
23 trackedSales CRMs are the system of record for pipeline: they store every contact, company, and deal, and structure the follow-up work that turns conversations into revenue.
The free CRM that defined the modern entry point, with the deepest ecosystem a small business can grow into.
The most capability per dollar in the category, if you are willing to configure it.
The AI-native CRM betting that agents will do the pipeline work, and shipping toward that bet faster than any incumbent.
A CRM that fills itself in from email, calendar, and phone signals, removing the data entry that kills small-team CRM adoption.
Setup under an hour with support staff importing your spreadsheet free, and non-technical users productive on day one make it the gentlest CRM here.
Frequently asked questions
6 questionsWhat is the difference between Close and HubSpot CRM?
HubSpot's free CRM covers two users indefinitely and is complete enough to run a small company's sales, which Close cannot match with no free tier. The gap opens later: Sales Hub Starter at $7 a seat has no workflow automation, and the step up to Professional is $90 a seat plus a mandatory $1,500 onboarding fee. Close includes native calling, SMS, and power and predictive dialers that HubSpot sells separately, and Smart Views turn the CRM into a prioritized work queue. Marketing-led teams that will grow into one platform should start on HubSpot; inside sales teams that live on the phone should buy Close and keep the dialer in the same timeline.
Is Close or HubSpot CRM cheaper?
Close starts at $9/user/mo (Solo, billed annually; $19 monthly) (14 days trial). HubSpot CRM starts at $0 for up to 2 users. The billing models differ, so the entry price is rarely the whole cost. Close pricing model: Per-seat subscription across four tiers with steep annual discounts, plus usage-based billing for calling minutes, phone numbers, SMS, and enrichment, and metered AI credits for Chloe and AI features. HubSpot CRM pricing model: Free forever for up to two users, with no credit card. The paid path is the separately priced Sales Hub subscription, sold per seat, plus Core Seats for staff who only need shared CRM access and free unlimited view-only seats.
Does Close or HubSpot CRM have a free plan?
Close has no free plan. Trial terms: 14 days, no credit card required, with $5 of calling and enrichment credit included; 30-day money-back guarantee after purchase. HubSpot CRM has a free plan. Free CRM for up to two users covering contacts, companies, deals, and tickets on one timeline, one deal pipeline, email and calendar sync, meeting links, forms, live chat, a shared conversations inbox, tasks, email tracking, standard dashboards, and the mobile apps, with HubSpot branding on public-facing assets and low caps on custom properties, templates, and documents. Trial terms: Not applicable: the free plan is permanent and is itself the evaluation path for the paid tiers above it.
Who should choose Close?
SMB inside sales teams (2 to 50 reps) that live on the phone and follow up across calls, email, and SMS: lending, insurance, home services, logistics, agencies, and any high-velocity B2B or B2C motion where speed-to-lead and volume of conversations decide revenue.
Who should choose HubSpot CRM?
One and two-person businesses that want a genuinely capable CRM at no cost, and small companies that want a free system of record today with a credible upgrade path to one shared marketing, sales, and service platform later.
What are the best alternatives to Close and HubSpot CRM?
SaaSTracker profiles 23 products in Sales CRM. The Summer 2026 awards in the category went to Zoho CRM (Best Value), Attio (Momentum), Salesflare (Innovation). Every profile is compiled from primary sources, so a shortlist can be built from pricing, limitations, and fit rather than from star ratings.
