--- title: Close review description: CRM with built-in calling for inside sales canonical: "https://10xgtm.ai/tool/close-crm" type: review category: "CRM, lifecycle & customer marketing" last-verified: 2026-09-02 pricing-verified: 2026-09-02 availability: active sources: 36 --- # Close review The CRM with the best built-in calling in the category, if your team lives on the phone and you price the add-ons before signing. ## The take - **Great for:** Inside-sales and SDR teams doing **high-volume outbound calling** who want the dialer, SMS, and email in one screen instead of stitched together. - **The catch:** **The advertised price excludes calling.** Minutes, SMS, and the call-recording add-on bill separately, so a calling-heavy team pays roughly double the plan price. - **Bottom line:** Reach for it when **calling is the job**. If you need marketing automation or a mobile-first field app, look elsewhere. ## Specs - **Starting price:** $9/user/mo (Solo, annual); $19 monthly - **Free tier:** 14-day trial only, no standing free plan - **Pricing model:** Per seat, tiered, plus usage-based calling/SMS - **Best for:** Inside-sales teams that live on the dialer - **Key integrations:** Zapier, Slack, Zoom, Calendly, Intercom, REST API - **Watch out for:** Calling add-ons can double the real bill ## What you're actually getting Close is a CRM built around the dial. Calling, SMS, and email sit inside the lead record, so a rep works a list without switching tools. The **Power Dialer** (Growth and up) queues the next call the moment one ends, and the **Predictive Dialer** (Scale) rings several numbers at once and connects the rep only when someone answers. Call coaching with Listen, Whisper, and Barge is built in too. Since June 2026, Close ships **Chloe**, an AI sales agent that calls down a list, qualifies, and books meetings. It is US and Canada, English only, so check coverage before you lean on it. ## Where it earns its keep It earns its keep on **speed to lead and call volume**. A rep clicks a number, the call connects in the browser, and it logs itself. No separate softphone to set up. The **unified inbox** pulls calls, emails, and texts into one timeline per lead, which is the thing inside-sales teams actually want. G2 sits at **4.7 across 2,000-plus reviews** with a 9.3 ease-of-use score, and r/sales keeps recommending it for one reason: the dialer is native to the CRM. ## Where it'll bite you **The price on the page is not the price you pay.** Calling runs about $0.02 a minute, SMS and phone numbers bill separately, and call recording plus AI transcription is a $50/month add-on per organization plus $0.02 a minute. A team doing 50-plus calls a rep per day can land near double the plan cost. The second trap is the **Essentials to Growth cliff**. Workflows and the Power Dialer live on Growth at $99, so a five-person team jumps from $175 to $495 a month just to reach the features they came for. **Reporting is the weak spot** once you pass 15 reps, the data model centers on leads, not accounts, and the Android app sits around 2.3 stars. Field sales and complex account-based motions fit poorly. ## What it costs, really Annual billing runs **$9 Solo, $35 Essentials, $99 Growth, $139 Scale**, per user per month. Monthly billing is higher at $19, $49, $109, $149. The real bill rides on **calling volume and the add-ons**. Price your own pilot during the 14-day trial, which ships with $5 of calling credit, before trusting the sticker. ## Reach for it / skip it - **Reach for it if:** Inside-sales and SDR teams of 2 to 30 reps whose day is defined by dials made and connects logged. - **Skip it if:** You need marketing automation, a mobile-first field app, or account-based sales. HubSpot, Attio, or Pipedrive serve those motions better. ## What real users said - "I really appreciate that Close keeps all my information in one place and has an easy-to-use dashboard. The workflows are a real time-saver, helping keep things moving forward even when I'm not in front of my computer. I find the sales pipeline great for tracking opportunities and contacts. The automatic import feature helps save everyone I've met. It's also very intuitive, which made the initial setup smooth." -- Christopher H., G2 - "The initial setup was super easy, and the email integration was fast and seamless. Kudos to the support team as well: extremely quick to respond to my initial questions and very clear in guiding me toward a solution. The only real flaw that remains is the inability to schedule an in-person meeting on the calendar (only phone calls or video conferences are available). I find this missing feature a bit out of touch: 100% online businesses aren't the only ones out there, there are tons of companies working in the field, and being able to log sales visits in the CRM is essential." -- Stefano M., G2 - "I like how Close allows me to handle tasks, emails, SMS, and communicate with customers all from one page. The feature of the inbox enabling me to check tasks and messages seamlessly through different channels is especially useful. Sometimes I'm not able to see the full company information from the clients I want to contact. For some clients, it's not showing up, like the number or the email, so I need to scroll a bit more to find the email of the client, which wastes time." -- Mateo A., G2 - "The reporting functionality leaves a lot to be desired. It's easy to pull slices of data through the search tool, but hard to compare those against each other or look at change over time. Many of the reports they do have around things like Opportunity pipelines aren't customizable enough to be useful (for example, you can only look at time for opportunities to move to the exact next stage in the pipeline, so any that skip a step or move backwards don't report properly and can't be filtered for), and there's no good workaround we've been able to find." -- Jackson E, Capterra --- Full review: https://10xgtm.ai/tool/close-crm - 36 cited sources.