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Copper CRM’s pricing page advertises three tiers — Basic, Professional and Business — and the headline per-seat numbers look simple. They aren’t the whole story once you account for the contact limits each tier actually enforces, the annual-billing commitment required to unlock the lowest advertised rate, and where workflow automation gets gated behind a higher plan. This guide breaks down Copper’s real, current pricing (verified against Copper’s own live pricing page as of August 2026), works through what it actually costs a 5- and 10-person team, and sets that against Close CRM’s pricing so you’re comparing total cost of ownership, not just a list price.
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The short answer
Copper is a CRM built to live inside Gmail and Google Workspace, and its per-seat pricing (Basic $23–$29, Professional $59–$69, Business $99–$134, all per user/month) is competitive for a team that genuinely wants a lightweight, inbox-native pipeline tool. Copper’s real cost trap is its contact limits: Basic caps out at 2,500 contacts, and the jump to Professional’s 15,000-contact ceiling is also a jump from roughly $23 to $59 per seat on an annual plan — a 2.5x price increase, not a small step. Close takes a different shape: Essentials and above have no contact cap at all, and calling, SMS and email are native, first-class channels rather than an integration you bolt on — though calling itself is billed separately, usage-based, on top of the seat price (more on that below). Neither tool is a straightforward “cheaper” answer — it depends on whether your growth pressure is contact volume or team size, and whether living inside Gmail is a requirement or a nice-to-have.
Copper CRM pricing 2026
As of August 2026, Copper’s own pricing page (copper.com/pricing) lists three tiers, priced per seat per month, with an annual-billing discount of up to roughly 26% off the monthly rate:
| Plan | Monthly billing | Annual billing | Contact limit | Company limit | What’s included |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | $29/seat/mo | $23/seat/mo | 2,500 | 25 | Task automation, pipelines, project management, contact enrichment |
| Professional | $69/seat/mo | $59/seat/mo | 15,000 | 50 | Everything in Basic, plus workflow automation, bulk email, reporting, integrations |
| Business | $134/seat/mo | $99/seat/mo | Unlimited | Unlimited | Everything in Professional, plus email series, custom reports, multi-currency, premium support |
Copper’s pricing page states Professional is its most-adopted tier (“63% started off with Professional”), which tracks: Basic’s 2,500-contact ceiling is tight for any team actively prospecting, and workflow automation — arguably the reason to buy a CRM instead of running pipelines out of a spreadsheet — is a Professional-and-up feature, not a Basic one.
Copper CRM cost per user
Per-seat pricing multiplies fast, so here’s what Copper actually costs a small team, using annual billing (the rate Copper’s marketing leads with) versus paying month-to-month:
| Team size | Basic (annual) | Professional (annual) | Professional (monthly) | Business (annual) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 users | $115/mo | $295/mo | $345/mo | $495/mo |
| 10 users | $230/mo | $590/mo | $690/mo | $990/mo |
| 20 users | $460/mo | $1,180/mo | $1,380/mo | $1,980/mo |
The gap between “the price Copper advertises” and “the price most teams actually pay” is almost entirely the Basic-to-Professional jump. A 10-person team on Basic is $230/month — but if that team is doing any real outbound work, it will hit the 2,500-contact ceiling well before it outgrows five seats, forcing the move to Professional at $590/month annual (or $690/month on a monthly plan). That’s the number to budget against, not the $23 headline.
Copper CRM hidden fees
None of these are disclosed as a line-item “fee” on Copper’s pricing page — they’re structural costs built into how the tiers are drawn, which is arguably more important to catch before you buy:
- Contact-limit forced upgrades. Copper’s own pricing page doesn’t publish what happens when you exceed a tier’s contact cap (no per-contact overage rate is listed), which in practice means the real mechanism is an upgrade prompt to the next tier rather than a small metered charge — and the next tier up is roughly 2.5x the price, not a proportional step.
- Annual billing is required to see the advertised rate. Every headline number on Copper’s site ($23, $59, $99) is the annual-commitment price. Paying monthly costs 20–26% more per seat across every tier — reasonable by SaaS norms, but worth knowing you’re pricing in a 12-month commitment when you read “$23/seat.”
- Workflow automation is gated to Professional and above. If your actual reason for buying a CRM is automated follow-ups, sequences or triggers, Basic doesn’t do that regardless of contact volume — you’re a Professional customer from day one, whether or not 2,500 contacts would otherwise be enough.
- No native calling. Copper doesn’t sell a built-in dialer at any tier. If your team needs to place calls from inside the CRM, that’s a separate purchase — a calling/VoIP integration from Copper’s app marketplace — on top of whichever Copper tier you’re already paying for.
Copper CRM annual vs monthly pricing
Copper’s pricing page shows both numbers side by side, and the spread is consistent: Basic is $29 monthly vs $23 annual (a 21% saving), Professional is $69 vs $59 (14%), and Business is $134 vs $99 (26%). The trade is the usual SaaS one — pay up front for a year and get the lower rate, or keep monthly flexibility and pay roughly 15–25% more per seat for it. For a team still validating that Copper is the right fit, month-to-month is the safer first commitment; for a team that already knows it’s staying, annual billing is a straightforward discount with no other strings attached that Copper discloses.
Close CRM pricing, for comparison
Close’s own pricing page (close.com/pricing, checked August 2026) runs four tiers, also priced per seat with an annual discount:
| Plan | Monthly billing | Annual billing | Contact/lead limit | Notable |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Solo | $19/user/mo | $9/user/mo | 10,000 leads | 1 user max; calling, email, SMS, basic CRM |
| Essentials | $49/user/mo | $35/user/mo | Unlimited | Team collaboration, forms, centralized inbox; no automated workflows |
| Growth | $109/user/mo | $99/user/mo | Unlimited | Automated workflows, power dialer, bulk email — Close’s “most popular” tier |
| Scale | $149/user/mo | $139/user/mo | Unlimited | Role-based permissions, predictive dialer, unlimited call-recording retention |
Every Close tier from Essentials up carries no contact ceiling at all — the trade-off Copper makes by tier (more contacts costs more per seat) doesn’t exist on Close past its single-user Solo plan. The honest asterisk: calling and SMS on Close are billed separately, usage-based and passed through at cost — Close’s pricing page states outbound calls run around $0.02/minute and phone numbers start around $1/month, on top of the seat price. That’s genuinely cheap in absolute terms, but it is a real, metered line item, not a bundled unlimited allowance — don’t read “calling included” as “calls are free.”
Copper CRM vs Close CRM: total cost of ownership
Put side by side for a 5-person team on the tier each vendor positions as its default (Copper Professional, Close Growth), on annual billing:
| Copper Professional | Close Growth | |
|---|---|---|
| Per-seat (annual) | $59/mo | $99/mo |
| 5-seat monthly cost | $295 | $495 |
| Contact limit | 15,000 | Unlimited |
| Native calling | No — requires a separate integration | Yes — power dialer built in, billed per-minute usage on top |
| Native Gmail/Workspace integration | Deep, purpose-built | Standard email sync, not inbox-native by design |
| Workflow automation | Included at this tier | Included at this tier |
At matched “default” tiers, Copper Professional is the cheaper seat — but it’s cheaper partly because it doesn’t include a dialer at all and caps you at 15,000 contacts, where Close’s equivalent tier has neither limit. If your team already lives entirely in Gmail and never calls prospects from the CRM, Copper Professional’s lower per-seat price reflects a smaller, more focused feature set that may be exactly enough. If your team calls constantly and is going to exceed 15,000 contacts, the fair comparison isn’t Copper Professional’s $59 against Close’s $99 — it’s Copper Business’s $99 (to remove the contact cap) plus a third-party calling integration, against Close’s $99 with calling already built in and billed separately at cost.
Compare Close plans in detail →
Is Copper CRM worth it?
Yes, for a specific and real kind of buyer: agencies, consultants and small teams that run their entire client relationship out of Gmail and want their CRM to disappear into that inbox rather than becoming a separate destination. Copper’s Google Workspace integration is genuinely deep — it surfaces contact and deal context directly inside Gmail, syncs Google Calendar and Drive natively, and is built by a company whose whole product thesis is “the CRM you never have to leave your inbox for.” If that’s the actual requirement, Copper is a legitimate, well-built answer, and Close is the wrong tool to force into that workflow — Close is built as its own sales-focused workspace with calling and pipeline management at the center, not as a Gmail overlay, and a team that wants the CRM to vanish into their existing inbox habits shouldn’t buy Close expecting that.
Copper is a weaker fit once contact volume or native calling becomes the priority: the 2,500-contact Basic ceiling is genuinely tight, the jump to Professional is a real 2.5x price step, and there’s no built-in phone system at any tier.
Who Close isn’t right for
Being fair in the other direction: if your team’s entire workflow already happens in Gmail and Google Calendar, and you have no interest in a dedicated sales workspace with calling and SMS as first-class channels, Close’s strengths won’t matter to you and you’ll be paying $35–$99 per seat for automation and calling infrastructure you won’t use, when Copper’s Gmail-native $23–$59 seats already do the job you actually need. Close is also the pricier option for a team whose problem is genuinely just contact volume with no automation or calling need — Copper Basic’s flat $23/seat, while capped at 2,500 contacts, undercuts Close’s cheapest unlimited-contact tier (Essentials at $35/seat) if you’re nowhere near that cap and don’t need workflows.
FAQ
Does Copper CRM have a free plan?
No — Copper offers a free trial (no credit card required) but every paid tier (Basic, Professional, Business) starts at $23–$29 per seat per month; there’s no permanently free tier.
Does Close CRM charge extra for calling?
Yes. Calling and SMS on Close are usage-based and billed separately from the seat price — Close’s pricing page cites roughly $0.02/minute for outbound calls and phone numbers from about $1/month. It’s a real, metered cost, just a low one in absolute terms.
Which is cheaper for a 5-person team?
On annual billing, Copper Professional runs about $295/month for 5 seats versus Close Growth at about $495/month — but that comparison only holds if you don’t need Close’s built-in calling, since Copper has no native dialer at any price.
Can I switch between monthly and annual billing later?
Both vendors publish monthly and annual rates side by side as standard options; neither pricing page describes a penalty for starting monthly and moving to annual once you’ve confirmed the tool is the right fit, which is the safer order for a new team to commit in.
Start with Close’s free trial →
Pricing verified directly against Copper’s (copper.com/pricing) and Close’s (close.com/pricing) own live pricing pages, August 2026. Vendors change pricing without notice — confirm current numbers before budgeting a purchase.
