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Search “is Close CRM free” and the honest answer is no — Close has never offered a permanent free plan. What it offers instead is a 14-day free trial, no credit card required, with real calling and AI credits included so you can test the product properly before paying. That’s a genuinely different thing from a standing free tier like HubSpot’s, and it changes who Close is actually for. This page answers the free-tier question directly, lays out what Close costs once the trial ends, and folds in what independent reviews consistently flag as its real strengths and real gaps — verified against Close‘s own published pricing as of August 2026.
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Is Close CRM free?
No — Close does not have a permanent free plan of any kind, for any number of users. Every account starts as a time-limited trial, and once that trial ends you’re required to select a paid plan to keep using the product. This puts Close in a different category from CRMs like HubSpot’s free tier or Pipedrive’s low-cost entry plan, which are built to be usable indefinitely at $0 for a small, limited setup. If a permanently-free contact manager is the actual requirement — not “free to try,” but “free forever” — Close is not that tool, and no plan or promotion changes that; it is trial-only by design.
Close CRM free trial length
Close’s trial runs 14 days and does not require a credit card to start, based on Close’s own current pricing page. During the trial you get real access to the platform’s core features rather than a stripped-down demo mode — including a working allotment of calling minutes and AI credits, so you can test the actual calling/SMS workflow the product is built around, not just click through a sandboxed UI. When the 14 days run out, Close does not silently keep charging you: you’re prompted to pick a paid plan, and an account that doesn’t convert is paused, with data held temporarily before deletion rather than converted to a permanent free tier. There is no way to extend the trial into an ongoing free plan — 14 days is the ceiling.
Close CRM cost per user
Close runs four paid, per-seat monthly tiers. Annual billing drops the effective monthly rate substantially — Close advertises discounts of up to roughly 50% off the monthly list price for committing annually. Figures below are per user, verified against Close’s live pricing page as of August 2026:
| Plan | Monthly (per user) | Annual (per user/mo) |
|---|---|---|
| Solo | $19 | $9 |
| Essentials | $49 | $35 |
| Growth | $109 | $99 |
| Scale | $149 | $139 |
That table is only part of the real bill, though. Calling and SMS are billed separately, usage-based, “at cost” on top of whatever seat tier you’re on — Close’s own pricing page cites roughly $0.02/minute for outbound calling and around $1/month per phone number, regardless of which plan tier a seat sits on. For a team that’s genuinely calling-heavy (the audience Close is built for), that per-minute charge is the real lever on your monthly bill, not the seat price. A team of five reps each running a few hours of outbound calls a day will see calling charges add up meaningfully above the sticker seat price — budget for it as a variable cost, not a rounding error, before you commit to a plan based on the seat price alone.
Close CRM vs HubSpot free plan
This is the comparison most “is Close free” searches are really asking about. HubSpot’s CRM has a real, permanent free tier — contact management, deal pipelines, email tracking, and basic reporting for unlimited users, usable indefinitely at $0 (see our full breakdown of HubSpot’s free plan). Close has nothing equivalent; its cheapest path to using the product is a 14-day trial, full stop.
The trade-off is what each product is actually built around. HubSpot’s free tier is a general-purpose contact/deal tracker with marketing tools bolted on as paid add-ons. Close is built calling-first: native dialing, SMS, and call recording/coaching are core product, not integrations — reviewers consistently point to this as the reason calling-heavy sales teams pick Close over a free general CRM even though it costs real money from day one. If your team’s actual workflow is “dial and text prospects all day,” a free CRM that treats calling as an afterthought is arguably the more expensive choice in lost rep time, even at $0/month. If your workflow is lighter-touch contact/deal tracking without heavy outbound calling, HubSpot’s free tier (or Pipedrive’s low entry pricing) covers that need without paying for calling infrastructure you won’t use.
Close CRM pros and cons: what reviews actually say
Across independent buyer reviews, a consistent pattern shows up — the same strengths and the same gap, repeated often enough to treat as a real signal rather than a one-off complaint.
What reviews call Close’s real strength
- Native calling and SMS. This is the single most-repeated praise: calling, texting, and call recording/coaching live inside the CRM itself rather than through a separate dialer integration, which reviewers say measurably speeds up outbound workflows compared to CRMs where calling is bolted on.
- Ease of use and setup speed. Reviewers commonly describe Close as fast to onboard a sales team onto, with less configuration overhead than heavier platforms like Salesforce.
- Built for inside/outbound sales specifically, rather than as a general-purpose CRM retrofitted with a dialer — the product’s defaults (pipeline views, activity tracking, call-first workflows) match how a phone-and-text sales team actually works day to day.
What reviews call Close’s real weakness
- Little to no marketing automation. Close is a sales CRM, not a marketing platform — there’s no built-in drip-campaign builder, landing-page tool, or marketing-attribution reporting comparable to HubSpot’s marketing hub. Teams that need both sales and marketing automation in one product commonly report needing a second tool alongside Close, not instead of it.
- Cost climbs with call volume. Because calling/SMS is billed usage-based on top of the seat price, a team that scales up outbound calling volume sees its real monthly bill grow independently of the plan tier it’s on — this is the most common cost complaint, not the sticker seat price itself.
- No permanent free tier (covered above) — teams evaluating on a $0 budget for more than two weeks need to look elsewhere first.
Who should not buy Close CRM
Close is a poor fit if your team wants a permanently-free contact manager and isn’t ready to commit to a paid plan after two weeks — HubSpot’s free tier or Pipedrive’s entry pricing are the more honest starting points there. It’s also a poor fit if marketing automation (email nurture sequences, landing pages, campaign attribution) is a core requirement rather than a nice-to-have — Close doesn’t try to be that tool, and bolting a separate marketing platform on top adds cost and integration overhead that a marketing-inclusive CRM avoids. And if your sales process genuinely doesn’t run through the phone — high call volume isn’t part of how your reps actually sell — you’d be paying for calling infrastructure (both the seat price premium and the per-minute usage charges) that you won’t use.
Close is a strong fit for the opposite profile: an outbound-calling-heavy sales team that wants dialing, SMS, and call coaching built into the CRM itself rather than stitched together from three tools, and that’s willing to pay a real, usage-sensitive monthly price for that instead of hunting for a free plan.
Frequently asked questions
Does Close CRM have a free trial?
Yes — 14 days, no credit card required, with working calling/SMS and AI credits included so you can test the actual product rather than a limited demo.
Does Close CRM have a free plan for small teams?
No. There is no free tier for any team size — the only no-cost access is the 14-day trial, after which a paid plan is required to keep using the account.
What is the cheapest Close CRM plan?
Solo, at $19/month per user billed monthly or $9/month per user billed annually — before any calling/SMS usage charges, which are billed separately at roughly $0.02/minute for outbound calls plus about $1/month per phone number.
Is Close CRM cheaper than HubSpot?
Not at the entry level — HubSpot’s CRM has a real $0 permanent free tier that Close has no equivalent to. Close only becomes the better value once your team’s workflow is calling-heavy enough that native dialing/SMS saves more in rep time than HubSpot’s free price saves in cash.
For more context on how Close stacks up against specific competitors, see our breakdowns of Capsule CRM vs Close, Nutshell vs Close, and Insightly vs Close.
