Close CRM vs Hubspot
Features, use cases, pros and cons, and pricing side by side — and which one to pick.
Quick verdict: Pick Close CRM if your team sells by phone; pick HubSpot if you want marketing, sales, and service united on one platform.
Best for: Inside sales teams that live on the phone and want dialing built in, Small to mid-size teams replacing a CRM, dialer, and SMS tool with one platform
Read the full Close CRM reviewBest for: Small businesses that want one platform instead of five disconnected tools, Startups organizing contacts and pipelines on the free CRM from day one
Read the full Hubspot reviewCommission may apply at no extra cost
Close CRM vs Hubspot: features compared
Compare key features side by side
Feature Comparison Summary
Which should you choose?
Choose Close CRM if
- Your team lives on outbound calls and wants the dialer built in.
- You want the Chloe AI agent calling and qualifying leads automatically.
Choose Hubspot if
- You want marketing, sales, and service in one connected platform.
- You want to start free and upgrade as your team grows.
- You need a huge integration ecosystem across your whole stack.
Close CRM vs Hubspot: pros and cons
Close CRM
Close CRM puts calling, email, SMS, and pipelines in one place, with Chloe, an AI agent that answers new leads in minutes and books meetings. Costs climb with usage, though, and automation only starts at $99 per user. Overall, it's a strong pick for outbound-heavy teams that can live with metered billing.
Pros
- Chloe, the built-in AI sales agent, calls new leads within minutes, qualifies them through real conversations, books meetings, and logs transcripts and notes automatically — reducing the need for extra reps.
- Calling is native, not an add-on — the power dialer (and predictive dialer on Scale) logs every call automatically, with phone, email, and SMS sharing one inbox so outbound teams work from a single window.
- The CRM updates itself — AI-generated call summaries, drafted follow-ups, and contact enrichment from LinkedIn and the web reduce manual data entry after every conversation.
Cons
- AI credits are metered and don't roll over — 500 to 2,000 per user monthly depending on plan — and calling, SMS, phone lines (from $1/month), and the Call Assistant ($50/month plus $0.02 per minute) all add usage-based costs on top of seat prices.
- The AI agent calling and messaging leads on your behalf won't suit every audience or brand; Close's own materials suggest testing Chloe's tone before committing, and vendors' outcome claims (like 50% more booked appointments) come from self-published customer quotes rather than independent verification.
- Automation is locked behind the $99 Growth plan — Solo and Essentials tiers exclude workflows — so small teams get manual follow-ups unless they pay for the higher tiers.
Hubspot
HubSpot puts marketing, sales, and service on one platform with a shared CRM, a genuinely free plan, and AI agents that handle routine work. It's not cheap past the entry tier — onboarding fees and usage-based credits stack up. Overall, it's a strong pick for teams that want everything connected and can plan for the real cost.
Pros
- The genuinely free plan covers up to 2 users with 2,000 branded email sends per month, live chat, forms, and 10 dashboards — no credit card required to start.
- The Smart CRM gives marketing, sales, and service teams one shared customer record, and HubSpot reports customers see 129% more leads and close 36% more deals after one year.
- AI agents do concrete work, not just chat — the Customer Agent resolves up to 65% of inquiries automatically, while the Prospecting Agent sources contacts and the Data Agent answers custom customer questions.
Cons
- Onboarding fees hit hard on higher tiers — a mandatory one-time $3,000 fee on Professional and $7,000 on Enterprise, neither included in the base price.
- Costs stack in three directions at once — per-seat fees, usage-based HubSpot Credits ($9 per 1,000 when billed annually), and add-ons — so your real monthly bill can differ a lot from the advertised plan price.
- The free tier keeps HubSpot branding on all your emails and live chat, and Starter caps you at 1,000 marketing contacts with email sends limited to 5x your contact tier per month.
Close CRM and Hubspot in detail
Close CRM
Close is a sales CRM built for teams that actively sell. It combines phone calling, email, SMS, pipeline management, and reporting in one platform. Its standout element is Chloe, an AI sales agent that calls leads, qualifies them through real conversations, books meetings, and updates records automatically. The vendor targets founders, sales leaders, and reps, with dedicated pages for coaching, B2B SaaS, financial services, and insurance teams.
Standout features
- Chloe answers leads before they go cold
- Calling that's built in, not bolted on
- The CRM that updates itself
- See every deal, then act on it
- Connects to your stack, and to your workflow
Use cases
- Answer New Leads in Minutes
- Re-Engage Cold Leads
- Never Miss a Follow-Up
- Run Outbound From One Workspace
Hubspot
HubSpot is a customer platform that connects marketing, sales, and customer service around shared data. It includes a free CRM plus separate hubs for marketing, sales, service, content, data, and revenue. Teams of all sizes use it, from startups on the Starter bundle to enterprises like Unipart. HubSpot says more than 299,000 customers worldwide run on the platform.
Standout features
- One connected platform for every team
- AI agents that work around the clock
- A hub for every job
- Plays nicely with your existing tools
- Start free, add help when you need it
Use cases
- Startups Getting Organized From Day One
- Marketing Teams Generating and Automating Leads
- Sales Teams Building Pipeline Faster
- Support Teams Scaling With AI
Pricing compared
List prices from each vendor's pricing page, before taxes and add-ons. Costs are per month.
| Pricing compared | Close CRM | Hubspot |
|---|---|---|
| From (cheapest paid plan) | $9/mo Solo | $20/mo Starter · per user |
| Free plan | No | Yes Up to 2 users; HubSpot branding on emails and chat; 2,000 email sends per calendar month |
| Free trial | Yes | 28 days |
| Money-back guarantee | 30 days | Not stated |
| Annual billing savings | — | Up to 65% |
| Pricing model | Flat price | Per-user and flat plans |
| Cost for 1 user | $9/mo Solo plan, billed monthly | FreeCheaper Free plan, billed monthly |
| Cost for 5 users | $35/mo Essentials plan, billed monthly · price per account (user limit not stated) | $100/mo Starter plan, billed monthly |
| Cost for 10 users | $35/mo Essentials plan, billed monthly · price per account (user limit not stated) | $200/mo Starter plan, billed monthly |
| Cost for 25 users | $35/mo Essentials plan, billed monthly · price per account (user limit not stated) | $500/mo Starter plan, billed monthly |
| Plans | 4 | 5 |
| Prices checked | Checked Oct 13, 2026 | Prices not verified yet — see the vendor page. |
| Price history | Tracking prices since Oct 1, 2026. No price change detected yet. | No tracked prices yet |
- Cheapest plan that fits each team size. Per-user plans are multiplied by the number of users (respecting stated minimums and seat packs). Plans that include some users cost their base price plus the extra-user price for each user beyond those included. Flat-priced plans with no stated user limit are counted as one licence per user.
Cheaper for your team size
For 1 user (billed monthly), Hubspot costs $0/mo vs Close CRM at $9/mo.
- Only Hubspot has a free plan.
Computed from published list prices on the dates shown. Excludes taxes, add-ons and promotions.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Which tool is easier to learn?
Close advertises setup in minutes with a clean, intuitive interface. HubSpot earns usability badges too, but its broader platform takes more time to learn.