Close vs HubSpot (2026): Which CRM Costs Less for Sales Teams?

Close vs HubSpot is a choice between a sales CRM built around the phone and a platform built around marketing. Close includes calling, SMS and email on every plan and runs from $9 per user a month (Solo, billed annually) to $139 (Scale), with sequences and a power dialer from the $99 Growth plan. HubSpot gives you a free CRM for up to 2 users, Sales Hub Starter from $7 per seat a month, and Professional at $90 per seat a month billed annually plus a required $1,500 onboarding fee. If your reps make calls and send sequences all day, Close Growth is the closer match to HubSpot Professional and costs less in year one. If your leads come from marketing, or you want to start free, HubSpot is the better fit. Prices were checked on both vendors’ pricing pages on 19 October 2026 and are quoted at the time of writing.

We cover Close in depth in our Close guide, alongside other options in the sales and CRM tools directory.

Close vs HubSpot at a glance

	Close	HubSpot Sales Hub
Focus	Sales-only CRM for outbound phone and email	CRM platform with separate marketing, service and sales hubs
Free plan	No	Yes, up to 2 users
Free trial	14 days, no credit card	Not stated on the Sales Hub pricing page
Entry price	Solo $9/user/month annual ($19 monthly)	Starter from $7/seat/month ($20 also shown)
Like-for-like plan	Growth: $99 annual / $109 monthly	Professional: $90 annual / $100 monthly
Onboarding fee	None	$1,500 (Professional), $3,500 (Enterprise)
Built-in calling	Every plan; usage billed (~$0.02/min)	Included minutes: 500 Starter, 3,000 Professional
Automation	Workflows from Growth	50 restricted workflows on Starter, 300 on Professional
Dialers	Power Dialer (Growth), Predictive Dialer (Scale)	Not listed on the pricing page
AI metering	AI credits per user (500 to 2,000/month)	HubSpot Credits per account tier (500 to 5,000)
Marketing and service tools	No	Yes, as separate hubs
Best for	Outbound teams calling and emailing all day	Inbound, marketing-led teams and a free start

Pricing compared at the same team size

Close’s pricing page shows two prices per plan with a billing toggle and a “save up to 50%” banner; its FAQ says annual plans are discounted, so the lower figure is the annual rate.

Close plan	Annual	Monthly	What it adds
Solo	$9	$19	1 user, calling, email, pipeline; no Workflows; 500 AI credits
Essentials	$35	$49	Team use, unlimited leads, SMS; no Workflows; 1,000 AI credits/user
Growth	$99	$109	Workflows, Power Dialer, Voicemail Drop, bulk email; 1,500 AI credits/user
Scale	$139	$149	Predictive Dialer, Custom Objects, custom roles, Explorer graphs; 2,000 AI credits/user

HubSpot Sales Hub plan	Price per seat/month	One-time fee	Included HubSpot Credits
Free	$0 (up to 2 users)	None	Not listed
Starter	From $7 annual; $20 also shown	None	500
Professional	$90 annual; $100 monthly	$1,500	3,000
Enterprise	From $150	$3,500	5,000

HubSpot labels its prices “starts at”, and the Starter figure needs care. On 19 October the page showed “$7/mo/seat” with “Pay Annually” marked as best value, and “$20/mo/seat” next to it, which reads as the monthly rate. Earlier in October the same page presented the $7 price as a limited-time offer for new customers. Check the price at checkout and assume $20 per seat when you budget for year two.

Worked examples

These use annual billing and list prices only, at the time of writing. Close phone usage is extra; HubSpot’s included calling minutes are not.

Team	Close	HubSpot Sales Hub
Solo founder	Solo: $108/year	Free: $0
3 reps, pipeline and calling, no automation	Essentials: $105/month ($1,260/year)	Starter: $21/month at $7, or $60 at $20
3 reps with sequences and automation	Growth: $297/month; $3,564 year one	Professional: $270/month + $1,500; $4,740 year one, $3,240 year two
5 reps with sequences and automation	Growth: $495/month; $5,940/year	Professional: $450/month + $1,500; $6,900 year one, $5,400 year two
10 reps with sequences and automation	Growth: $990/month; $11,880/year	Professional: $900/month + $1,500; $12,300 year one, $10,800 year two

Two things change the picture. First, Close bills calls by usage. If each of 3 reps dials 1,000 minutes a month at roughly $0.02 a minute, that is about $60 a month, or $720 a year, plus around $1 a month per number. Close still comes in under HubSpot in year one at that volume, but the gap narrows. Second, HubSpot Professional is $9 cheaper per seat than Close Growth, so once the onboarding fee is paid HubSpot costs less from year two on licence price alone. Close is not cheaper forever; it is cheaper to start.

Calling, SMS and dialers

Calling is where Close was built to win. Every plan, including Solo, has built-in calling and SMS, billed at cost: most outbound calls cost around $0.02 a minute and numbers start at about $1 a month. Growth adds a Power Dialer that calls down a saved list and Voicemail Drop for pre-recorded messages. Scale adds a Predictive Dialer that dials several numbers at once and connects the rep to whoever answers. The optional Call Assistant, which records and transcribes calls, is $50 a month per organisation plus $0.02 a minute on any plan.

HubSpot includes calling minutes in each paid tier: 500 on Starter and 3,000 on Professional, plus call transcription allowances of 750 and 1,500 hours per account per month. The pricing page does not say whether minutes are counted per seat or per account, and it does not list a power or predictive dialer. For a team that calls occasionally, HubSpot’s included minutes are enough and cost nothing extra. For a team making hundreds of dials a day, Close’s dialers matter more than the minute allowance.

If you only need a phone system next to an existing CRM, compare dedicated options in our business phone systems guide.

Automation: Workflows and sequences

On Close, automation means Workflows, and they start at Growth. A Workflow combines emails, SMS, call tasks and delays (from 1 minute to 365 days) and can be triggered when a lead, contact, opportunity or call is created or updated. Solo and Essentials have no Workflows at all, so a team that wants sequences on Close is paying $99 per user annually.

HubSpot splits automation across tiers. Starter includes up to 50 workflows “with restricted triggers and actions”, and sequences capped at 500 email sends per user per day. Professional raises that to 300 fully customisable workflows and 1,000 sequence sends per user per day. That is why Close Growth and HubSpot Professional are the fair comparison: Starter is cheap, but its automation is limited by design.

AI: Chloe vs HubSpot Credits

Both vendors now meter AI. Close’s AI teammate, Chloe, is on every plan. Its Voice Agents can phone leads from a script and log the outcome, but they speak English only, can call only US and Canadian numbers, and always announce that they are an AI and that the call is recorded. Notetaker uses no credits on any plan and lead summaries are free on Growth and above; Voice Agent calls, enrichment and auto-updates do. Chloe Chat, generally available on all plans since 20 October 2026, gives each user a free weekly allowance and then draws on the account’s AI credits (Close changelog); it can brief you before meetings, draft emails for you to send and update records after asking for approval. Each user gets 500 to 2,000 AI credits a month depending on the plan, credits do not roll over, and extra credit subscriptions start at $20 for 1,200 credits.

HubSpot includes 500, 3,000 or 5,000 HubSpot Credits a month on Starter, Professional and Enterprise, with additional credits at $0.010 each; credits reset monthly. Neither vendor’s pricing page states whether customer data is used to train AI models, so check the data processing terms before you switch on AI features with customer call recordings.

Reporting, customisation and scale

HubSpot has the deeper reporting at mid-tier prices. Professional includes 100 pipelines, 30 dashboards, up to 500 custom reports, forecasting across team hierarchies and up to 5,000 playbooks (Starter: 15 pipelines, 10 dashboards, 100 custom reports, 5 playbooks). If you have managers who want forecasts rolled up by team, HubSpot Professional delivers more than Close Growth.

Close keeps advanced configuration for Scale: custom roles, lead visibility rules, Custom Objects and Explorer for custom graphs. Growth teams get activity reports and a leaderboard but only standard roles. A 10-rep team that needs custom objects and forecasting will pay $139 a user on Close Scale and should compare that with HubSpot Professional, not Growth.

Integrations and ecosystem

HubSpot’s real advantage is that sales is one hub among several. Marketing, service and content tools share the same contact records, and its app marketplace is large. If your pipeline depends on forms, nurture emails and ticketing, keeping everything in HubSpot avoids sync problems.

Close is narrower but open: it connects to Gmail, Microsoft 365, Zapier, Calendly, Zoom, Gong and Clay, has a REST API, webhooks and an MCP server, and lists HubSpot itself among its integrations. Some teams run marketing in HubSpot and selling in Close. For cold email at volume, pair either CRM with a dedicated outreach tool; see our Reply.io vs lemlist comparison. For contact data, Apollo.io syncs into both.

Which should you choose?

• Solo founder calling leads: HubSpot Free if you mainly need a contact list; Close Solo ($9 a month annually) if you want built-in calling and email from day one.
• 3-rep outbound team running sequences: Close Growth. It costs about $1,200 less than HubSpot Professional in year one and includes the dialers HubSpot does not list.
• Marketing-led team with inbound leads and a support desk: HubSpot. The shared platform is worth more than Close’s calling features.
• Budget team that just needs a pipeline: HubSpot Starter, as long as you accept restricted workflows.
• 10+ reps needing forecasting and custom objects: compare Close Scale with HubSpot Professional; HubSpot’s team forecasting is stronger, Close’s predictive dialer is the counterweight.

If neither fits, simpler CRMs such as Capsule CRM and folk cost less and need less setup. More head-to-head tests are in our comparisons section.

Verdict

Close is the better buy for small teams that sell by phone and email: calling on every plan, a Power Dialer and Workflows on Growth, and no onboarding fee, which makes it cheaper in year one at 3, 5 and 10 reps. HubSpot is the better choice when marketing drives your pipeline, when you want to start free, or when managers need team-level forecasting, and its Professional seat is slightly cheaper than Close Growth once the $1,500 onboarding fee is behind you.