Close vs Salesforce
 Close |  Salesforce | |
|---|---|---|
| Sentiment | ||
| Score | 63/100 | 21/100 |
| Rank in category | #1 | #7 |
| Rated comments | 25 | 24 |
| Best for | Small sales teams and solo sellers doing high-volume cold calling; Teams that want calling, email, SMS and workflows inside the CRM; Founders who want a CRM they can pick up without a consultant | Larger sales orgs with an in-house admin to own the system; Companies with complex custom objects, permissions and integrations; Teams that want the CRM with the widest consultant and integration ecosystem |
| Skip it if | Teams that need marketing automation in the same tool; Teams that need flexible automation or deep lead-level reporting; Sellers who rely on three-way or conference calling | Small teams of under about 20 users without a dedicated admin; Buyers who want to change fields and workflows themselves without consultants; Budget-sensitive teams that need API access or heavier automation on lower tiers |
| Starting price | $9/user/mo | $25/user/mo |
| Pricing (vendor-stated) | Per user per month: Solo $9 annual / $19 monthly (1 user, 10k leads, no workflows), Essentials $35 / $49, Growth $99 / $109, Scale $139 / $149; custom plans via sales. Calling and SMS billed at cost. 14-day free trial with no credit card; no free plan; 30-day money-back guarantee. | Free Suite at $0; Starter Suite $25/user/mo (billed monthly or annually); Pro Suite $100, Core $195 and Advanced $395/user/mo billed annually; Max $550/user/mo through sales. Free trials on Starter through Advanced. |
Independent users mostly rate Close as a simple, fast, sales-first CRM that suits small outbound teams and solo sellers who live on the phone, with calling, email, SMS and workflows in one place. The trade-off is depth outside the calling workflow: users call it rigid, report automation flaws and missing calling features such as three-way calls, and say it is weak for marketing and lead-level reporting. About a third of the comments mentioning it were promotional, including roughly ten near-identical comments that name-drop Close while plugging a Reddit-monitoring tool, referral links, and agency or rival-CRM pitches, so those were set aside.
Users like
- Easy to pick up: users describe it as light, simple and fast, easier to onboard than HubSpot, with decent automation that does not overwhelm[1][2][3][4][5]
- Built for phone-heavy outbound: users cite the power dialer and smart views, cold callers hitting 250 to 350 dials a day, and running a BDR team's outbound from inside it[1][2][3][4]
- Calling, email, SMS and workflows sit in one place, which users say keeps reps productive and organized[1][2]
- Users call it good value for small teams and solo operators, saying a low-tier plan covers most of what they need[1][2][3]
Users complain about
- Rigid, with automation flaws: one team of about ten calls it very rigid but good enough, and a solo user flags its automation weaknesses[1][2][3]
- Calling has gaps: one user found no three-way calling, another hit quirks with calling and stayed on Apollo[1][2]
- Reporting centres on caller activity and revenue rather than deeper lead analysis[1]
- Not strong on the marketing side, according to a user who otherwise rates it highly[1]
Independent users treat Salesforce as the most capable and customizable CRM but rarely as the right choice for small teams: of 24 non-promotional comments with an opinion, most describe it as overkill, expensive at the tiers that unlock automation and API access, and dependent on paid admins or consultants for routine changes. Its defenders are mostly people who have administered or implemented it alongside Dynamics or Zoho and found it easier or more complete, and several warn that leaving a heavily customized org is slow and costly. The corpus is heavily seeded: 39 of 100 comments were promotional, mostly agencies, freelance admins and rival CRM or custom-build vendors pitching in r/CRM threads from teams trying to leave Salesforce.
Users like
- Users and implementers describe it as able to model almost any process, with more depth than Zoho or HubSpot when heavily customized[1][2][3][4][5]
- People who have administered or implemented both Salesforce and Dynamics 365 say Salesforce is easier and more intuitive to work in[1][2]
- Seen as the mature, industry-standard choice, and a team that moved to Zoho says Zoho does most of the same things less smoothly[1][2][3]
- One user reports Salesforce still gives sizeable discounts and that admin work can now be done through the CLI with AI coding tools, cutting consultant hours[1]
Users complain about
- Widely called overkill for small teams, with admin overhead that forces the business to wrap itself around the tool[1][2][3][4][5]
- Expensive, and the price climbs steeply when a small team needs a higher edition; one 18-person team cut CRM spend from about $90k to under $25k a year by leaving[1][2][3][4][5]
- Routine changes often require a paid consultant; one team reports $200 per hour and three-week turnarounds for small edits[1][2]
- Leaving is slow: users report months-long migrations, painful exports of attachments and email history, and custom flows that must be rebuilt rather than copied[1][2][3]