By Alpit Patel and the aibrevo team · October 22, 2026 · 7 min read
Close CRM Alternatives: 5 Options Priced for a 10-Person Team
Close CRM alternatives for teams that hit the jump from Essentials at $35 to Growth at $99 per user, with prices checked on each vendor's page, what each option does best and where it stops, and what an export from Close leaves behind.
Key takeaways
- Close lists Solo at $9, Essentials at $35, Growth at $99 and Scale at $139 per user per month billed annually (Close pricing page, checked Oct 22, 2026). Workflows, a power dialer and SMS inside workflows start at Growth, so a team that wants automation pays 2.8 times the Essentials price.
- For 10 users on the first plan that includes automation, the yearly list cost is about $11,880 on Close Growth, $4,680 on Pipedrive Growth at $39 per seat, and $2,970 on GoHighLevel's annual Unlimited plan, which has unlimited users. Feature depth differs, so treat it as arithmetic, not a verdict.
- Close already has calling and SMS on every plan, billed at cost (about $0.02 per minute for most outbound calls). GoHighLevel is a fit for Close users who want marketing automation, booking and flat pricing, not for users who chose Close for the dialer.
- A Close CSV export cannot carry activity data (calls, emails, SMS, notes). Only the JSON export contains all activities, and the download link expires after 7 days.
Close lists four plans, Solo at $9, Essentials at $35, Growth at $99 and Scale at $139 per user per month billed annually (checked Oct 22, 2026), and almost every search for Close CRM alternatives starts at the gap between $35 and $99. Workflows, a power dialer and SMS inside workflows all begin at Growth. If you are on Essentials and want any of them, the plan costs 2.8 times as much per seat.
This page lists five alternatives with a price per seat checked on each vendor’s own page, the one thing each does best, the one limit that matters, and what moving costs. It also says plainly when staying on Close is the better answer.
What are the best Close CRM alternatives?
The best alternative depends on which part of Close you rely on, because Close combines a CRM with a built-in dialer and SMS. The table covers the five options we could verify, with the vendor page each figure comes from.
| Alternative | Price (per user per month, billed annually) | Best at | Limit that matters |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pipedrive | Lite $14, Growth $39, Premium $59, Ultimate $79 | Visual deal pipeline; Growth adds email sync, automations and sequences | The pricing page we read names no calling or SMS feature |
| Freshsales | Growth $9, Pro $39, Enterprise $59 | Lowest entry price here, with phone and email channels | Growth is listed with “basic workflows”; the page gives no numeric limits |
| HubSpot Sales Hub | Free for 2 users; Professional $90 plus $1,500 onboarding | Free tier and a marketing platform behind the CRM | Professional is about 2.6 times Close Essentials per seat and needs the onboarding fee |
| Attio | Free (3 seats), Plus $35, Pro $79 | Custom objects and a clean data model | Plus is capped at 10 seats and 5 objects |
| GoHighLevel | $97, $297 or $497 per account per month | Unlimited users and contacts on every plan, plus email and SMS marketing, booking and workflows | Calling, SMS and email are usage-billed on top; no dialer is named on the page |
Source: each vendor’s pricing page, checked Oct 22, 2026. GoHighLevel is per account per month ($970, $2,970 and $4,970 a year billed annually). Attio’s Plus plan is $44 per seat on monthly billing.
Why do people leave Close CRM?
The reasons that show up in Close’s own pricing page are the price step, the feature gating and the per-plan limits. The table lists them as published, so you can check whether your reason is one of them.
| Limit | Solo ($9) | Essentials ($35) | Growth ($99) | Scale ($139) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Users | 1 | Not stated | Not stated | Not stated |
| Workflows | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Power dialer | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Predictive dialer | No | No | No | Yes |
| SMS in workflows | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Bulk email | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Connected email accounts | 3 | 3 | 10 | 10 |
| Call recording retention | 30 days | 30 days | 90 days | Unlimited |
| Roles and permissions | Standard | Standard | Standard | Customizable |
Source: Close pricing page, checked Oct 22, 2026. Custom fields are capped at 250 on every plan, and extra organizations cost $50 per organization per month. Calling and SMS are usage-based “passed through at cost” on all plans.
Read the table the way a buyer would. A team of five that needs workflows pays $495 a month on Growth against $175 on Essentials. A team that only needs a clean pipeline and calling from the lead record may be paying for features it never turns on, and a cheaper CRM with a dialer add-on would fit better.
How much do the alternatives cost for 10 users?
For 10 users on the first plan that includes automation, the yearly list cost ranges from about $1,080 to $12,300, and the cheapest options are not the closest in features. The chart multiplies each vendor’s published annual-billing price by 10 users and 12 months. GoHighLevel uses its annual Unlimited price, which does not scale with users.
The chart is arithmetic, not a feature match. Close Growth includes a power dialer, and the three cheaper bars either do not name one or are not built around it. If calling is how you sell, the honest comparison is Close Growth against a cheaper CRM plus a separate dialer, priced together.
Is GoHighLevel a good alternative to Close CRM?
It is a good alternative when the pain is per-seat cost and you want marketing and booking in the same system, and a poor one when your reps work from a power dialer all day. GoHighLevel’s pricing page lists CRM and pipelines, workflow automation, email and SMS marketing, booking calendars and unified conversations, with unlimited users and contacts on every plan (checked Oct 22, 2026). Calling is listed too, but the page names no power or predictive dialer.
Close has calling and SMS built in on every plan, so texting is not a reason to switch. What GoHighLevel adds is flat pricing and automation across channels. Usage fees apply to calls, SMS and email, and the rates are not on the pricing page; see GoHighLevel usage rates for SMS, voice and email for the numbers and GoHighLevel vs Pipedrive and GoHighLevel vs HubSpot for the fit question.
Close CRM vs Pipedrive, HubSpot and Attio: which suits which user?
Pipedrive suits a pipeline-first team that wants automation without Close’s Growth price. Its Growth plan at $39 per seat lists email sync, automations and sequences, and a 14-day trial has no credit card requirement. Pipedrive’s page names no calling or SMS, so we cannot say how it compares on outreach.
HubSpot suits a team that wants marketing on top of the CRM and can start free for 2 users. Attio suits a team that wants to model its own objects (Free allows 3 objects, Plus 5, Pro 12) and stays under 10 seats on Plus. Attio Plus at $35 matches Close Essentials per seat, but Attio’s email limit is 1,000 a month on Plus.
What does moving off Close cost, and what does the export leave behind?
The export is free, but it is not complete. These are the steps and the gaps, from Close’s help center article on exporting data (checked Oct 22, 2026).
- Open the Leads page, click the menu, then Export. Contacts also export from the Leads page, not the Contacts page.
- Choose a type (Leads, Contacts or Opportunities), a format (CSV or JSON) and Common Fields or All Fields.
- Use JSON if you need activities. Close calls JSON “the only format you can use to export all Activities” (emails, calls, SMS, notes, custom activities).
- Download from the email link within 7 days. The link expires automatically.
What usually does not come across in the built-in export: Smart Views (you cannot export from a Contacts-tab Smart View, and Smart Views need Close’s separate tool), custom fields and phone numbers in some data types, templates, and lead-level custom fields attached to exported contacts. Some of these need the support tools and a Close API key. Plan to rebuild workflows by hand, since automation logic is not exported as a file we could find documented.
Add the cost of the build in the new system. aibrevo’s CRM implementation cost benchmark lists small Pipedrive builds at roughly $1.5k to $3.5k and HubSpot at $3k to $6k (published price pages, checked Oct 2026), which is separate from licence cost. CRM data cleaning before migration and the CRM migration guide cover the dedupe and mapping steps, and how to export your data from 8 CRMs covers the other direction.
When to get help
Get help when Close holds years of call and email history you cannot afford to lose, or when your dialer and workflow logic have to be rebuilt in a different system without a gap in outreach. aibrevo implements Salesforce, HubSpot, Dynamics 365, Zoho CRM, Pipedrive, monday.com, Airtable and GoHighLevel, and a move from Close into one of them is a common request. Close itself is quoted per project, and GoHighLevel builds start at $1,499 and run to $4,999 for a full CRM setup at the time of writing.
Book a short call or send a message with your seat count and the limit that is hurting. The GoHighLevel service page has the build details, and the Pipedrive service page covers the other common destination.
Sources
- Close pricing, checked Oct 22, 2026
- Close help center: exporting data, checked Oct 22, 2026
- Pipedrive pricing page, read Oct 22, 2026 (annual billing)
- Freshworks CRM pricing, checked Oct 22, 2026
- HubSpot Sales Hub pricing, checked Oct 22, 2026
- Attio pricing, checked Oct 22, 2026
- GoHighLevel pricing, checked Oct 22, 2026