Close vs HubSpot CRM
Close's Solo Plan Costs $19 Monthly and $9 Annually — The Steepest Discount on the Page
HubSpot's Free CRM Has Two Ceilings, and Seats Is the One That Gets You
The short answer
- Entry price
- HubSpot CRM does not publish a single starting price we can rank against Close's $19/month, so we do not rank them. A zero in our data means one of two opposite things — a genuine free tier, or a product that is not sold at a fixed monthly rate at all — so calling either one "cheapest" would be wrong.
- Our rating
- 4.4/5 against 4.2/5. That gap is inside our own margin, so treat these as rated level and decide on the specifics below rather than on the score.
Close
from $19/monthSolo is $19 per user monthly but $9 annually — a 53% cut, far steeper than the 7% between Scale's two rates. Solo is also capped at 1 user and 10,000 leads. Every plan is per user, and calling is billed on usage at roughly $0.02 a minute on top.
What works
- ✓ Solo at $9/user on annual billing is a genuinely low entry price
- ✓ Essentials and above remove both the user cap and the lead cap
- ✓ AI credits are included on every tier, from 500 to 2,000 a month
- ✓ Calling costs are stated openly at around $0.02/minute
What does not
- ✗ Solo is limited to 1 user and 10,000 leads
- ✗ The annual discount shrinks sharply as you go up: 53% on Solo, 7% on Scale
- ✗ Calling and phone numbers are usage-billed on top of every plan
- ✗ Growth at $109/user monthly is where most sales teams actually land
HubSpot CRM
see siteThe free CRM is genuinely free with no time limit — but it stops at 2 users and 1,000 contacts. Starter is advertised at $7 per seat on annual billing against $20 month-to-month, so the first real decision is a year paid up front.
What works
- ✓ Free forever with no time limit and no credit card — not a trial
- ✓ 1,000 contacts on the free tier, which is more than most small teams reach in year one
- ✓ Starter is $7 per seat billed annually, one of the cheapest paid CRM entries available
- ✓ Free tier includes the Smart CRM foundation, not a crippled demo version
What does not
- ✗ Free is capped at 2 users — a third person on the team ends it, regardless of contact count
- ✗ The $7 seat price is annual billing; month-to-month is listed at $20, nearly three times as much
- ✗ Free tier puts HubSpot branding on meeting scheduling and other customer-facing features
- ✗ Starter limits you to 3 email templates, 3 canned snippets and 1 deal pipeline
Who should pick which
Pick Close if this is the thing that matters most to you:
Solo at $9/user on annual billing is a genuinely low entry price.
What most often rules it out: Solo is limited to 1 user and 10,000 leads.
Pick HubSpot CRM if this is the thing that matters most to you:
Free forever with no time limit and no credit card — not a trial.
What most often rules it out: Free is capped at 2 users — a third person on the team ends it, regardless of contact count.
Figures come from our review of each product, checked against the vendor's own pricing page. We do not convert currencies or rank prices quoted on different billing periods — where that applies it is said above, not quietly resolved.
A third option, and what it is not
Bonfire Terminal is an AI agent that runs as a desktop app on your own machine — no cloud, nothing you type leaves your computer. It does not do what Close or HubSpot CRM do, and we will not pretend it does. If either is doing its job for you, keep it.
What the $27 actually gets you→The way in is the AI Marketers Club — $27 one-time, including 21 days of access. Keeping it after that is a separate purchase; the vendor's FAQ states Bonfire Terminal starts at $5,000. We earn a commission at no extra cost to you, which is why both tools' drawbacks are printed in full above and the $5,000 is here rather than left for you to find later.