Close was founded in 2013 by Steli Efti and remains focused on a specific customer: inside sales teams at startups and small to mid-size companies whose revenue depends on outbound calling and email prospecting. The platform has never broadened into marketing automation, customer success tools, or field sales features. This focus is intentional — every product decision is evaluated against whether it helps a sales rep close more deals through calls and emails.
The built-in communication stack is the reason Close exists. Most CRMs treat phone, email, and SMS as integrations — third-party tools connected via API or Zapier that require switching apps. Close includes all three natively. VoIP calling is built directly into the CRM interface — a rep clicks a phone number on a contact record and the call connects through Close, logged automatically on completion with duration, notes, and recording. There is no switching to a separate dialer app.
The Power Dialer on Professional plans and above works through a call queue. Reps load a list of contacts, start the dialer, and Close places calls automatically. When someone answers, the rep is connected. When no one answers, Close skips to the next number without the rep manually dialing. For sales teams running high-volume outbound campaigns, the Power Dialer compresses the time spent on unreachable numbers significantly. The Predictive Dialer on Enterprise dials multiple lines simultaneously and connects a rep only when a person picks up.
Email sequences allow reps to enroll contacts in multi-step outreach workflows. Subject lines, body content, and send timing are configured once per sequence. Contacts move through steps based on whether previous emails were opened, replied to, or triggered other events. SMS sequences on Professional and above add a text message channel to the same workflow logic.
The activity log is what sales managers cite most in Close reviews. Every outbound call attempt, inbound call, email send, email open, email reply, SMS, meeting, and note is logged automatically in the contact timeline. Managers can see exactly what each rep did and when without asking reps to manually update records. This visibility is operationally valuable and is harder to achieve with CRMs that require reps to self-report activity.
The Startup plan at $49 per seat per month is the entry point for the full CRM with unlimited contacts, sequences, and calling. The Solo plan at $9 per month is a single-user product capped at 10,000 contacts — appropriate for a founder running their own sales without a team yet.
Close does not integrate natively with Salesforce, does not have marketing automation features, and does not cover customer success or post-sale workflows. It is a sales-only tool for teams where calling and email prospecting are central to how revenue is generated.