AI Summary
About
Close is a sales-focused CRM built for small businesses and high-velocity inside-sales teams. Rather than bolting communications onto a records database, Close ships calling, email, SMS, and workflow automation as first-class features inside the CRM, so a rep can prospect, dial, send, and log activity without leaving the app. The company positions itself as the CRM you use to sell faster — its pricing page headline is “Scale your sales team without adding headcount.” Close reports being trusted by 11,500+ businesses, running 2 billion calls, emails, and meetings, and holding a 4.7-star G2 rating across 2,000+ reviews.
Close’s 2026 story is its AI transformation: Chloe, an AI sales agent embedded directly in the CRM. Chloe calls leads, holds qualifying conversations, books meetings, and updates records, and Close markets her as a teammate that lets existing reps do more rather than a headcount replacement. Crucially, Chloe is included on every plan for free — customers pay only for the AI credits she consumes plus the underlying telephony. That structure makes Close a clean example of an incumbent SMB SaaS grafting metered AI usage onto a per-seat subscription instead of gating AI behind a premium tier.
The company competes with SMB-oriented CRMs such as HubSpot, Pipedrive, and Copper, but leans on its native dialer, deep calling/SMS integration, and now Chloe as differentiators for outbound-heavy teams. Close is a privately held, bootstrapped-heritage company headquartered in Austin, Texas.
Pricing summary : per-seat CRM tiers plus metered AI credits for the Chloe agent
Close uses a hybrid seat-plus-usage model — a per-user subscription that carries a bundled AI-credit allowance, with everything above that allowance metered. It layers three billing dimensions:
- Per-seat subscription: Four self-serve tiers billed per user/month. Annual prices are $9 (Solo), $35 (Essentials), $99 (Growth), $139 (Scale); the same tiers cost $19 / $49 / $109 / $149 billed monthly. Annual billing saves up to 50% versus monthly. Solo is capped at 1 user and 10,000 leads; Essentials and above are unlimited on contacts and leads.
- AI credits (Chloe usage): Chloe the AI sales agent is free to access on every plan, but her work consumes AI credits. Each plan includes a monthly per-user base — 500 (Solo), 1,000 (Essentials), 1,500 (Growth), 2,000 (Scale) — that refreshes monthly with no rollover; from Essentials up those credits share a capped team pool (up to 10,000/15,000/20,000 per month respectively). Additional credits are purchasable, and telephony is billed on top.
- Add-ons: Premium phone numbers at $19/month per line, the Call Assistant at $50/month + usage, and additional organizations at $50/month (one free on Growth and Scale).
What makes this different: Instead of charging more for an “AI plan,” Close bundles the same AI agent into every tier and monetizes it purely as metered credit consumption — the subscription buys the CRM and a credit allowance, and the AI’s marginal work is pay-as-you-go. See how this compares across the hybrid pricing model and credit-based billing theme pages.
Pricing by product
Close CRM (per-seat plans)
Prices below are per user/month. The first figure is annual billing (the page default); the parenthetical is the monthly-billing price.
| Tier | Price | Included | Key mechanics |
|---|---|---|---|
| Solo | $9 /user/mo ($19 mo) | Full CRM (calling, email, SMS), 500 AI credits/user/mo, limited to 1 user and 10,000 leads, no workflows | Entry tier for solo operators; hard 1-user / 10k-lead cap |
| Essentials | $35 /user/mo ($49 mo) | Everything in Solo plus unlimited contacts & leads, team collaboration, 1,000 AI credits/user (pool ≤10k/mo) | Small-team system of action; still no workflow automation |
| Growth | $99 /user/mo ($109 mo) | Everything in Essentials plus automated workflows, Chloe in workflows, power dialer, bulk email, 1,500 AI credits/user (pool ≤15k/mo) | “Most popular” tier — automation + AI leverage unlock here |
| Scale | $139 /user/mo ($149 mo) | Everything in Growth plus predictive dialer, role-based access & permissions, lead visibility rules, unlimited call recording retention, live call coaching, 2,000 AI credits/user (pool ≤20k/mo) | Advanced controls for high-volume scaling orgs |
| Custom | Custom | For teams growing fast or with more complex sales needs | Sales-led; starts with a custom demo |
Add-ons (per plan, billed separately)
| Add-on | Price | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Premium Phone Numbers | $19/month per line | Available on all tiers |
| Call Assistant | $50/month + usage | AI call transcription/summaries; available on all tiers |
| Additional organizations | $50/month per organization | 1 free included on Growth and Scale; $50/mo each on Solo & Essentials |
Sales motions across products: PLG / self-serve for all four published tiers (Solo, Essentials, Growth, Scale — 14-day free trial, no credit card); sales-led for the Custom tier via demo.
Chloe AI agent — how AI credits are metered
Chloe access is free on every plan; customers pay only for the AI credits she consumes plus telephony. Each plan includes a monthly base of AI credits per user that refreshes monthly with no rollover. From Essentials up, those per-user credits draw from a shared, capped team pool. Additional credits are purchasable beyond the included base.
| Plan | Included AI credits / user / month | Shared pool cap |
|---|---|---|
| Solo | 500 | n/a (single user) |
| Essentials | 1,000 | up to 10,000 / month |
| Growth | 1,500 | up to 15,000 / month |
| Scale | 2,000 | up to 20,000 / month |
Hidden costs : AI-credit overage and telephony on top of the per-seat headline
The per-seat headline is only the floor. Close’s real cost is a stack: the subscription buys a CRM plus a monthly AI-credit allowance, and everything the sales motion actually does — dialing, texting, and running Chloe past her included credits — meters on top. Four vectors move the effective bill above the sticker.
| Hidden cost | How it’s triggered | What it adds |
|---|---|---|
| AI-credit overage | Chloe’s calls/enrichment burn the included monthly credits (500–2,000/user); credits do not roll over | ”Additional credits available” — purchased beyond the base; a heavy month forfeits nothing but pays for excess |
| Telephony passthrough | Every Chloe call and every rep dial/SMS consumes minutes | Calling/SMS billed on top at roughly $0.02/minute — the largest variable line for outbound-heavy teams |
| Add-on line items | Premium phone numbers, Call Assistant, extra organizations | $19/mo per line, $50/mo + usage (Call Assistant), $50/mo per extra org (1 free on Growth/Scale) |
| Automation tier gate | Workflows and Chloe-in-workflows only exist from Growth ($99) up | Solo/Essentials teams that want Chloe to run automatically must jump to the $99 tier, not just buy credits |
The trap for buyers is that the two most-used capabilities on a sales CRM — dialing and letting the AI agent work leads — are precisely the ones that meter. A Solo seat is $9, but a solo founder running Chloe hard on outbound will pay for extra credits and telephony minutes on top; the marginal cost scales with pipeline activity, which is exactly when a team is least price-sensitive and most exposed.
Because credits reset monthly with no rollover, teams with lumpy outreach (quarter-end pushes, campaign bursts) systematically under-utilize in quiet months and over-run in busy ones — paying twice for the same annual capacity. See the credit-based billing theme for how peers handle rollover, the hidden-costs of usage pricing for the invoicing mechanics, and our breakdown of why AI agent workflows become a cost monster when per-action usage compounds.
Want to estimate your own Close bill? Use the Close pricing calculator to model your monthly cost based on seats, AI credits, and telephony usage.
Pricing evolution : from flat seat CRM to seat plus metered AI credits
Close’s pricing story is one of continuity in the seat ladder and discontinuity in the model: the per-user rungs barely moved across the rebrand, but the company grafted an entirely new usage dimension — metered AI credits plus telephony — onto the same subscription. The seat is stable; the meter is new.
Cadence
Tracked range: 2025-Q1 through 2026-Q3. web.archive.org was unreachable during this pass, so the range is reconstructed from dated announcements and secondary reviews rather than archived snapshots.
| Quarter | Activity |
|---|---|
| ≤ 2025 Q1 | Four legacy tiers — Base $19, Startup $49, Professional $99, Enterprise $139 (annual) — per-seat CRM with Call Assistant add-on. |
| 2026 Q2 | Chloe reaches GA (June 9, 2026) — AI sales agent bundled free on every plan, monetized via new metered AI-credit line. |
| 2026 Q3 | Tiers rename to Solo / Essentials / Growth / Scale at the same annual prices ($9 / $35 / $99 / $139); per-user AI-credit base (500–2,000) and shared team pools surfaced on the pricing page. |
Notable changes
- ≤ 2025-02-04 — Legacy structure: Base ($29 mo / $19 annual), Startup ($59 / $49), Professional ($109 / $99), Enterprise ($149 / $139) per user, plus a Custom tier and a $50/mo Call Assistant. Dated secondary source: Capsule CRM pricing breakdown, 2025-02-04.
- 2026-06-09 — Chloe GA. Close launched its embedded AI sales agent to general availability for US/Canada, included free on every plan and metered through AI credits + telephony rather than a premium AI tier. Beta spanned 306 businesses and 818,000+ calls. Source: Close press release, 2026-06-09; Close blog, 2026-06-03.
- 2026-07-06 — Captured live: four-tier seat pricing renamed to Solo $9 / Essentials $35 / Growth $99 / Scale $139 (annual) with Chloe AI credits bundled per tier, shared team pools, and add-ons itemized. Source: Close pricing page.
What’s unique : AI agent bundled free on every tier, monetized by credit usage
Most incumbent SaaS vendors monetized their 2025–2026 AI push by launching a premium AI SKU or an “AI add-on per seat” — the money question becomes “do I upgrade for AI?” Close did the opposite. It made Chloe, a full AI sales agent that dials leads and books meetings, free on every plan — then put the marginal cost of running her onto a metered AI-credit line plus raw telephony passthrough.
This is the “AI bundled, metered underneath” pattern. The seat price didn’t move across the rebrand (the annual ladder $9/$35/$99/$139 is the old Base/Startup/Professional/Enterprise ladder renamed). What changed is that the subscription now buys a CRM plus a monthly credit allowance, and the AI’s actual work is pay-as-you-go on top. Three design choices make it a clean template:
- No AI paywall. Every tier gets the agent, so there’s zero upgrade friction to try AI — adoption is decoupled from the buying decision. Monetization comes later, from consumption, exactly when the customer is already getting value.
- The meter tracks marginal cost, not a margin grab. Telephony passes through at roughly $0.02/minute and AI credits gate inference/enrichment — the two things that actually cost Close money per Chloe action. As a bootstrapped, ~$40M-ARR company, Close has real gross-margin discipline; metering the variable cost lets it bundle the agent without eating AI COGS on light users.
- An included allowance sets the anchor. Each tier ships 500–2,000 credits/user framed as “already paid for,” which normalizes the meter and captures upside only from heavy users who buy more.
The result is a hybrid where the seat is a stable, predictable base and the AI is an expanding usage line — a value-metric shift from “how many reps” toward “how much selling the AI does.” That mirrors the broader entitlement-to-credits shift in LLM billing and the agentic pricing puzzle incumbents are now navigating. For peers running the same play, see the hybrid pricing model and credit-based billing theme pages.
Strengths & weaknesses
| Strengths | Weaknesses |
|---|---|
| Transparent, public per-seat pricing across all four tiers | AI credits refresh monthly with no rollover — unused credits lapse |
| AI agent (Chloe) included on every plan, not gated behind a tier | Solo hard-capped at 1 user and 10,000 leads |
| Aggressive annual discount (up to 50% off the seat) | Telephony and AI-credit overage make the true bill hard to predict |
| Native calling/SMS/dialer built into the CRM | Workflow automation only starts at Growth ($99/user) |
Billing UX : self-serve trial, monthly/annual toggle, and metered AI credits
- Monthly ⇄ Annually billing toggle — the pricing page has a top-level cycle switch (“Select your preferred billing cycle: Monthly / Annually”) flagged “SAVE UP TO 50%”, and it shows both the monthly and annual per-seat price on every plan card simultaneously.
- 14-day free trial, no credit card — every plan offers a “Try for free” self-serve entry (“Try Close free for 14 Days · No credit card. No contracts.”), so buyers can start without sales contact or payment details.
- 30-day money-back guarantee — a “Try Close risk-free” refund window (“Get a full refund, no questions asked”) sits alongside the trial as a separate risk-reversal control.
- Included AI-credit meter (refreshes monthly, no rollover) — each plan surfaces its per-user AI-credit allotment and the shared team-pool cap directly on the card, with “Additional credits available” for overage; unused credits do not roll over.
- Per-plan add-on line items — Premium Phone Numbers ($19/mo per line), Call Assistant ($50/mo + usage), and Additional organizations ($50/mo, 1 free on Growth/Scale) are itemized in the full plan-comparison table as opt-in billed extras.
- “Talk to us” custom-pricing path — a Custom tier CTA routes larger or more complex teams to a sales-led demo instead of the self-serve checkout.
Strategic wins : bundling AI into every seat and metering the marginal work
1. Bundle the AI agent everywhere, charge for its usage
By giving every plan free access to Chloe and billing only for the AI credits she consumes, Close removes the “should I upgrade for AI?” friction and turns AI into an expanding usage line instead of a one-time tier upsell — the usage-based pricing playbook applied to an incumbent CRM.
2. Native calling/SMS as the moat
By building the dialer, calling, and SMS into the CRM rather than integrating a third party, Close makes its per-seat price defensible for outbound-heavy teams — the communication stack is the product, not an add-on, which justifies the seat and feeds Chloe’s telephony usage.
3. Aggressive annual discount to lock in cash
Discounting the seat up to 50% for annual billing (Solo drops from $19 to $9) trades headline ARPU for prepaid annual cash and lower churn — a classic SMB retention lever paired with the metered AI upside on top.
Areas to improve : credit-rollover and bill-predictability gaps
1. No AI-credit rollover hurts spiky sales cycles
Because included AI credits refresh monthly with no rollover, teams with uneven outreach cadence forfeit unused capacity. A quarterly or rollover-with-cap option — see the credit-based billing theme — would soften the “use it or lose it” penalty without changing headline prices.
2. Total bill is hard to predict up front
Between AI-credit overage, telephony, and stacked add-ons, the effective per-user cost can drift well above the headline seat. A public cost estimator or an in-app spend forecast would help buyers model the real bill before committing, mirroring the usage-invoicing guidance.
3. AI automation gated relatively high
Automated workflows and Chloe-in-workflows only start at Growth ($99/user), so smaller teams on Solo/Essentials pay for Chloe credits but can’t wire her into automation. A lightweight workflow allowance on lower tiers would let SMB teams realize AI value sooner.
Monetization stack & signals : how Close builds & buys its revenue engine
Buys 1 Builds 0
Close builds its Chloe AI-credit meter on Stripe's metered billing, not a dedicated usage-billing platform — its own Growth engineering team owns the credit top-ups and conversion funnel.
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“Run the experiments and own the billing infrastructure that turn trials into paid customers. Stripe metered billing, AI credit top-ups, the activation and conversion funnel”
Signals reviewed · derived from public job posts
Key takeaways
- Bundle AI, meter its usage. Close includes its Chloe AI agent on every plan and charges only for the AI credits consumed plus telephony, turning AI into an expanding usage line rather than a premium-tier upsell.
- The rebrand renamed, it didn’t reprice. Solo/Essentials/Growth/Scale keep the exact annual ladder ($9/$35/$99/$139) of the old Base/Startup/Professional/Enterprise tiers — the AI-credit meter is the real change, not a base-price hike.
- The meter tracks marginal cost. Credits gate inference/enrichment and telephony passes through at ~$0.02/min, so as a bootstrapped ~$40M-ARR company Close can bundle a full AI agent without eating AI COGS on light users.
- The headline seat understates the bill. AI-credit overage (no rollover), telephony, and add-ons ($19 phone lines, $50 Call Assistant, $50 extra orgs) stack on top, so outbound-heavy teams pay well above the sticker.
- Automation gates the AI value. Chloe-in-workflows only unlocks at Growth ($99/user), so Solo/Essentials buyers pay for credits but can’t wire the agent into automation — the leverage upsell lives in the tier, not the meter.
UBP implications
- AI as a metered overlay on seats. Close shows how an incumbent seat-based SaaS can add AI without repricing the base — the seat buys a credit allowance, and AI’s marginal work is pay-as-you-go on top. It’s the cleanest “AI bundled, metered underneath” template in the Cohort-2 set: no premium AI SKU, no per-seat AI surcharge, just consumption.
- Included allowance sets the anchor. Bundling a monthly credit base per tier (500 → 2,000) frames the metered AI as “already paid for,” easing adoption while still capturing upside from heavy users through additional credits — the allowance is both a value anchor and a margin backstop.
- Metering the cost driver protects margin without a paywall. By tying credits to inference/enrichment and passing telephony through at cost, a bootstrapped vendor can give the agent away free and still keep gross margin intact — a repeatable pattern for any incumbent whose AI feature has a real per-action COGS. See the AI FinOps lens on feature-level unit economics.
Sources
- Close pricing page (accessed 2026-07-06)
- Close help center / knowledge base (accessed 2026-07-06)
- Close blog (accessed 2026-07-06)
Bottom line
Close prices like a classic SMB CRM — four transparent per-seat tiers from $9 to $139 per user/month billed annually — but its 2026 twist is embedding an AI sales agent, Chloe, into every plan and monetizing her purely through metered AI credits and telephony. It’s a clean template for how incumbent seat-based SaaS grafts usage-based AI onto a subscription without repricing the base seat.
Want to compare Close against other CRM and sales-tool pricing? Browse the pricing blueprint.
Pricing timeline : Major events on a vertical axis
Each milestone below corresponds to a public pricing change, product launch, or material adjustment. Major events use a filled marker; minor adjustments use a faded one.
Four-tier seat pricing with bundled Chloe AI credits
Close runs four self-serve per-seat tiers — Solo ($9), Essentials ($35), Growth ($99), and Scale ($139) per user/month billed annually — each bundling a monthly AI-credit allotment for the Chloe sales agent, with additional credits and telephony billed as usage. This renames the earlier Base/Startup/Professional/Enterprise ladder while keeping the same annual prices. Source: Close pricing page, captured 2026-07-06.
Chloe AI sales agent reaches GA — bundled free on every plan, metered by AI credits
Close launched Chloe, an AI sales agent embedded in the CRM, to general availability for US/Canada customers. Rather than a premium AI SKU, Chloe is free on every plan; customers pay only for the AI credits she consumes plus telephony passthrough. Each tier ships a monthly per-user credit base (500/1,000/1,500/2,000) with a shared team pool from Essentials up. Beta spanned 306 businesses, 818,000+ calls and 6,400+ conversation hours. Source: Close press release 2026-06-09 (https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2026/06/09/3309383/0/en/close-launches-chloe-an-ai-sales-agent-built-directly-into-the-crm.html) and Close blog 'Introducing Chloe' 2026-06-03 (https://close.com/blog/introducing-chloe).
Legacy four-tier structure: Base / Startup / Professional / Enterprise
Before the AI rebrand, Close ran four per-seat tiers — Base ($29 monthly / $19 annual), Startup ($59 / $49), Professional ($109 / $99), and Enterprise ($149 / $139) per user — plus a Custom tier. The Call Assistant add-on was already $50/month + ~$0.02/min. This annual price ladder ($19/$49/$99/$139) is the one the later Solo/Essentials/Growth/Scale rename preserved. Dated secondary source: Capsule CRM pricing breakdown, 2025-02-04 (https://capsulecrm.com/blog/close-crm-pricing/).
- · Close bundles its AI sales agent Chloe into every plan for free — you pay only for the AI credits she consumes, so the AI is monetized as metered usage on top of the seat, not as a premium tier.
- · Every Close plan includes a monthly base of AI credits per user (500 on Solo up to 2,000 on Scale) that refresh monthly and do NOT roll over, and higher tiers share those credits in a capped team pool (e.g. Scale pools 2,000/user up to 20,000/month).
- · Annual billing on Close is aggressively discounted — the headline 'SAVE UP TO 50%' is real on the entry tier, where Solo drops from $19 to $9 per user/month.
Questions & answers
- How much does Close CRM cost per user?
- Close has four per-seat plans. Billed annually they cost $9 (Solo), $35 (Essentials), $99 (Growth), and $139 (Scale) per user/month; billed monthly they are $19, $49, $109, and $149 per user/month respectively.
- Is Close's AI sales agent Chloe included in the plan price?
- Yes. Chloe access is free on every Close plan. You only pay for the AI credits she consumes plus telephony usage, and each plan includes a monthly base of credits (500 on Solo up to 2,000 per user on Scale).
- Does Close have a free tier?
- No. Close offers a 14-day free trial with no credit card required, but there is no permanently free plan — the entry point is the Solo tier at $9/user/month billed annually.
- What's the difference between Growth and Scale on Close?
- Growth ($99/user) unlocks automated workflows, Chloe in workflows, and the power dialer. Scale ($139/user) adds a predictive dialer, role-based access and permissions, lead visibility rules, unlimited call recording retention, and live call coaching.
- Are there minimum seats or lead limits on Close?
- Solo is limited to 1 user and 10,000 leads; Essentials and above allow unlimited contacts and leads. Custom pricing is available for larger or more complex sales teams via a demo.
- How has Close's pricing changed over time?
- Close previously sold four tiers named Base, Startup, Professional, and Enterprise (with annual prices of $19, $49, $99, and $139 per user). In 2026 it renamed them Solo, Essentials, Growth, and Scale while keeping that annual price ladder, and on June 9, 2026 it launched the Chloe AI sales agent to general availability — folding AI into every plan and monetizing it through a new metered AI-credit line rather than a separate AI tier or a base-price increase.