Close vs. Salesforce
Have you ever seen a comparison page where the “challenger” comes out better than the company writing the comparison?
Exactly. Neither have we. So when we set about comparing our CRM to others we wanted to take a different approach.
Cost and capability
The comparison we’ve put together is based on whether it’s possible (and how much it costs) to do in Salesforce what you can do in Close.
We're biased, not ignorant
For some of you, Salesforce will be the better option. What we’re trying to demonstrate is when Close is a better fit than our competitor.
A quick summary
When comparing these two products, the main differences that stand out are price, lack of calling, and email automation. Salesforce can do everything - in a slower and more complex way. Their pricing structure is complex, and there are hidden costs to almost everything. You need to purchase additional products for global calling, integrate with third-party applications for features such as email sequences and predictive dialing, plus pay a dedicated consultant to set up Salesforce. It will also take weeks of training before your new sales reps start using the software.
That being said, if you’re a large enterprise - Salesforce is still probably the right choice for you as you have the resources and demand for an enterprise CRM.
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| Target sales team size | <100 | 250+ |
| Pricing | All-inclusive Pricing publicly available |
Sales call required Complex pricing with hidden costs |
| Budget | Best value | Very expensive |
| Customer success | Dedicated success team | Pay extra |
| Calling | Global calling built-in | US & Canada only as an add-on |
| Email automation | Built-in | Add-on purchase required |
| Training & implementation | $0 customized onboarding | Add-on purchase required |
| GetApp "ease of use" rating | 4.7 / 5 | 4.4 / 5 |
| Admin or developer needed? | No | Yes |
If you have experience with Salesforce, I cannot recommend Close’s free trial high enough. The problem it solves is getting new sales people trained up on a new CRM system in days instead of weeks. From a management perspective, the reporting is extensive and I can cut and slice the data to get granular reporting on a company level, campaign level, and individual rep level.
Close ideal customer checklist
The rest of this page will help you understand why we think Close is a better alternative to Salesforce both in terms of value and pricing.
What can you not do in Salesforce?
Salesforce is a good standalone CRM, but a lot of the critical functionality required by a high-performing sales team is highly dependent on expensive, third-party applications.
There are also some key sales functions that you cannot perform using Salesforce natively. With Close, they’re all built-in.
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| Built-in Calling |
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| Send/receive SMS |
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| Global calling |
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| Call recording |
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| Historical import of email conversations |
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| Power Dialer |
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| Predictive Dialer |
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When should you choose Salesforce, and when Close
See what third-party reviewers have to say about Close vs. other CRMs:
4.7/5
4.6/5
4.7/5
4.7/5
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