We believe there are better options available in this category, read below to learn what this software does well, and what they could do better. ⤵
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The CRM space is probably the largest software category in the world, just ahead of project management. That said, there's 2 types of CRM categories:
Okay, let me explain. Most software will eventually get to a point where they need to determine if they should tack on the "CRM" category to their product offering. And because a CRM at the end of the day is really just a database, most software will justify "adding it" to their toolset.
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The CRM for heavy call & sms—focused small and mid-size sales teams
Differentiation in the CRM space is difficult, and that's where Close has decided to be known as the CRM with deep native call/SMS functionality.
While this may sound great out of the gate (especially if you're interested in VoIP integration), let's take a moment to discuss this, because you're most definitely paying the price for this.
They also built Close in a way where they really want you to spend most of your time in Close all day. Syncing in your emails and hoping you'll use their sub-par email client to triage through, versus using a more modern tool like Superhuman, or even Gmail.
This is where competitors like Copper have come in with a super unique approach, building out an exceptional Chromium extension which allows you to access your entire CRM from right within Gmail and Google Calendar.
The first thing to note is that the lowest tier, coined "Startup" starts at $99 and gives you 3 seats (AKA a 3-seat minimum). Now this is reasonable if you actually have 3 seats to fill, only 1 or 2 though? The cost-per-seat is quite high.
With that, it's definitely one of the most restrictive in terms of functionality. It limits you to only one pipeline (which will be fine for many, but if you are planning to use your CRM for additional business processes outside of just sales, it won't be enough).
The one thing it does offer though is a "Power Dialer"—something quite unique to the CRM space of the others we have listed (which we'll go more into in the features section).
All-in-all, you're likely to find yourself on the Professional tier, as we've yet to work with a single company that needs only one pipeline (2 is normally the sweet spot—Sales + Onboarding/Project Management).
So with that in mind, you're again served with the 3-seat minimum, paying nearly $100/seat/mo. This on the other hand would get you the highest tiers of competing CRM's like Copper, not to mention no seat minimum.
So if your 1–2 seats, we highly recommend using an alternative, no questions.
We have to give it to Close, they, unlike HubSpot, actually have decent email syncing functionality (which feels table-stakes for a CRM, but sadly, it's not).
For example, if you add an email address into the system (and you're using Google Workspace or Microsoft 365), it'll actually retroactively sync the emails into the CRM.
While it's not as deep or impressive as what Copper does for Google Workspace accounts (going an entire year back across everyone on your team + pulling in and organizing file attachments and calendar events), it's at least something, which we appreciate as compared to HubSpot.
This brings us to their auto-dialer. You can have it call through numbers in bulk, connect you when it hears something on the other end, and pause the dialer while you take notes. It's impressive in that regard, and we don't really have another tool/solution that we'd recommend for that which integrates in well to a CRM.
That said, you're very much committing to their baked in VoIP solution at that point (which brings with it it's own limitations, like no separate app or mobile VoIP access).
So if you considering something like Dialpad, JustCall, or Aircall alongside your CRM (like many should), think again—you're not getting that with Close.
Because they have their internal VoIP baked in at the core though, it does allow for some cool sequence features which allow you to automatically send out emails, then SMS messages on a cadence. While it can't auto-call in a sequence, it will create a task for you to call:
This is a more complex feature that not many CRM's allow for, because it's getting more into the sales enablement email marketing automation side of things that we've seen more reserved for tools like Reply.
They seem to have only just launched an iOS only mobile app, which again is table-stakes for every other CRM on the market. All competitors such as Copper + HubSpot + Pipedrive have both iOS and Android mobile apps, for which have existed 5+ years at this point.
If you hear the words "autodialer" and get super excited, this is probably the CRM for you. If you have a heavy sales motion that requires mass-phone calls, that's where Close really shines.
Otherwise, it's trying to be too many things baked into one, which might sound good at first, but upon diving in, you'll see that they don't integrate as well with other tools:
"We are your VoIP, you don't get to have a VoIP like Dialpad alongside us!"
The features they have feel more like a v1, more-so to check the marketing box, versus them being more thoughtful and well-iterated.
If you're using Google Workspace and considering Close (or HubSpot for that matter), we highly recommend checking out Copper instead.
The main value here comes from their baked in autodialer, either that's an integrated feature you'd be willing to pay the premium that Close charges for it, or you aren't.
For teams of all sizes looking for a flexible and user-friendly database (spreadsheet replacement) that can easily connect with other tools.
Airtable is an incredibly flexible tool that can be used from something as simple as a Google Sheets replacement, all the way up to a no-code builder.
At a core, it's really just a user-friendly database, similar to that of Coda and even Notion (although those 2 apps both started as more of knowledge base tools first, whereas Airtable has always been first-and-foremost a user-friendly database).
If your team is still using Google Sheets (for things outside of company finance reporting like balance sheets, etc.), then we fully encourage you to check out Airtable and to give it a try. In most cases, it will completely replace the need for Google Sheets, Google Forms, Typeform, Jotform, and other Form software.
Believe it or not, over the past 8+ years, we've actually entirely replaced every single internal Google Sheet with Airtable alternative. Sometimes the structure needs to change slightly, but doing so unlocks so much additional functionality.
We've done this because it provides way more structure (it being a proper database), while also having an incredibly powerful API (for integrating and automating).
And that's where it has some no-code builder functionality, which means with the right guidance, it can even replace more complicated apps lite Submittable (more of an application management software).
As much as we don't recommend using Airtable as your CRM, we do believe it serves a place in just about every business. For instance, Airtable can serve as a fantastic database extension of your lead and customer info.
That said, we actually named Airtable as one of our 5 Best Copper App Integrations of 2023, so it still serves a purpose even when you're seeing how it might fit alongside your CRM needs.
Airtable is also not a project manager—please stop trying to use it as one 😅
On that note, if you're super tempted to use Airtable as your CRM and don't want a more fully-fledged CRM like Copper, you might want to try out Folk instead.
We love working with the Airtable API. It just does most everything you could want it to do, and it incredibly flexible and easy to work with.
You can simply create a new view within an Airtable Base, add filtered logic to it, and set it up so when a new record enters that view, an automation can be triggered. This allows it to be incredibly flexible.
With it ultimately just being a database at the end of the day and having such a powerful API, it is the most core tool in our stack. I don't think there's one customer we've taken on that we haven't used Airtable with for at least some aspect to their business.
Even if it's just more in the background as an intermediary database, doing data manipulation, allowing for us to more easily pass data between software.
With all of that said, there's a fine line between what it is good for, and what it's not good for. So it brings with it the same issues we've seen arise with tools like Notion and Coda. Determining when you should and shouldn't be using it is probably the most important thing to nail down when determining if Airtable is the right fit for your needs.
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