⚡ Quick Verdict:
- Pricing: Keap is $299/month (annually billed). Close offers Essentials at $35/seat/month, Growth at $99, Scale at $139.
- Best for: Keap suits small businesses that need marketing automation, landing pages and e commerce in one dashboard. Close suits sales teams that live on phone calls.
- Key difference: Keap combines customer relationship management with email marketing and invoicing. Close is a sales process tool built around built in calling.
- Our pick: Keap, rated 4.2 against 3.0, because it covers more of the customer journey for one monthly fee.
Keap and Close solve two different problems.
One automates your whole business. The other helps you dial faster.
Keap CRM bundles sales and marketing automation into one platform.
Close CRM strips the extras and focuses on outreach, calls and deals.
Picking wrong costs you months of setup. Here is how they actually differ.
Overview
This Keap vs Close CRM comparison covers pricing, key features and ease of use.
We reviewed documentation, pricing pages and user reviews for both crm platforms.
Our writers also spent hands-on time inside each app.
Those notes appear in the “What Our Team Noticed” sections below.
By the end you will know which tool fits your growth goals.
What is Keap CRM?
Keap is a customer relationship management platform for small business owners.
It was formerly known as Infusionsoft and rebranded around small business automation.
The platform merges crm, marketing automation and e commerce into one dashboard.
You get a sales pipeline, email marketing, invoicing and payment processing together.
That cuts the number of tools you pay for each month.
Keap automates almost every stage of the sales journey. Solopreneurs and mid-sized companies use it to manage customer relationships and automate their sales processes.
🏆 Winner: Keap
Keap offers a full sales and marketing automation stack in one place. Automation users report saving 10 hours per week. Start with the 14-day free trial.
Keap Pricing
Here is what Keap costs in 2026.
| Plan | Price | Best For |
|---|---|---|
| Keap | $299/month (Annually Billed) | Small businesses running sales and marketing from one dashboard |
Pricing verified August 2026.
⚠️ Pricing conflict: Our research file lists older Keap plans at $79, $169 and $199 per month for 500 contacts, plus $30 per extra user. Our verified data shows a single plan at $299/month (annually billed). Check the pricing page before you buy.
Free trial: Yes. Keap provides a 14-day free trial with access to all features.
Money-back guarantee: Keap sells a one-time Expert Coaching package for $499 with personalized training. Refund terms sit in the billing agreement, so read it first.
📌 Note: Keap plans are priced around your contact list size. The monthly fee climbs once your contacts pass certain thresholds, so forecast growth before committing.
Key Benefits of Keap
Here is what makes Keap worth a look:
- Time saved: Keap customers who use automation save 10 hours per week on average. They also report a 38% increase in revenue.
- Campaign Builder: A visual flowchart tool for building campaigns with drag and drop tools. Templates cover common sales campaigns out of the box.
- Email deliverability: Keap claims a 99.5% deliverability rate for email campaigns sent through the platform.
- Lead scoring: The lead score rates each prospect by engagement level. That helps you score leads and chase the ones close to buying.
- Business line: A dedicated business line for calls and texts keeps personal and work numbers apart.
- Money tools: Built-in invoicing, checkout forms and many payment processing integrations suit e commerce businesses.
- Onboarding: Every plan includes a dedicated customer success manager, free migration, training webinars and on-demand product training.
The homepage below shows how Keap frames its automation pitch to small businesses.
What Our Team Noticed
Our writer signed up for Keap and built a short campaign from scratch. Here is what stood out from that hands-on time:
Keap Pros & Cons
✅ Pros
- Combines crm, marketing automation and e commerce features in one platform
- Automation users report saving 10 hours per week and 38% more revenue
- Integrates with more than 2,500 third party tools
- Landing page builder, web form and checkout forms are included
- Free migration and a dedicated customer success manager on every plan
❌ Cons
- Pricing is high enough to deter brand new small businesses
- Costs rise as your contact list grows past each threshold
- The user community is helpful but not very active
- Expert Coaching costs an extra $499 one time
What is Close CRM?
Close CRM is a sales platform for small to medium-sized sales teams.
It helps startups create pipeline and close more deals faster.
Email, calling and SMS all land in a single inbox.
Sales reps can talk to prospects from the browser without a phone system.
That design cuts manual data entry and keeps the sales process moving.
Close is often compared to sales engagement tools rather than traditional crm options.
Runner Up: Close CRM
Close offers built in calling, texting and email in one inbox. A power dialer and predictive dialer help reps reach more leads daily.
Close CRM Pricing
Close charges per seat, so pricing scales with team size.
| Plan | Price | Best For |
|---|---|---|
| Essentials | $35/seat/month | Solo founders testing outreach and startup features |
| Growth | $99/seat/month | Growing sales teams that need workflows and professional features |
| Scale | $139/seat/month | Larger teams needing call coaching and advanced features |
Pricing verified August 2026.
⚠️ Pricing conflict: Our research file lists a Startup plan at $59 monthly or $49 annually, Professional at $109 or $99, and Enterprise at $149 or $139. Our verified data shows Essentials, Growth and Scale at the rates above. Confirm the current plan names at checkout.
Free trial: Yes. Close offers a 14-day free trial, and motivated teams often finish setup inside it.
Money-back guarantee: Close does not publish a blanket refund window. Support handles cancellations case by case, so ask before your renewal date.
📌 Note: The dialer and call coaching sit in higher tiers. A three-person team on Growth pays about $297 monthly, close to what Keap charges for the whole business.
Key Benefits of Close CRM
Here is where Close earns its keep:
- Built in calling: Reps dial straight from the browser or a mobile device. Reviewers call the phone calls feature best-in-class.
- Dialers: A power dialer and predictive dialer let reps dial multiple numbers automatically instead of clicking one at a time.
- Smart Views: Saved filters sort your contact list by criteria so reps work the hottest prospects first.
- Live coaching: Managers can listen in and guide reps mid-call, which shortens ramp time for a new sales team.
- Fast setup: A CSV import tool plus free one-click migration from other crms gets your data across quickly.
- Support depth: A help center, developer API documentation and product updates back the platform. Security is handled carefully.
The Close homepage puts calling and pipeline speed front and centre.
What Our Team Noticed
Our writer imported a test list into Close and ran a week of outreach. Here is what stood out:
Close CRM Pros & Cons
✅ Pros
- Best-in-class calling with dialing straight from the browser
- Simple enough to win full team engagement during onboarding
- Free one-click migration and proactive onboarding help
- Rated 4.7 out of 5 on G2 by users
❌ Cons
- Reporting is weak, which makes performance analysis harder
- Less customisable than rival crm platforms
- Integrates with 80+ tools but misses some common ones
- Per-seat pricing adds up fast for bigger sales teams
Feature Comparison
Both tools manage contacts and deals. They part ways on everything after that. Here are ten areas that decide the winner.
| Feature | Keap | Close CRM |
|---|---|---|
| Starting Price | $299/month (annual) | $35/seat/month |
| Free Trial | ✅ 14 days | ✅ 14 days |
| Marketing Automation | ✅ | ❌ |
| Landing Page Builder | ✅ | ❌ |
| Invoicing and Payment Processing | ✅ | ❌ |
| Built In Calling and Dialers | ❌ | ✅ |
| Call Coaching | ❌ | ✅ |
| Custom Fields | ✅ | ✅ |
| Integrations | 2,500+ | 80+ |
| Best For | Small business automation | Outbound sales teams |
1. Contact Records and Custom Fields
Keap: Every contact record holds notes, tags, purchases, invoices and email history in one view. Custom fields let you track whatever your business strategy needs. Keeping customer data in one system is the main reason owners move off spreadsheets.
Close CRM: Close captures all sales activity on profile timelines, so reps see calls, emails and tasks together. Custom objects and custom fields exist, though Close is not as flexible as other crms when you need deep structural changes.
2. Sales Pipeline Management
Keap: The sales pipeline gives a visual view of deals and lead management in one place. You drag cards between stages and trigger automated actions when a deal moves. Sales pipelines stay tidy without manual updates.
Close CRM: The visual pipeline is built to expose bottlenecks fast. Multiple pipelines let one team run outbound and inbound side by side. Smart Views filter leads by criteria so reps always know who to work next.
3. Lead Capture and Lead Scoring
Keap: Lead capture runs through a web form, checkout forms or landing pages. Lead scoring rates each prospect by engagement, so you can score leads and prioritise effort. Every new lead lands in the right sequence automatically.
Close CRM: Close has no native lead score. It ranks prospects through Smart View filters instead, which works for outbound lists but not for tracking a slow customer journey. An ROI calculator estimates what better follow ups are worth.
4. Automation and Workflows
Keap: The Campaign Builder is a visual flowchart for building campaigns using drag and drop. Advanced automations run on when-then logic across the whole sales journey. Automated tasks handle follow-up, notifications and analytics without anyone touching them.
Close CRM: Workflows fire automated follow-up reminders and sequence steps to lift reply rates. The scope is sales automation rather than sales and marketing automation, so it stops where the deal stops.
💡 Pro Tip: If your marketing automations need to run after the sale, Keap wins here. Close stops at the handoff and has no post-purchase campaigns.
5. Email Marketing and Sequences
Keap: Email marketing campaigns segment by tags, so messages match what someone actually did. Keap reports a 99.5% deliverability rate. Broadcasts, nurture email campaigns and cross sells all run from the same editor.
Close CRM: Email sequences and email templates support one-to-one outreach at volume. Bulk email exists, but it is built for prospecting rather than newsletters. Conversations, calls and texts share one inbox.
6. Calling, Texting and Meetings
Keap: A dedicated business line handles calls and texts from the Keap app, and the mobile apps mirror your desktop pipeline. It keeps work separate from personal contacts. There is no dialer, so heavy call days still mean manual dialling.
Close CRM: This is where Close pulls ahead. Built in calling, SMS and Zoom meetings sit in one inbox on desktop and mobile. Call coaching lets a manager join live, and reps can work multiple numbers without a separate phone system.
7. Landing Pages and Integrations
Keap: The landing page builder ships with templates and drag and drop editing. You can publish one landing page or connect multiple landing pages to different sales campaigns, then split-test them to increase conversions. Keap integrates with more than 2,500 platforms and tools.
Close CRM: There is no landing page tool at all. Close connects to over 80 third party integrations covering the usual sales stack, though a few common apps are missing. Running multiple landing pages means paying for another service.
⚠️ Warning: Check your must-have third party tools before you commit. The gap between 2,500 and 80 integrations decides this for many buyers.
8. AI Features
Keap: Keap AI drafts email copy from plain language prompts. It also suggests automations you have not built yet, which shortens the blank-page problem for owners who are new to building campaigns.
Close CRM: Sales AI summarises calls and suggests next steps for each lead. It is aimed at reps clearing a queue rather than at marketers writing content.
9. Reporting and Analytics
Keap: Pipeline reporting shows deal value by stage alongside campaign performance and conversion rates. Because e commerce data sits in the same system, you can trace revenue from a web form to repeat business.
Close CRM: Quick KPI reports cover activity and call volume well. Users say the reporting is the weakest part of the product, and custom graphs are limited compared with bigger crm platforms.
10. Pricing & Cost
Here is the side-by-side view.
| Tier | Keap | Close CRM |
|---|---|---|
| Entry | $299/month (annual) | Essentials: $35/seat/month |
| Mid | Single plan | Growth: $99/seat/month |
| Top | Single plan | Scale: $139/seat/month |
| Billing basis | Contacts | Per seat |
| Free trial | 14 days | 14 days |
Keap: One monthly fee covers the whole team, so adding people does not change the bill. The cost is priced on contacts instead. That is expensive for a brand new small business and reasonable for an established one.
Close CRM: Essentials at $35 per seat is the cheapest way in. Costs climb fast with headcount, and the features most teams want sit in higher tiers. Nine seats on Scale passes $1,200 a month.
Different Scenarios
| If You Need… | Choose | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Lowest entry cost | Close CRM | $35 per seat to start |
| Marketing plus crm | Keap | Both in one dashboard |
| High call volume | Close CRM | Power dialer included |
| Invoicing and checkout | Keap | Payments built in |
| Deep reporting | Keap | Close reporting is thin |
| Fast team rollout | Close CRM | Setup inside the free trial |
💰 Your Budget
A solo owner pays far less on Close Essentials than on Keap. Once you count a separate email tool and page builder, that gap narrows quickly.
🔌 Your Tech Stack
Keap plugs into 2,500+ apps, so it usually fits whatever you already run. Close covers 80+ other tools and expects you to bring your own marketing layer.
📞 Your Sales Process
If reps spend the day on the phone, Close was built for exactly that. If most deals close through forms and email, Keap fits better.
🎓 Your Experience Level
Keap is user friendly and can be live in about 20 minutes, with a success manager if you need assistance. Close wins on simplicity and full team engagement from day one.
🆓 Free Trials and Demos
Both give you 14 days at no cost. Import a real contact list and run one live campaign rather than clicking around an empty account.
🛟 Support Options
Keap gives 24/7 chat, email and weekday phone support for U.S. customers, plus training webinars. Close leans on its help center, API docs and proactive onboarding.
Switching Guide
Already on one of them? Here is what changes.
🔄 Switching from Keap to Close CRM?
✅ What you’ll gain:
- Built in calling with a power dialer and predictive dialer
- Call coaching for managers training new sales reps
- A cheaper starting seat for very small teams
❌ What you’ll lose:
- Marketing automation and post-sale campaigns
- The landing page builder and checkout forms
- Invoicing, payments and lead scoring
📋 How to switch:
- Export contacts, tags and deals from Keap as CSV
- Start a Close free trial and use the one-click migration
- Rebuild your email sequences and connect your billing tool
🔄 Switching from Close CRM to Keap?
✅ What you’ll gain:
- Sales and marketing in one system instead of two subscriptions
- E commerce tools, invoicing and automated cross sells
- Flat pricing that does not grow with headcount
❌ What you’ll lose:
- The dialer and the ability to dial multiple numbers hands-free
- Live call coaching and shared call recordings
- The single inbox that merges calls, texts and email
📋 How to switch:
- Export leads, custom fields and activity from Close
- Open a Keap trial and request the free migration service
- Rebuild your pipeline stages, then switch on automation
What Our Review Didn’t Cover
We looked at solo owners and small teams. We did not test large migrations, custom API work by a developer, or how either platform handles tens of thousands of contacts. Enterprise contracts and custom pricing were out of scope. If you manage a 50-seat floor, your priorities will differ from ours.
Final Verdict
| Category | Winner |
|---|---|
| 💰 Entry Pricing | Close CRM |
| 🚀 Automation | Keap |
| 📞 Calling and Outreach | Close CRM |
| 📊 Reporting | Keap |
| 🔌 Integrations | Keap |
| 🛒 E Commerce and Payments | Keap |
| 👶 Ease of Use | Tie |
| 🏆 Overall Winner | Keap |
🏆 WINNER: KEAP
Keap wins 4 of 7 categories and carries the higher editor’s rating at 4.2.
Best for: small business automation, e commerce businesses, owners who want one system instead of four
These are not really the same category of product. Keap is a customer relationship management platform with marketing bolted into its core. Close is a sales engagement tool that happens to store contacts.
Choose Close if your team lives on the phone and needs to reach more leads per hour. Nothing in Keap matches its dialer.
There is no single best crm here, only a better fit. But if you want automation, invoicing, landing pages and reporting under one login, we recommend Keap CRM for most small businesses. Our full Keap review breaks down the Keap features tier by tier.
More of Keap Compared
Here is how Keap holds up against other crm options:
Keap wins on: flat pricing that ignores seat count, built-in invoicing, simpler setup for owners without a marketing team
HubSpot wins on: a usable free tier, deeper custom reporting, a far larger partner and template library
Keap vs GoHighLevel
Keap wins on: a calmer interface, a dedicated success manager, better email deliverability claims
GoHighLevel wins on: agency white-labelling, unlimited sub-accounts for clients, cheaper cost per client managed
Keap wins on: native checkout and payments, phone support, an all-in-one sales pipeline rather than an email-first design
ActiveCampaign wins on: cheaper entry pricing, finer email segmentation, more testing options inside campaigns
More of Close CRM Compared
And how Close stacks up against rival companies:
Close CRM vs Pipedrive
Close wins on: calling and texting without add-ons, faster rep onboarding, stronger outbound sequences
Pipedrive wins on: lower per-seat cost, a bigger marketplace, more flexible pipeline customisation
Close wins on: setup measured in days not months, no admin required, a much shorter learning curve
Salesforce wins on: reporting depth, custom objects at scale, governance for regulated companies
Close wins on: a better dialer, cleaner activity timelines, quicker search across contacts and deals
Freshsales wins on: a free starting tier, built-in chat, tighter links to the wider Freshworks suite
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Keap used for?
It is used to organise contacts, automate follow-up and run email campaigns from one place. Owners also use it to send invoices and take payments.
Is Keap easy to use?
Yes. Basic setup takes around 20 minutes, and every plan includes a success manager. Building advanced workflows takes longer and usually needs the onboarding checklists.
How is Close different from other CRMs?
Most systems store data and leave outreach to other apps. Close puts calling, texting and email inside the record itself, so reps never leave the tool.
How much is Close per month?
Plans run $35, $99 and $139 per seat each month. A three-person team on the middle tier pays roughly $297 monthly before any add-ons.
What is better than Keap?
Nothing beats it outright. Close is better for call-heavy teams, HubSpot for reporting, GoHighLevel for agencies. For all-in-one small business automation, Keap still leads.
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