Salesforce Starter vs Close

One of these is the small end of the biggest name in the category. The other is a focused product for teams that sell by telephone. The interesting part is that the focused one has more room in it.

A general product cut down, against one built for a job

Close ships a power dialler, call recording and two-way email sync in the product itself, and makes custom objects and single sign-on available on ordinary tiers rather than holding them for enterprise. Close scores 4 for pipeline depth against Salesforce Starter's 3.

Salesforce Starter arrives already believing in leads, opportunities and forecasts, with custom objects, quotes, forecasting and single sign-on included and the largest partner ecosystem in the category behind it. Salesforce Starter scores 4 for integrations and Close scores 4 as well, so the ecosystem advantage is about who else knows the product rather than what it connects to.

Where each one stops being enough

Close scores 4 for scale headroom against Salesforce Starter's 3, which is not the direction the two brands suggest. The reason is what the next step is. Close publishes all four rungs of its ladder — nine, thirty-five, ninety-nine and one hundred and thirty-nine dollars — with both billing terms shown, so growth is a plan change you can price today.

Above Salesforce Starter, everything is a sales-led purchase. There is no self-serve rung, so the step up is a negotiation, and transaction fees apply on top of the published seat price in the meantime.

Close's own catch is the telephone it is built around: calling is charged on usage on top of the seat price, so a team that dials heavily should model that as a separate line rather than reading the seat price as the bill. There is also no free plan, and the trial carries only five dollars of calling credit.

Which should you choose?

Choose Close if your team sells by phone, or if you want a published ladder you can climb without talking to anybody. Choose Salesforce Starter if the ecosystem is the point — because your people, your partners or your other systems are already in it.

If neither the usage-billed calling nor the sales-led step appeals, Pipedrive includes calling at a fixed seat price and publishes every rung.