Compare and replace · 2026
Close CRM calling cost: the credits, the dialer tiers, and the bill nobody quotes you
Last updated September 3, 2026
Close is one of the few CRMs that treats the phone as a first-class object rather than a bolted-on integration, and it deserves the reputation it has. But "calling included" means something specific here: the dialer is included in the seat, and the minutes are not. Most comparison pages quote you the licence and stop. This one carries the maths through to the invoice, and covers the one thing about Close's bring-your-own-carrier support that trips people up.
The short answer
Budget the seat plus roughly $19 of minutes per full-time caller per month. The Power Dialer starts on Growth ($99 per user annual, $109 monthly); the Predictive Dialer needs Scale ($139/$149). Outbound minutes run about $0.022 against Twilio's ~$0.014/min, drawn from a shared account balance that auto-recharges. Three reps at 100 dials a day land near $360 a month on Growth. And Close's BYOC is inbound only — outbound always runs on Close's network, so you cannot put your own Twilio underneath the dialing.
Which plan actually gets you a dialer
Every Close plan can make calls. Only two can dial a list for you, and that is the fork that decides your budget. Prices from close.com/pricing, checked September 2026.
| Plan | Annual /user/mo | Monthly /user/mo | Dialer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Solo | $9 | $19 | None |
| Essentials | $35 | $49 | None |
| Growth | $99 | $109 | Power Dialer |
| Scale | $139 | $149 | Power + Predictive Dialer |
The dialer is not sold separately, so there is no route to a Power Dialer on an Essentials seat. In practice any team doing real outbound is priced at Growth or Scale — the ~$99–139/user/mo band you see quoted for Close in comparison tables — and the cheap tiers are for account executives who call warm contacts one at a time. Note the annual-versus-monthly gap is small at the top ($10 a user) and large at the bottom, which is Close nudging small teams onto annual.
How the calling credits work
Close bills three separate things, and conflating them is where budgets go wrong:
- The subscription — per user, per month, annual or monthly.
- Telephony usage — calls, SMS and phone number rentals, drawn from a prepaid usage balance held at the account level, not per seat.
- AI credits — allocated per user with a shared account pool, and separate again from telephony.
The usage balance auto-recharges: when it falls under your threshold, Close tops it up in the increment you chose, up to a monthly spending limit that defaults to $100 per team. The recharge increment and the spending limit are different settings, which catches people out — setting a $50 increment does not cap you at $50; it just means you get billed in $50 steps until you hit the limit. Three full-time reps will blow past a $100 default, so raise it deliberately on day one.
Close's own documentation declines to publish a per-minute rate, pointing instead at Twilio's pay-as-you-go price list. What customers and reviewers consistently report is around $0.022 a minute for US and Canada outbound and about $0.013 inbound, with local numbers around $2 a month (checked September 2026). Verify yours in the billing screen before you model a year on it.
The same minutes, two rate cards
| Billed minutes / mo | Close (~$0.022/min) | Own Twilio (~$0.014/min) | Difference / year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 500 | $11 | $7 | $48 |
| 1,000 | $22 | $14 | $96 |
| 2,000 | $44 | $28 | $192 |
| 3,000 | $66 | $42 | $288 |
| 5,000 | $110 | $70 | $480 |
A roughly 55% premium over wholesale. On its own that is not outrageous — Close is carrying the carrier relationship, the compliance and the support, and every bundled-telephony vendor does the same. It only becomes the deciding number at volume, and it compounds with the per-seat licence rather than replacing it.
Three reps at 100 dials a day, all-in
Three reps, 21 working days, 100 dials each. A quarter reach voicemail — and a voicemail greeting bills a full minute the second it answers, whether you leave a message or hang up — and 8% reach a human for about two minutes. That is 2,583 billed minutes a month for the team.
| Route | Software | Telephony | Total / mo | Per year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Close Growth, $99/user annualPower Dialer included; predictive is not | $297 | $63 | $360 | $4,320 |
| Close Growth, $109/user month-to-monthSame features, no annual commitment | $327 | $63 | $390 | $4,680 |
| Close Scale, $139/user annualAdds the Predictive Dialer | $417 | $63 | $480 | $5,760 |
| DialSheet Pro + your own Twilio$29 covers 3 seats, not one | $29 | $40 | $69 | $828 |
List prices for comparison, not a quote. The last row is $29 for a 3-seat pack plus your own Twilio account at ~$0.014/min and ~$1.15/month per number, billed by Twilio directly with no markup added. The gap against Close Growth is about $3,492 a year, and roughly nine tenths of it is the per-seat licence rather than the minutes.
The BYOC catch: inbound only
Close does support Bring Your Own Carrier, and it is genuinely useful — but not for the reason cold callers usually go looking for it. Close's documentation states plainly that BYOC does not affect outgoing calls: every outbound call is still placed over Close's telephony network and metered at Close's rates, with your BYOC number simply presented as the caller ID. What BYOC actually does is route inbound calls from a number you already own (in Twilio or elsewhere) into Close, and let you operate in countries where Close does not sell numbers.
Setup is not self-serve either: you need proof that you own the number — a recent carrier invoice or a dashboard screenshot will do — and Close support issues the specific SIP forwarding rule to configure per number. Porting a number into Close is a separate process again.
So if your plan was to keep Close and slide a wholesale Twilio account underneath the outbound dialing, that route does not exist. The rate you pay for outbound is Close's rate. That is worth knowing before you build a business case on it, and it is the single fact most Close pricing articles leave out. Compare with the tools that do support it in dialers that let you bring your own Twilio.
What Close does that a dialer does not
A fair comparison has to say this out loud, because the tables above flatter the cheaper option. Close is a complete sales CRM and a dialer is not:
- A real pipeline. Opportunities with values, stages, forecasting and won/lost analysis — not a lead status field.
- Email at CRM depth. Two-way inbox sync, sequences, templates, open and reply tracking, shared team inboxes.
- Reporting managers trust. Activity comparison across reps, funnel and conversion reporting, leaderboards, custom explorer reports.
- A predictive dialer on Scale, which most tools in this price band do not offer at all.
- Custom objects, a mature API and a deep integration catalogue — the plumbing a 20-person revenue team eventually needs.
If your team runs its entire revenue motion in Close, the seat price is buying all of that and the dialer is a bonus. The comparison only tilts when calling is the job and the CRM around it is comparatively light — then you are paying a full CRM licence, per user, to get a dialer, and paying a premium on every minute through it.
When to stay, and when to move the calling
Stay on Close if your pipeline, forecasting and email sequences live there, if you need the predictive dialer, or if your team is large enough that a single system of record is worth more than the licence delta. Switching a working CRM to save on minutes is almost always a mistake.
Move the calling if you are a small team whose CRM needs are a list, a disposition and a callback reminder; if your Close bill is mostly seats for people who only dial; or if you want your numbers, recordings and carrier relationship in an account you own. Run the dials on your own Twilio, keep whatever CRM you actually need, and stop paying a per-user licence to press a button.
Wholesale minutes. Seats that are not priced per user.
Power dialing with auto-advance, a 2–4 line parallel dialer, recordings, transcripts and AI script scoring — on your own Twilio at ~$0.014/min, with no markup on a single minute. Free for one person up to 500 calls a month, then $29 for 3 seats. No card to start.
Start dialing freeQuestions people actually ask
How much does calling cost in Close CRM?
Calling is billed separately from your seat. Close's help centre says voice usage follows Twilio pay-as-you-go pricing rather than publishing a rate card; reviewers and customers consistently report roughly $0.022 a minute for US and Canada outbound, about $0.013 inbound, and around $2 a month for a local number (checked September 2026). Usage is drawn from a prepaid balance that auto-recharges, with a default monthly spending limit of $100 per team. A rep at 100 dials a day bills about 861 minutes a month, so roughly $19 of talk time on top of the licence.
Which Close plan includes the Power Dialer?
The Power Dialer starts on Growth, listed at $99 per user a month billed annually or $109 month to month. The Predictive Dialer requires Scale, at $139 annual or $149 monthly (close.com/pricing, checked September 2026). Solo at $9 and Essentials at $35 include calling but no dialer, so a rep on those tiers is clicking numbers one at a time. The dialer is not sold as a standalone add-on, which means an SDR team is effectively priced at Growth or above regardless of what else it needs.
Are calling credits per user or per account in Close?
Telephony usage sits in a shared account-level balance, not a per-seat allowance. Close bills three separate things: the CRM subscription per user, telephony usage (calls, SMS and phone number rentals) drawn from a usage balance, and AI credits, which are allocated per user with a shared account pool. The usage balance tops up automatically once it drops below your threshold, in the increment you set, up to a monthly spending limit that defaults to $100 a team. A busy three-rep team will pass that default in its first month and should raise it deliberately rather than discover it mid-dial.
Can you bring your own Twilio account to Close CRM?
Only halfway, and the half that matters for cold calling is not covered. Close supports Bring Your Own Carrier, but its documentation is explicit that BYOC does not affect outgoing calls — every outbound call is still placed over Close's own telephony network and metered at Close's rates. BYOC routes inbound calls from a number you already own into Close, and lets you work in countries where Close does not sell numbers. Setup requires proof of ownership and a SIP rule issued by Close support. If you hoped to put a Twilio account underneath your outbound dialing to pay wholesale, Close is not the tool for that.
What does three reps on Close actually cost per month?
At 100 dials a day each, three reps bill roughly 2,583 minutes a month. On Growth annual that is $297 of licences plus about $63 of telephony, so $360 a month or $4,320 a year. On Scale annual it is $480 a month. The same three reps on $29-per-3-seats software plus their own Twilio account come to about $69 a month — $29 of software and $40 of carrier — because the seats are not priced per user and the minutes are wholesale.
Is Close CRM worth it compared with a cheaper dialer?
Close is a full CRM, and a good one. It carries opportunities and a real pipeline, email sequences with inbox sync, SMS, meeting scheduling, custom objects and activity reporting, workflow automation, a mature API and a large integration catalogue, plus a predictive dialer on its top tier. If your team runs its whole revenue motion inside it, the seat price buys all of that and calling is one feature among many. If the calling is the whole job and your pipeline needs are modest, you are paying a CRM licence to get a dialer, and the metered minutes on top make that the more expensive half.
How do I stop Close calling costs from surprising me?
Model minutes, not dials. Carriers bill a full minute the moment a voicemail greeting answers, so a rep at 100 dials a day with a quarter hitting voicemail and 8% connecting for two minutes bills about 861 minutes a month, of which 525 are voicemail you never spoke to. Multiply by your rate, multiply by headcount, then set the account spending limit above that figure on purpose. Doing this before you sign is the difference between a predictable line item and a mid-quarter auto-recharge you did not plan for.