Groundbase vs Close.com for a one-person business

Groundbase has one plan, and every feature in the app is in it. Close has four plans, and the parts that make a CRM follow up for you (workflows, bulk email, scheduled texts and emails, voicemail drop) start on the third one, Growth.

Close is the closest competitor Groundbase has, because both put calls and texts at the centre rather than bolting them on. I build Groundbase. This post is what each one does for a business of one person, which Close tier each thing needs, and where Close is simply the better pick. Prices and plans checked October 2026 on Close's pricing page, in US dollars.

One lead, start to finish

This is what a single lead looks like in Groundbase, with nothing outside the one plan.

Someone fills in the form on your website. A workflow tags them, opens a deal, and texts them from your number. They reply, and the text sits on their record next to the deal. You call them from the same screen; the call is recorded and transcribed if you've turned recording on. You send a quote with an accept link and a 30% deposit. They accept it and pay the deposit by card, straight into your own Stripe account. One click turns the quote into an invoice that already shows the deposit as paid. Your service agreement goes out as a PDF, they sign it on their phone, and it comes back with a signature certificate attached.

If they go quiet after the first text instead, the workflow waits three days and follows up. If they replied, booked a call or opted out in the meantime, the wait ends the run and nothing more is sent.

What you get in Groundbase

Everything below is in the $19. There's no Starter or Pro, no seat count, and no cap on contacts, deals, tasks or notes.

• Calling and texting. Two-way texts, scheduled texts, calls from the web, Windows and Android apps, call recording, voicemail with transcripts, voicemail drops, and STOP handling. It runs on your own Twilio account, which you pay directly: about a US$20 first top-up, a number for a couple of dollars a month, and roughly 1 to 2 US cents a text. What that comes to in practice.
• Workflows. "When this happens, do that." A form comes in, a deal moves, a tag lands, a text arrives, and the steps run: send a text or email, create a task, tag, update a field, call a webhook. A Wait step can stop the run if the person replied, booked a meeting or opted out. Why follow-up lives in workflows now.
• Voicemail drops. Record a message once. On a call that's heading to voicemail, pick the drop and Groundbase leaves it for you, so you don't say the same thing thirty times.
• Campaigns and newsletters. Email and text campaigns, drips that stop when someone replies, A/B tests of up to four versions, a daily send limit and a sending window, and lead-capture forms. Campaign email goes through your own Resend account, which is free to start and US$20 a month for 50,000 emails. Email and text campaigns in your CRM.
• Booking links. A Calendly-style page with confirmation emails, reminders by email and text, Yes/No/Maybe buttons, and reschedule and cancel links. You can also book a client in yourself, outside your usual hours if you choose. Two-way Google Calendar sync.
• Quotes, invoices and payments. Quotes with an accept link and a deposit, invoices in many currencies, saved items with a price per currency, recurring invoices, credit notes, receipts, payment reminders, and time tracking that bills onto an invoice. Card payments go to your own Stripe account, and Groundbase takes no cut. Invoicing inside your CRM.
• Documents and e-signatures. Upload a PDF, place signature, initials, date, text and checkbox fields, and send it. Signers don't need an account, can sign in order, and get reminded automatically. No per-envelope fee.
• Your own email. Connect Gmail, Outlook or any IMAP mailbox. Mail lands in an inbox inside the CRM, and you send from your own address with templates and merge tags.
• Your AI assistant, connected. More on this below, because it's one of the bigger differences.

Where Close puts the same things

Sources: Close's pricing and plan comparison, its MCP tool list, its help articles on scheduling links and bringing your own carrier, and its native scheduling announcement.

Read down the Close column and the shape is clear. Solo is a good calling CRM for one person. The follow-up half of Close lives on Growth. Groundbase puts that half in the one plan, and adds quotes, invoices and e-signatures, which I couldn't find on Close's plans at all.

Your AI assistant: drafting versus doing

Both products have an MCP server, so Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor can work inside your CRM. They're built to allow different things.

Going by Close's own tool list, its server can search, create and update leads, contacts, tasks and opportunities, and save an email as a draft. Nothing in it sends an email or a text; Close's description of the draft tool says the email "is never sent automatically." You open Close and send it yourself.

Groundbase's server can read and act. Search and filter contacts, update records, send texts and email, book meetings, create and send invoices, quotes and documents, run workflows. Nearly everything you can do in the app. Ask Claude to "text everyone tagged demo-requested who hasn't heard from me this week" and the texts go out through your Twilio number.

That's more power, so here's how it's fenced. Every tool that sends or deletes is labelled that way and tells the assistant to check with you first, and most assistant apps also ask your permission before they use a tool. Groundbase can't force an assistant to ask, though, so it also caps what an AI connection can send: at most 100 texts and emails an hour. A few things stay in the app on purpose: connecting Twilio, Google, a mailbox or Stripe, your subscription, card refunds, importing a spreadsheet, and making a document template.

A draft you approve is safer. Sending is faster. Which you'd rather have is a real question, and Groundbase gives you the second without a Groundbase charge for it. You use the AI subscription you already pay for. What that looks like day to day.

On Close, AI is metered in its own credits: 500 a user a month on Solo, 1,500 on Growth. Lead summaries, AI email rewrite and Close's assistant inside workflows are marked not included on Solo and Essentials.

The prices, stated plainly

• Solo. $19 a month billed monthly, or $9 a month billed annually ($108 a year). One user, up to 10,000 leads.
• Essentials. $49 a user a month, or $35 billed annually. Unlimited leads, team features, still no workflows.
• Growth. $109 a user a month, or $99 billed annually. For one person, $1,188 to $1,308 a year.
• Scale. $149 a user a month, or $139 billed annually.
• Calls and texts on Close are billed by usage on top: most outbound calls about $0.02 a minute, numbers from about $1 a month, texts passed through at cost. The Call Assistant add-on is $50 a month plus $0.02 a minute.

Close's trial is 14 days with no card.

If Close Solo covers what you do, it's the cheaper of the two on a yearly plan: $108 against Groundbase's $199. Month to month they're the same $19.

Groundbase is $19 a month or $199 a year. Twilio, Resend and Stripe's card fees are paid to them directly, and Groundbase takes no cut of any of it. The trial is 14 days; a card is taken up front and nothing is charged until day 15.

Where Close is the better choice

• A power dialer. Close Growth dials through a list for you, and Scale adds a predictive dialer. If you make fifty cold calls a day, that saves time on every one. Groundbase has no dialer of either kind; you click to call each contact.
• A team. Roles, permissions, lead visibility rules, live call coaching. Groundbase has one user and none of that.
• More than one pipeline. Close lets you run several. Groundbase has one.
• An iPhone app. Close has iOS and Android apps on every plan. Groundbase has no iPhone app; on an iPhone you use the web app in Safari.
• Calling with no setup. Close's calling works the day you sign up. Groundbase asks you to connect a Twilio account, which takes about fifteen minutes, plus a carrier registration for texting US numbers that takes days to approve. Here's that process.
• Meeting notes and reporting. Every Close plan includes a notetaker for Zoom, Teams and Meet, and its sales reporting has had years of work. Groundbase has a dashboard and call transcripts, and no meeting notetaker.

If those describe your working day, Close is probably the better tool for you, and I'd tell you that either way.

Where the number lives

One difference that's easy to miss. With Groundbase, your phone number sits in your own Twilio account, and the bill comes from Twilio. If you leave Groundbase, the number stays yours and keeps working. Close can route an existing number's incoming calls into Close, but its help page says outgoing calls still go through Close's network at its rates. I won't claim Groundbase saves you money per call; Close passes texts through at cost. What changes is who holds the number. How to leave Groundbase covers the rest.

What Groundbase doesn't have

• No power dialer. Click to call, one at a time.
• No teams or extra users. One person per account.
• One pipeline. Not several.
• No iPhone app. Web, Windows desktop, and Android installed from the website.
• No meeting notetaker, and simpler reporting than Close.
• Texting needs setup. Your own Twilio account, and for US numbers, a registration that takes days.

The decision

Pick Close if you make a lot of cold calls and want a power dialer, if you have a sales team or will soon, if you want an iPhone app, or if Close Solo already covers your work and you'd rather pay $108 a year.

Pick Groundbase if you're one person and want automated follow-up, campaigns, a booking page, quotes, invoices, e-signatures and an AI assistant that can act, all in one plan, without working out which tier holds which of them.

Also compared: Follow Up Boss, HubSpot, Less Annoying CRM and Bonsai. If you're not sure which side you're on, who Groundbase is and isn't for goes through it.

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Questions about this one? Email me directly: blog-close@groundbasecrm.com — I read every one.