Nutshell vs Close CRM

Nutshell and Close CRM are two platforms designed to support sales teams, each offering unique approaches to customer relationship management. Nutshell combines CRM with built-in email marketing and sales automation, providing an all-in-one solution for small to mid-sized teams looking to manage contacts, pipelines, and campaigns in one place. Close CRM, by contrast, focuses on optimizing workflows for sales teams with tools like call tracking, email automation, and visual pipeline management. In this blog post, we’ll explore their key features to help you decide which CRM suits your business needs—or if Folk might offer a more balanced alternative with user-friendly contact management and customization options.

What is Nutshell?

Nutshell is an all-in-one CRM specifically designed to help B2B teams close more deals. It combines contact management, pipeline tracking, and email marketing tools to support every stage of the sales process, from lead generation to deal closure. With features like customizable pipelines, activity tracking, and seamless integration options, Nutshell also enables sales teams to stay organized, collaborate, and drive results—all within a user-friendly platform tailored for B2B needs.

Key features of Nutshell

• Contact management: Centralizes customer information and tracks communication history to keep teams organized and informed.
• Pipeline management: Customizable sales pipelines to track leads and deals through every stage of the sales process.
• Email marketing: Built-in email campaign tools that enable targeted outreach and engagement with prospects and customers.
• Activity tracking: Logs all interactions, including calls, emails, and meetings, allowing teams to stay on top of follow-ups and engagement.
• Reporting and analytics: Provides insights into sales performance, forecasting, and team activity, helping to make data-driven decisions.
  

What is Close CRM?

Close CRM is a sales-focused platform designed to eliminate the complexity of traditional CRMs, offering a streamlined and user-friendly experience tailored for small businesses with ambitious growth goals. Known for its intuitive design, Close provides robust features like automation to reduce manual work, built-in communication tools for faster follow-ups, and powerful integrations to fit seamlessly into any tech stack. Whether you’re managing leads, collaborating with a team, or scaling sales efforts, Close is built to save time and help small businesses succeed.

Key features of Close CRM

• Fast setup: Simple and quick to implement, allowing teams to start using the platform without delay.
• Intuitive interface: Easy-to-navigate dashboard tailored for speed and productivity.
• Built-in communication: Integrated calling, email, and SMS tools for seamless interaction with leads and clients.
• Automation tools: Includes workflows, smart views, and task automation to streamline repetitive tasks.
• Powerful reporting: Customizable sales and activity reporting for actionable insights into team performance and revenue trends.
• Team collaboration: Features like shared inboxes and task assignments to keep teams aligned and efficient.
• Secure and scalable: Designed with robust security and scalability for growing businesses.
• Integrations: Offers over 100 native integrations and Zapier compatibility to sync seamlessly with existing tools.

Nutshell vs. Close CRM: Feature Comparison

Let's break down the key features of Nutshell and Close CRM and take a closer look at their workflows, user experience and key features.

1. Sales pipeline management

Nutshell’s pipeline management is flexible with its versatile views including board, list, map, and chart – allowing users to track leads and deals through different stages. Its customizable pipeline lets sales teams organize and prioritize leads based on their specific workflows. Features like hot lead identification and customizable lead cards enhance visibility into deal statuses and priorities, aiming to simplify the sales process without unnecessary complexity.
Close CRM offers a streamlined, visual approach to sales pipeline management. The Powerful Pipeline View provides a clear snapshot of all active opportunities, enabling teams to focus on what matters most. With drag-and-drop deal management, users can effortlessly update lead statuses, ensuring a smooth and efficient sales process.

2. Ease of use

Nutshell offers a user-friendly interface with intuitive navigation, making it easy for teams to manage their sales processes. Close CRM, on the other hand, is designed for efficiency with a streamlined layout, providing quick access to essential features and tools, which may appeal to tech-savvy users.

3. Contact enrichment

Nutshell’s contact enrichment feature minimizes manual data entry by allowing users to import contacts, emails, and calendar events from various sources, streamlining the process of building and maintaining a comprehensive contact database. Close CRM does not provide its own contact enrichment feature. You can only access this using a third party application, which might incur an additional cost.

4. Outreach

Nutshell’s outreach feature includes built-in email marketing and automation capabilities for creating and sending campaigns directly within the platform. Close CRM integrates built-in calling, email, and SMS tools, enabling seamless multi-channel outreach, allowing users to manage communications without needing external apps.

5. Automation

Nutshell focuses on streamlining basic sales and marketing tasks with automation tools for follow-up emails and task reminders. Close CRM offers custom workflows to automate repetitive tasks and Smart Views for organizing leads, ensuring efficient management of sales processes.

6. Integration

Nutshell integrates with popular tools like Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, and Slack, enhancing its functionality and allowing users to manage emails, calendars, and communication within familiar platforms. Close CRM offers integrations with various tools to enhance sales workflows and streamline data management.

7. Artificial Intelligence

Nutshell’s AI integration enhances productivity with features like timeline summarization, aiding users in quickly sorting through historical records. Close CRM currently lacks AI integration, focusing instead on its robust communication tools.

Price and plans comparison

Let's take a closer look at the price and plans of both Nutshell  and Close CRM.

Nutshell prices

Nutshell provides a few price plans depending on your workflow, requirements and features needed. You have the option to choose from an annual or monthly subscription. The following is a high level overview of their annual plan.

• Foundation: $16 per user, per month.
• Pro: $42 per user, per month.
• Power AI: $52 per user, per month.
• Enterprise: $67 per user, per month.

Close CRM prices

Close CRM offers a monthly and annual subscription plan. The annual price plan is as follows.

• Startup: $49/user/month.
• Professional: $99/user/month.
• Enterprise: $139/user/month.

Introducing folk CRM: the best alternative to Nutshell  and Close CRM

Looking for an affordable alternative? We recommend folk. A multiple award-winning CRM platform loved for its easy-to-use, plug-and-play CRM system. folk can support multiple business functions including sales, recruitment, marketing and more. You can also use folk as a solopreneur, small to mid-size team, and large enterprise.

Key features

• Contact management: Bring all your contacts into one place seamlessly, from social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Instagram and X to multiple inboxes including Gmail and Outlook.
• Notes and reminders: Attach notes directly to a contact's profile in folk, and access them on the go. And assign reminders so you know exactly when to follow-up.
• Sales pipeline dashboard: Manage your entire sales cycle and leads with a highly customizable sales pipeline dashboard that can be used in Kanban-board view or listicle.
• Ease of use and customization: Easily customize the pipelines, dashboards, automation, email sequences, so that you can use it across your sales cycle and pipeline management – and other business functions such as recruitment, marketing, and more.
• Social media integration: Import people and companies from LinkedIn, Sales Navigator, Instagram, and X within a click thanks to folk’s Google Chrome extension.
• Contact sync from Gmail and Outlook: Full email sync enabling users to manage all communications directly from the CRM.
• Find email addresses in a click: Contact enrichment powered by Apollo, and Dropcontact so you can fill in missing data points with 1-click.
• Email sequences: Send email sequences with reminders if your leads don’t reply to your first emails. It includes an AI integration allowing you to personalize email at scale.

Price and plans

folk has a 14-day free trial. After that, there are affordable monthly or annual subscription plans. The annual subscription plan is as follows.

• Standard: $20 per user, per month.
• Premium: $40 per user, per month.
• Custom: Starts from $80 per user, per month.

Nutshell vs. Close CRM: What's the verdict?

It's apparent that both Nutshell and Close CRM offer robust solutions tailored to different business needs, with Nutshell excelling in B2B sales processes and Close CRM providing a streamlined experience for small businesses. However, for companies seeking a more personalized approach to relationship management, folk stands out as a flexible alternative. It combines ease of use with extensive customization options, making it an ideal choice for businesses looking to optimize their CRM strategy. Try folk today, free