Tonic Desk vs Close

Close has the best dialer. We have everything else.

If your team lives on the phone, Close is hard to beat — Power Dialer, Predictive Dialer, voicemail drops, the lot. But if your team uses email, demos, and async sales (most teams do), Close at $99/seat is paying for a dialer you barely use. Tonic Desk Professional at $39/seat covers the rest.

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The dialer-pricing premium

Close was built for high-volume outbound calling. Every plan includes built-in calling — Base at $49/seat, Professional at $99/seat, Enterprise at $139/seat. If your sales motion is 200+ dials/day, that pricing is justified. If your team makes occasional calls and runs the rest through email and meetings, you're paying a dialer premium for unused minutes.

For a 10-person team on Close Professional, you pay $11,880/year. The same team on Tonic Desk Professional pays $4,680/year — and you can still integrate Aircall or Dialpad for calling at roughly $30/seat if you want a dialer.

The call-minute meter

Close's plans include a fixed monthly calling allowance per seat. Beyond that, you pay per-minute rates that vary by country. International outbound calls eat the budget quickly. Outbound to the UK, Australia, or DACH from a US-based team can run $0.05-$0.20 per minute. A team making 500 international calls a month adds $1,200+ to the annual bill.

Tonic Desk doesn't include calling — we won't claim parity here. We do integrate cleanly with Aircall, Dialpad, JustCall, and RingCentral. You pay the dialer vendor directly for minutes at honest rates.

The seat-only pricing

Close's pricing scales linearly per seat. There's no read-only viewer tier for executives who want pipeline visibility but don't sell. A 10-rep team with 4 execs wanting dashboard access pays for 14 Professional seats: $16,632/year.

Tonic Desk Professional includes free viewer accounts (up to 5 per paid seat) for executives, accountants, and ops stakeholders. The same team pays $4,680/year.

The reporting gap on Base

Close Base at $49/seat lacks custom reporting, workflow automation, and the call coaching tools. You jump to Professional ($99/seat) for those. Tonic Desk Starter at $19/seat includes basic workflows and reports; Professional at $39 adds custom reporting and unlimited workflows.

Feature	Tonic Desk Professional	Close Professional
Price per user	$39/mo	$99/mo
Contacts	Unlimited	Unlimited
Deal pipelines	10	Unlimited
Built-in dialer	Aircall/Dialpad integration	Included (best-in-class)
Power Dialer / Predictive Dialer	Via Aircall add-on	Included
Voicemail drop	Via Aircall	Included
Email integration	Included	Included
Email sequences	Unlimited	Included
Email open/click tracking	Included	Included
Workflow automation	Unlimited	Included
Custom reporting	Included	Included
Smart Views / Saved Segments	Included	Included
Free viewer seats	5 per paid seat	Pay per seat
REST API	Included	Included
Webhooks	10	Included
SSO/SAML	Business ($59/seat)	Enterprise ($139/seat)
Custom roles	5 roles	Enterprise only
Contract required	No — month-to-month	Monthly or annual
Data migration	Assisted (included)	Self-service

	Close Professional	Tonic Desk Professional
Per-user cost	$99/user/mo	$39/user/mo
10 users, annual	$11,880	$4,680
Built-in dialer	Included (capped minutes)	Aircall/Dialpad add-on (~$30/seat)
Viewer seats for execs	Pay for full seat	Free (up to 5 per paid seat)
Year 1 total (10 reps)	$11,880	$4,680
Year 1 savings	—	$7,200 (61%)

This comparison assumes your team isn't a phone-first outbound shop. If your reps make 100+ dials a day, Close's built-in dialer may be worth the premium.

Ready to switch from Close?

Most teams complete the switch in under 15 minutes.

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Close vs Tonic Desk

Looking for a Close vs Tonic Desk comparison? You're in the right place. Whether you search "Tonic Desk vs Close" or "Close vs Tonic Desk", the answer is the same: Tonic Desk gives you the sales CRM features you need at a fraction of the cost, with no hidden fees, no mandatory onboarding charges, and no add-on surprises. See our transparent pricing.

Can I import my Close data into Tonic Desk?

Yes. Close exports CSV files of leads, contacts, and opportunities — plus call logs and email history. Tonic Desk's import tool maps Close's lead/contact/opportunity model into our contacts/companies/deals model automatically. Call logs and email threads attach to the correct contacts. Read the full migration guide.

Does Tonic Desk have a built-in dialer like Close?

No. We won't pretend otherwise — Close's Power Dialer and Predictive Dialer are best-in-class for outbound. Tonic Desk integrates with Aircall, Dialpad, JustCall, and RingCentral. The user experience is "click a number, call places in the dialer, log syncs back to Tonic Desk." For most non-phone-first teams this works fine. For boiler-room outbound, stay with Close.

What about Close's email sequences and Smart Views?

Tonic Desk Professional includes unlimited email sequences with A/B testing, send-time optimisation, and reply detection. Close's "Smart Views" — saved filters over leads with custom sort — map cleanly to Tonic Desk's "Saved Segments" with the same filter model and refresh behaviour.

Will my sales reps need to relearn the workflow?

The conceptual model is similar: leads, contacts, opportunities, activities. The biggest behaviour change is the dialer — if reps lived inside Close's Power Dialer, they'll need to adapt to a Tonic Desk + Aircall (or similar) flow. The contact and opportunity views feel familiar within an afternoon.

Close has the best dialer. We have everything else.

Why teams switch from Close