Close API review

What the Close API reaches

Close groups its reference by job, and the groups are a fair map of the product. Every object below is reachable on every paid plan.

The calling objects are the reason most teams pick Close, and they are also the reason its integrations look different. A sync that writes call outcomes back to another system reads the calls activity type; a dialer from elsewhere is unnecessary because the dialer is the product. Calling itself is charged on usage, at around $0.02 a minute, with lines from $1 a month.

Close API pricing, plan by plan

Close API pricing is seat pricing with the API included: every plan carries the same API access and event log, and what changes up the ladder is the dialer, the AI credits and the reporting.

There is no free tier. The trial needs no card and includes $5 of calling and enrichment credits, and an account that does not upgrade pauses rather than disappearing at once. Close also offers a 30-day money-back guarantee after purchase.

The add-ons are where a phone-heavy month grows. Call recording and transcription is $50 an organization a month plus $0.02 a minute, and calling and SMS are passed through at cost. The seat price is the floor of a calling team's bill, not its shape.

Per endpoint group, per key, per organization

Close API rate limits are published as rules rather than numbers, and the rules are useful. Each endpoint group has its own window, so a heavy read loop on leads does not starve writes to activities. Every request counts against both your key and your organization.

The Close API rate limits cannot be sized on paper, because the figures are not published, but they can be coded against correctly from the first line. Read the header, honor the reset, and keep one key per integration so the per-key limit protects the others.

How to create a Close API key

A Close API key is created in the app, under Settings, Developer, API Keys, and it is scoped to one user in one organization. Close recommends keys for scripts and internal integrations and OAuth for anything other organizations install.

For one company's own pipeline, a key on a dedicated user is the whole setup. The moment a second company's Close account is involved, it is OAuth, and retrofitting that later means reissuing every credential already handed out.

A first Close API call

The call below is Close's own example: confirm the key works by asking who you are, then read leads from the same base URL. Watch the RateLimit header on both responses, because it is the only place the numbers appear.

# who does this key belong to?
curl https://api.close.com/api/v1/me/ -u $CLOSE_API_KEY:

# then the leads endpoint group
GET https://api.close.com/api/v1/lead/

# on 429: sleep for rate_reset seconds, then retry

Where the Close API documentation lives

The Close CRM API documentation lives at developer.close.com, which carries the REST reference, the guides, the MCP setup and a public changelog in one place.

The client libraries are community-built rather than official, which matters when one falls behind the API. Close publishes a changelog and pages can be read as Markdown, which makes the reference easy to hand to an agent.

The MCP server takes the scope as part of the connection: mcp.read for read-only, mcp.write_safe to read and write, and mcp.write_destructive to delete as well. It speaks Streamable HTTP and accepts OAuth with dynamic client registration, or an API key in a header for a custom setup.

The MCP page lists Close's MCP access alongside the others in this directory.

Close's own product demo

Close publishes this on its own channel, so it is Close's account of Close, not ours. It is here because a rate card cannot show you the thing moving, and a few minutes of the product is faster than any paragraph on this page at telling you whether the shape of it fits yours.

Close's ten minute product demo from 2022, covering the inbox, data import, the lead view, search, automation and reporting. It shows the calling-first shape the API mirrors, but it predates the MCP server and talks about pricing that has since moved, so the plan figures on this page come from Close's current pricing page rather than from the video.

Published 4 October 2022 on Close, the channel Close's own pages link to, and read on 23 October 2026. Nothing in it is a source for a price or a limit on this page: every figure in the tables above comes from a Close page.

Strengths and limits

Close is narrow on purpose, and the API is strongest exactly where the product is.

The two columns describe the same choice. Close gives a calling team an API that already models its day, and it asks you to accept that the limits are discovered in the header rather than read off a page.

Who should actually buy this

Buy Close when the team sells on the phone and the integration needs to read or write what happens on calls. Calls, SMS and sequences are objects in the API on every plan; recording is a $50 add-on and predictive dialing starts at Scale.

Build against the header rather than the docs. Close will not tell you the number in advance, but it tells you on every response how close you are, and its rules keep integrations from starving one another. Use one key per integration and poll the event log rather than re-reading leads.

Against Pipedrive, the trade is calling against computability. Pipedrive publishes a token cost per endpoint and a daily budget you can model before you buy; Close publishes neither and gives you a dialer, an event log and an MCP server with scopes. A phone team wants Close and a team that integrates more than it dials wants Pipedrive.

Before you build against it

Four things to settle first, each one read off Close's own pages. The ticks are remembered in this browser, so you can come back to a half-finished integration.

If Close is not the answer

Four providers in the CRM and sync APIs listing that solve the same problem differently. Each one is a trade, and the trade is named.

The full set, organized by the reason people leave, is on the Close alternatives page.

Close against the obvious rival

Same rate cards, read side by side, with the arithmetic done on a worked volume rather than left to you: HubSpot vs Close, Attio vs Close, Close vs Pipedrive and Close vs Zoho CRM.

Every pairing in the directory is on the compare hub.