Closely sells convenience. The leads and the sending live in the same tool, so you do not need a separate data subscription, and for a small team starting out that is a real advantage. It is also roughly where the product's ambition stops.
At a glance
Entry price
Conflicting figures: ~$133 Basic on aggregators, 490€–1,480€/user/month per a French reseller. No self-serve pricing page found.
Pricing model
Per seat, sales-led
How the AI writes
No generative writing documented. Outreach described as multichannel campaign animation.
Positioning
All-in-one omnichannel acquisition platform with a bundled B2B contact database.
The database is the feature
Buying contact data and sending from the same place saves you a subscription and a CSV export. For a solo founder running their first outreach, that is worth something. Bundled databases are broad by nature, though. They give you more contacts rather than better-matched ones, and nothing in the tool decides which of them deserve an invitation.
AI personalisation, metered in credits
Closely's pricing page sells AI personalisation as a metered credit rather than as a template library. We got this wrong before: our earlier copy described it as templates with variables, and that was not correct. The writing really is generated. The cap is on volume, since 3,000 credits a month on Croissance buys 1,500 AI personalisations, 5,000 credits on Essentiel buys 2,500, and those same credits also pay for email addresses and phone numbers if you spend them there.
Spruce writes per prospect from the profile, and there is no allowance to watch.
No qualification gate
Whatever you pull from the database goes into the campaign. Spruce scores every profile against your personas first and drops what does not fit, and that step matters all the more when the list came out of a bulk database.
Which to choose
If you need contact data and sending in one cheap package, Closely. If you resell outreach under your own name and would rather white label came included than bought separately, Closely again. If you already have your list, or what worries you is who gets contacted and what they read, then Spruce.
Side by side
| Spruce | Closely | |
|---|---|---|
| Connection requests included | 800 per month, on every plan. | No cap on invitations is published. What the plans publish is credits, and credits do not buy invitations. |
| What the plan actually meters | Seats, and the 800 connection requests that come with each one. Nothing else is counted. | Credits. Croissance adds 3,000 a month, Essentiel 5,000. The same pool pays for emails, phone numbers or AI personalisations: 3,000 credits is 750 emails, or 150 phone numbers, or 1,500 AI personalisations. What you spend on one is no longer there for the others. |
| Qualification before the invitation | Every profile is scored against the personas you declared. Profiles that do not match are dropped before the invitation goes out. | No scoring step is published before the invitation. |
| Who writes the message | Each message is generated for that prospect, from their profile. No allowance to budget. | AI personalisation, sold as a metered credit. The writing is generated; how many prospects it can cover is set by your plan, at 1,500 a month on Croissance and 2,500 on Essentiel. |
| Follow-ups | Also generated per prospect, inside the sequence you configured. | Sequence steps. Their pricing page does not say whether AI personalisation applies to follow-ups as well as to the first message. |
| Campaigns to build and maintain | None. There is no campaign object in Spruce. | Yes. The campaign is the unit of work. |
| Sending behaviour | Paced over the working hours you define, and public holidays are skipped. LinkedIn's own limits still apply. | No pacing rule and no daily limit are published on their pricing page. |
| Several LinkedIn accounts | Through linked Spruce accounts. Not several accounts driven from one workspace. | One on Démarrage, three on Croissance, five on Essentiel, ten on Custom at $350. Email accounts are unlimited on every plan. Adding LinkedIn accounts costs less there than adding linked Spruce accounts here. |
| White label | A separate offer at Spruce, not bundled into the plans. | Included on every plan, from $49. If you resell outreach under your own name, that is a straight advantage over us. |
| After the reply | Manual on Essentiel. From Professionnel, the AI sets the meeting through to the booking; you close. | You take it from the reply. |
| Price | 149€ per user per month on Essentiel, 124€ per month billed annually. 249€ Professionnel, 499€ Accompagnement. | $49 Démarrage, $127 Croissance, $205 Essentiel, $350 Custom, billed monthly, with 40% off on annual billing. Cheaper than Spruce at every tier. |
Closely figures are taken from their public pricing page, at monthly rates, and the plan names are the ones shown there. If you are reading this more than a quarter after publication, check them yourself.
Where they are strong
- White label is included on every plan, starting at $49
- One to ten LinkedIn accounts depending on the plan, and unlimited email accounts on all of them
- The bundled lead database converts credits into email addresses or phone numbers
- The interface is simple and readable
Where they fall short
- AI personalisation is metered in credits, 1,500 a month on Croissance and 2,500 on Essentiel, all drawn from the same pool that pays for emails and phone numbers
- They publish no qualification step before the invitation
- No invitation volume is published anywhere
- A small player with limited visibility
Our verdict
Closely is convenient and cheaper than us at every tier, and it writes with AI too, in whatever volume your credits allow. What it does not publish anywhere is a step that decides who deserves the invitation in the first place. That step is the part we sell.
Frequently asked
Closely starts at $49. Why is Spruce 149€?
The two are not sold on the same thing. Closely hands you the machinery and the credits: lists, sequences, up to ten LinkedIn accounts, unlimited email accounts and white label on every plan. Spruce does the qualification and the writing for each prospect instead, with no campaign to maintain and no allowance to budget. If you want the machinery and you are happy to operate it, Closely is the cheaper answer, and it will go on being the cheaper answer.
How many invitations can I send with each?
Spruce includes 800 connection requests a month on every plan. Closely publishes no invitation cap at all: their plans count credits, and credits buy emails, phone numbers or AI personalisations, not invitations. Neither tool changes what LinkedIn itself allows. That ceiling is the same on both sides, and it is the limit that actually binds.
Closely has AI too. Is this not the same thing?
It does have AI, and we described it wrongly for a while. Our earlier copy called it templates with variables, and that was wrong. Closely's pricing page sells AI personalisation as a metered credit, so the writing is generated and what the plan caps is the volume: 1,500 personalisations a month on Croissance, 2,500 on Essentiel, drawn from the same pool as email addresses and phone numbers.
What is left is where the AI sits. In Spruce it also runs before the invitation, since each profile is scored against the personas you declared and the ones that do not match are dropped. The message is then written from that person's profile, and so are the follow-ups, with nothing to meter.
What does moving from Closely to Spruce involve?
Less than you would expect, because there is no campaign to rebuild. You declare your personas, your sequence and your working hours. Your LinkedIn account and your existing conversations stay where they are, since they live on LinkedIn and not in either tool. What you built inside Closely does not come across, and neither do unused credits or a white-label setup.
When is Closely still the better choice?
There are three. If you are an agency and you need white label, Closely includes it on every plan while we sell it as a separate offer. If you run three, five or ten LinkedIn accounts and want them on one bill, Closely covers that from $127. And if budget decides, then at $49 to $350 a month, with 40% off on annual billing, Closely sits below us at every tier and no argument changes that.
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