What Is Freshsales?
Freshsales is an all-in-one solution providing unified sales, marketing, chat and telephone capabilities. The Freshsales CRM works on a browser or mobile app, making it easy to reference or add to your contacts wherever you are. It’s also a fully customizable app, so you can change your dashboards to suit how you view your contacts or data. For these reasons and more, it landed on our list of the best CRM software for small businesses.
CRM Partners
1
monday sales CRM
Free; $12 per user per month for basic features
14 days
Yes
2
Salesforce
$25 per month per user for basic features
30 days
Yes
3
HubSpot
Free; $15 per user per month (billed annually)
14 days
Yes
4
Pipedrive
$14 per user per month (billed annually)
14 days
Yes
How Freshsales Works
Freshsales helps to manage your sales process more effectively by organizing, tracking and following up on leads while building customer relationships. The interface is clean and simple, and all of the important features and functions are easily accessible. With the all-in-one view capability, users can see all prospects and current customer touchpoints and past engagements.
One of the main differences, when compared to other platforms, is the way Freshsales handles lead tracking and management. Freshsales places a strong emphasis on AI-based lead scoring, which is built into your CRM software. Lead scoring helps you to prioritize leads based on their level of engagement and likelihood to convert. It ranks your business’s sales leads using explicit and implicit lead data. These leads are automatically fed into the CRM system from web forms, emails and chat.
Overall, user experience with Freshsales is generally positive, as most users find the system effective and easy to use. However, there are some nuances to the program as businesses may need to devote some time to the onboarding process in order to receive the full benefits. Some users report up to three days of training and customization and it may take some time to learn how to use the features. Businesses with more complex IT structures may encounter additional hurdles when it comes to more challenging integrations.
However, for sales teams looking for a straightforward and all-in-one CRM platform, Freshsales is a strong contender.
Is Freshsales Right for Me?
Freshsales is an easy-to-use CRM tool that’s priced low enough for small startups that need to budget wisely. The free plan is a great entry-level tool and as your business grows, you can upgrade to one of the paid plans for more usability. For more cross-team collaboration, you’ll have to integrate with other Freshworks products, or consider a more robust CRM solution.
Freshsales Is Best For:
- Businesses that need an all-in-one CRM solution to streamline workflows and reduce the need to switch between different systems
- Businesses that are new to CRM software and need a user-friendly CRM solution
- Businesses that want to save time and streamline their sales process with advanced sales automation
- Businesses that want to create custom reports and dashboards based on their specific business needs so they have insights into sales performance
- Businesses that want to make data-driven decisions
Freshsales Is Not Recommended For:
- Businesses that require advanced customization with very specific requirements, as it could be limiting
- Businesses that have larger sales teams that need to manage and customize the system for each individual user
- Businesses with complex integrations, as it may be challenging to set up
What Sets Freshsales Apart
The key difference with Freshsales is that it’s an all-in-one CRM tool, combining sales and marketing capabilities, chat and built-in phone. It has a robust free plan that lets you add unlimited users and support. It is best for high-functioning and fast-growing sales teams.
So, if you are a startup looking to scale your business, Freshsales’ free plan allows you to have access to features such as contact scoring, integration with Freshdesk and more. The great part is, as your business scales, you can switch to a paid plan with Freshsales without losing your data.
When compared to competitors, some do not offer a free plan and some may have limited capabilities with the plan. In that case, you’ll want to make sure you can upgrade seamlessly without losing any data.
Freshsales Features
Ease of Use
A key benefit to using Freshsales is its ease of use. The platform is designed to be user-friendly and intuitive. The interface design is clean and simple, making features and functions easily accessible. In addition, it is great for anyone who is new to working with CRM systems. Freshsales can be implemented quickly by your sales and marketing team. Implementation time is said to take around 18 days compared to other CRM systems that can take up to 72 days.
Customization
Another advantage of Freshsales is its customization options, allowing you to modify your CRM to meet your business needs. The system can be tailored to meet the specific needs of individual users, which is particularly useful for larger sales teams. Users can add and track custom fields, define workflows and set up specific rules for data entry and management. You can create activities specific to your sales process, track a prospect through their buying journey, create custom fields, groups and modules and even view data in your preferred language.
Features and Capabilities
Freshsales offers many functionalities for your business to succeed. With Freshsales, you can retrieve important information about your contacts, accounts and deals. It allows you to capture website visitors as leads and get insights on how to engage with more prospects. Freshsales also offers robust reporting, analytics capabilities and the ability to track deals, allowing you to predict revenue. Users can create detailed reports on their sales activities, track key metrics including conversion rates and deal stages, and get real-time insights on how well they are doing. This allows businesses to make data-driven decisions, boost productivity and optimize their sales process.
Workflows and Automations
Freshsales offers a range of workflow and automation features that are specifically designed to enhance the efficiency of businesses’ sales processes. By leveraging these tools, businesses can establish customized and automated workflows that trigger under specific conditions. For example, workflows can be set up to automatically send follow-up emails to leads, update lead status, assign leads to different team members and alert the team when particular events take place.
Additionally, Freshsales provides advanced automation capabilities through its Freshworks automation platform, allowing you to create complex workflows that integrate multiple applications and systems. These sophisticated workflows automatically update customer profiles in various systems when they make purchases, reducing errors and streamlining the sales process.
Third-Party Integrations
Freshsales offers a range of integrations with popular third-party tools and platforms. This allows you to have all your customer information in one place. Integrations include email sync capabilities with Gmail, Outlook and other email clients, as well as integration with marketing automation software such as HubSpot and Marketo. You can also scale with the Freshworks platform by integrating Slack, Gong, Google Workspace and many more. This makes it seamless to connect Freshsales with other tools and systems you may already be using.
Freshsales Pricing and Plans
| Free | Growth | Pro | Enterprise | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starting Price | $0 for up to three users only | $9 per user per month, billed annually | $39 per user per month, billed annually | $59 per user per month, billed annually |
| Contact, Account and Deal Management | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Built-In Chat, Email and Phone | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Al-Powered Contact Scoring | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Up to 2,000 Bot Sessions per Month | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Sales Sequences | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| One CPQ License | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Multiple Sales Pipelines | ✔ | ✔ | ||
| Time-Based Workflows | ✔ | ✔ | ||
| AI-Powered Deal Insights and Next Best Action | ✔ | ✔ | ||
| Up to 3,000 Bot Sessions per Month | ✔ | ✔ | ||
| Sales Teams and Territory Management | ✔ | ✔ | ||
| Custom Modules | ✔ | |||
| AI-Based Forecasting Insights | ✔ | |||
| Audit Logs | ✔ | |||
| Up to 5,000 Bot Sessions per Month | ✔ | |||
| Dedicated Account Manager | ✔ |
Free Plan
For up to three users, you can use the Freshsales Growth plan at zero cost. It’s an all-in-one place where you can jump-start your small and growing business for free. The free sales and marketing tools allow you to send emails, manage deals, monitor and track business performance and much more.
The free version is offered to those with new accounts signing up for Freshsales and Freshsales Suite, no credit card required. For existing users, you can sign up for a new account to use the free version. The free version allows only three users, along with 1,000 marketing contacts, but you can purchase more users and contacts anytime as well as any add-ons.
Growth Plan
The Growth plan is great for growing sales teams that want to avoid repetitive work and spend more time selling. It includes built-in email, phone and chat so you can engage with customers as well as track and manage deals in Kanban, timeline or funnel view. You can automate tasks, update records and trigger automated campaigns.
The Growth plan includes:
- Workflows – (20) Automate repetitive tasks such as updating records, emails, invoicing and more
- File Sequences Storage – Manage documents with 2GB (per user)
- Sales Sequences – Five automated steps (per user)
- Sales Sequences Email Limit – 500 per day (per user)
- Personalized Bulk Emails – 250 per day (per user)
- Free Bot Sessions – 2,000
- API Access – 1,000 per hour (per account)
Pro Plan
The Pro plan includes everything you need to manage multiple sales teams and grow revenue.
The Pro plan includes everything in the Growth plan plus multiple sales pipelines, more workflow automation, AI-powered sales insights and an integration with WhatsApp. All these features make it easier to nurture leads at the right time without manual effort, manage more than one pipeline and know which of your products or services is trending, so you can shift efforts.
The Pro Plan includes:
- Workflows – (50) Automate repetitive tasks
- Auto Assignment Rules for Contacts, Accounts, Deals – 50 (per module)
- Multiple Sales Pipelines – Create up to 10
- Sales Teams: Limit 50
- File Storage: 5GB (per user)
- Sales Sequences – 10 (per user)
- Sales Sequences Email Limit – 1,000 per day (per user)
- Personalized Bulk Emails – 1,000 per day (per user)
- Free Bot Sessions – 3,000
- Custom Roles: 50
- API Access – 2,000 per hour (per account)
Enterprise Plan
The Enterprise plan is the highest-tier plan from Freshsales, designed for larger businesses with more complex sales processes and higher sales volumes. This plan comes with advanced features, customization, governance, and controls including advanced lead scoring, custom reports, dashboards, multiple sales pipelines, territory management, and team-based selling.
You’ll get every feature from the CRM to help your sales team predict, respond and set up automated tasks. The Freshsales Enterprise plan provides dedicated account management, priority support and onboarding assistance. This can be helpful to businesses that are new to CRM or have complex sales processes.
The Enterprise plan also includes:
- Workflows – (100) Automate repetitive tasks
- Auto Assignment Rules for Contacts, Accounts, Deals – 100 (per module)
- Custom Modules: 10 custom modules
- Multiple Sales Pipelines – Create up to 10
- Sales Teams: Limit 100
- File Storage: 100GB (per user)
- Sales Sequences – 25 (per user)
- Sales Sequences Email Limit – 2,000 per day (per user)
- Personalized Bulk Emails – 5,000 per day (per user)
- Free Bot Sessions – 5,000
- Custom Roles: 100
- API Access – 5,000 per hour (per account)
Add-Ons:
Freshsales also includes additional add-on options. You can generate branded documents such as invoices, quotes, onboarding documents and contracts for an additional $19 per month and purchase additional bot sessions and automate chat flows for the price of $75, which includes 1,000 bot sessions per month. You can also purchase additional workflows to automate repetitive tasks, $5 for 10 workflows, and additional phone credits to make and receive calls starting at $5.
Customer Service and Support
Freshsales customer support is available by email, phone and chat. Freshsales chat support can be found at the bottom right-hand corner of your web page, account or in the Freshsales support portal. Freshsales phone, chat and email support are pretty quick to respond.
We contacted customer support through email regarding its integration capabilities and received an automated response from Freshsales stating that a new account had been created for us in the Freshdesk Portal. The response stated that in order to view and respond to our email, we would need to activate the account and use the support portal. Freshsales provided a link to register and activate the account.
In addition, a few hours later, we received an additional email response from a Freshsales product specialist in regard to the question concerning integrations. The response stated that there are no limits or restrictions on user integrations.
Some users also claim that getting help from the support team was near to impossible on the free plan but as a paying customer, the support received had improved. Other users report that customer support was frequently delayed and needed to be improved in regard to the use of the software.
Freshworks support toll-free number: 1-866-832-3090
Support email: support@freshsales.io
Sales: sales@freshworks.com
Additional Features Worth Noting
Context
Get a single 360-degree detailed view of your customers’ information with Table and Kanban views, an activity timeline, a details section and highlight cards.
Channels
Freshsales provides endless ways to engage with customers from the CRM including email, chat campaigns, phone and call routing, messenger, SMS integration and Zoom.
Automation
Automate repetitive and complex tasks through workflows, sales sequences, territory management, auto profile enrichment and IntelliAssign.
Deal Management
Close deals and grow revenue by building and tracking customized sales processes with multiple sales pipelines, weighted pipeline, configure price quotes, define and track activity goals, maintain your product inventory and connect with Slack.
Sales Intelligence
Enhance your productivity with AI-powered predictions, contact scoring, deal insights, next best action, sales forecasting, reports, dashboard and sales reports.
Customization
Personalize your CRM to fit your needs. Create custom sales activities, track contact life cycle stages, layout customization, and view and manage data in multi-currency and multi-language.
Governance
Define and add users to roles and permission levels to ensure data security. Manage and regulate role-based access, define and classify data in modules, configure permission, govern data access and audit logs.
Mobile
Run your sales from your mobile phone with call logs, voice notes and off-line mode data access.
Freshsales Alternatives and How They Compare
Freshsales vs. Zoho CRM
Both Freshsales and Zoho CRM have email management, chat and AI capabilities. Zoho, on the other hand, lacks the ability to reduce manual data entry versus Freshsales with the auto profile enrichment feature. Freshsales also has a built-in phone, but with Zoho, it can only be integrated with a third-party tool. Pricing plans are very similar but businesses that are looking to grow might prefer Zoho CRM, which is a fully equipped scalable CRM solution right out of the gate.
Freshsales vs. HubSpot
Both Freshsales and HubSpot are excellent CRM choices for small and midsize businesses. HubSpot is certainly in the higher price range but it is better built for growing teams. Freshsales has extensive AI capabilities that help you to reduce manual efforts, suggesting the next best actions while HubSpot’s AI capabilities are limited to lead enrichment and scoring.
HubSpot’s customer support is limited when it comes to users who use the free plan versus Freshsales, which provides phone, email and chat support 24 hours Monday through Friday to all users.
Freshsales vs. Pipedrive
Both Freshsales and Pipedrive hit the mark when it comes to managing contacts, accounts and deals and they both have a robust email management system. Freshsales, on the other hand, allows you to create and send sales campaigns and provides email engagement metrics. Freshsales and Pipedrive both have built-in phone functionality as well as standard reports and dashboards but Freshsales goes a step further by allowing you to buy phone numbers, set voice mail messages, transfer calls, mask calls and more. Pipedrive offers 24/7 live chat support with all plans and Freshsales offers phone, email and chat support 24/5 with all plans.
CRM Partners
1
monday sales CRM
Free; $12 per user per month for basic features
14 days
Yes
2
Salesforce
$25 per month per user for basic features
30 days
Yes
3
HubSpot
Free; $15 per user per month (billed annually)
14 days
Yes
4
Pipedrive
$14 per user per month (billed annually)
14 days
Yes
Our Expert Opinion
CRM software provides important tools to help your business grow. If you are struggling to keep up with business or looking to improve sales, investing in a CRM solution may be one of the best decisions you could make. It’s also important you choose one that is right for you.
Overall, Freshsales is a feature-rich CRM and its unique features and integrations make it a strong choice for businesses looking to improve sales and drive revenue.
If you are still uncertain if Freshsales is right for you, it might help to schedule a Freshsales product demo. You can do this by requesting a demo here. A Freshsales product consultant will walk you through a one-hour session showing you how you can improve your sales and marketing productivity. You can also learn all the ways to excel in your career by registering for the Freshworks Academy. Here, you can explore courses, get trained on skills, become a certified product expert and join a community of like-minded professionals from across the globe.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Is Freshworks the same as Freshsales?
Freshworks is the umbrella for a suite of tools, which includes Freshsales, a CRM tool developed for sales teams. Freshworks also offers tools for human resources, marketing and IT.
What is the best free CRM tool?
There are many CRM tools for sales teams that are free to use forever, or offer free trials, including Freshsales. Another option is to consider open source CRM, which is created with code that’s developed and available to the public, so it’s highly customizable. It’s also typically free CRM, or very low priced.
Is Freshsales a good CRM?
Depending on your business size and needs, Freshsales can be an excellent choice for your CRM needs. It’s intended for small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs), and it was specifically developed with sales teams in mind. You may want to first determine which type of CRM would make the most sense for your business.
