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Freshworks CRM Review and Pricing

Nadia Reckmann
Written by: Nadia Reckmann, Senior AnalystUpdated Apr 10, 2024
Shari Weiss,Senior Editor
Business.com earns commissions from some listed providers. Editorial Guidelines.
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Editors Score:9.3/10
Freshsales' extensive business analytics toolkit, sales enablement, and team collaboration features make it our pick for the best CRM for sales managers.
Thumbs Up Pros
  • Sales managers can streamline operations using customizable dashboards, accelerate sales with AI-powered playbooks and templates, and automate who gets leads according to experience, recent performance, and area of expertise.
  • Freshsales offers a built-in dialer, chat widget and social media integrations on all plans. This helps centralize all customer interactions and drive more leads.
  • Customer support is extremely responsive, with the chat option available straight from the app.
Thumbs Down Cons
  • The Freshsales CRM's lowest tier doesn't include some important features like multiple pipelines and custom reports.
  • New CRM users may be amazed but overwhelmed by the number of features and available customizations. To reduce costs and complexity, consider focusing on core needs first before expanding functionality.
  • The CPQ module is only available as a paid add-on, with a price tag of $19 per user, per month. This can quickly become pricey for larger businesses.
Freshsales logo
Editor's Rating9.3/10

Sales managers are tasked with effectively monitoring sales activity and their team’s performance, and top CRM software is crucial to their success. Freshsales – the Freshworks’ CRM solution — is an ideal solution for sales managers. It provides robust, AI-powered analytics tools to help them build and guide the customer journey, from first contact with a lead to the close of the sale. Freshsales can help businesses conduct email marketing campaigns, manage and successfully convert leads, close deals, communicate with prospects through the channel of their choice, automate workflows and repetitive tasks, and effortlessly track quotes and invoices — all while keeping an eye on the big strategic picture and without breaking the bank. 

Freshsales CRM Editor's Rating:

9.3 / 10

Pricing/value
9/10
Features
9.6/10
Customization, add-ons and integrations
9.1/10
Ease of use
9.3/10
Customer service
9.5/10

Why We Chose Freshsales as the Best CRM for Sales Managers

Freshsales includes all the core CRM features businesses need to manage and support customer relationships, including contact, account and deal management, lead generation, and omnichannel client communication. While many rival CRMs we reviewed offer territory and team management, Freshsales goes a step further. It allows managers to create team-specific sales workflows, sequences, reports, tasks and appointments. It can even automatically redirect calls and chats to specific teams, ensuring smooth and relevant client conversations. Freshsales can also help managers create group-specific chats and set individual and team-level goals. These valuable tools are why we chose Freshsales as the best CRM software for sales managers.

Freshsales is a stand-alone CRM that’s part of the Freshworks company, which also offers marketing, customer success, IT management and HR platforms. It’s available in over 30 languages and supports over 150 currencies. Businesses seeking a holistic sales solution may want to consider the company’s Freshsales Suite, which encompasses CRM software, marketing services, an integrated business phone system, website tracking and email marketing, as well as social media, WhatsApp and SMS campaigns. 

Freshsales customer dashboard

The Freshsales customer dashboard provides detailed information about each client. Source: Freshworks

Ease of Use

We were impressed by Freshsales’ user-friendly interface — particularly in light of the software’s complex functionality — including AI-powered sales tools, advanced sales management features, a cloud-based phone system and a chat solution. The initial setup is quick and easy. As long as they don’t need in-depth CRM customization from the get-go, most business owners and their teams will learn the software without extensive training or voluminous instruction manuals. 

Here are a few elements we felt added to the solution’s ease of use:

  • Online resource library. We were pleased to note the vendor’s extensive online resource library. Click on the question mark icon at the bottom right to go to the online knowledge base, which includes over 140 categories with detailed tours of the software’s tools and features. You can also use a quick search function to pull up the needed support information.
  • Customer support. We also appreciated that all plans include 24/5 phone, email and chat support, with the chat response time of under 2 minutes. 
  • Activities dashboard. We loved that the dynamic Activities dashboard displays your appointments, pending tasks, quick links for easy navigation, and other important information on a single screen. That way, it’s easy to plan your workday without overlooking critical details.
  • Dashboard customization. You can customize all user dashboards to display the information you require. We liked that multiple dashboards and reports are displayed as visual tabs, allowing for easy navigation.  
  • Sidebar navigation. We also like that sidebar navigation buttons let you drill down to current deals, contact and account databases, recent conversations, workflow automation tools, and in-depth sales reports in just a few clicks.
  • The ‘Add’ button. We loved the highly visual plus icon at the top of the interface. It allows you to not only quickly add contacts, deals, products and quotes, but also set a next sales action, send an email or SMS, and launch an entire sales sequence. These handy shortcuts can save both managers and sales reps valuable time. 
  • Easily add apps and integrations. We were impressed by how easy it is to download apps and integrations via the Freshworks Marketplace. There are 17 app categories, including agent productivity, lead generation, lead intelligence and marketing automation. Many apps are from Freshworks; however, other software companies have developed plug-ins, including Trello, Asana, Google and Stripe (the payment processor — read our review of Stripe to learn more about this tool). Freshsales also offers a number of connector apps to sync with third-party services, including other CRM providers like Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive and Zoho CRM, making it a good solution for larger companies with multiple systems.  

Freshsales is an excellent choice for first-time CRM users. However, experienced teams will also appreciate how simple it is to import data from other popular CRMs or from CSV and XLSX data files, as well as connect your favorite apps and tools.

Freshsales email

Freshsales makes it easy to connect to your email provider, with shortcuts for Gmail, Microsoft Outlook, and Zoho. Source: Freshworks

TipBottom line
Set up team-wide custom lead scoring rules by going to Admin Settings > Predictive Contact Scoring. The score will display on the Contacts dashboard and allow you to quickly filter and prioritize leads that are more likely to close.

Freshsales Features

Specific CRM features are necessary for smooth operations. Fortunately, Freshsales offers all those components and more. This brings businesses numerous CRM software benefits.

Reporting and Analytics

Sales managers and business owners must keep a close eye on sales performance. We were impressed that Freshsales’ robust reporting functionality allows sales leaders to turn data analytics into visual dashboards to get insights into the most effective sales activities, their team’s workload, top performers, sales trends and forecasts, and much more. We appreciated the simple drag-and-drop functionality that allows managers to create custom reports and dashboards. Users can choose from numerous available widgets and report templates or create one from scratch. We particularly liked the Curated Reports feature, which provides managers with a number of pre-configured reports, including an E-commerce Marketing Journey report, which will be helpful for e-commerce businesses. We also liked that the system offers a quick tour that showcases the key reporting features and provides links to more in-depth walkthroughs. 

Unlike many other CRMs that focus on individual performance, Freshsales also offers team- and territory-based reports on its Pro and higher levels — a unique feature we particularly liked. These reports give managers the essential information they need to make informed business decisions. We also appreciated how easy it is to share the reports with other team members, allowing sales managers to select the level of access. 

If you’re using the Freshsales Suite, you can access an unbeatable combination of sales and marketing reports that demonstrate how well your teams work together and also identify potential productivity gaps. The sales reports offer insights into sales cycles and trends, while the marketing reports provide key metrics like campaign performance, customer behavior, and overall engagement rate.

Freshsales reporting

Freshsales offers a number of curated reports developed by their in-house experts. Source: Freshworks

Omnichannel Communication

Many CRM platforms, including Freshsales, integrate communication features into their platforms instead of relying on plug-ins. We appreciate how well Freshsales has integrated omnichannel communications into its system to offer email, telephony, social media messaging, live chat, private messaging apps, chatbots and SMS marketing to users. Integrated communication tools boost productivity for sales personnel and give marketers a dedicated area where they can improve campaigns and deliver more qualified leads to your sales team.

Here’s a look at Freshsales’ omnichannel communication tools:

  • We were impressed with Freshsales’ email capabilities. All paid and free plans include two-way email sync and email templates. You can send up to 250 bulk emails daily on Freshsales’ lowest tier, with the number going up to 5,000 at the Enterprise level. Most CRMs we evaluated had far less generous email allotments. We also like that you can schedule, send and track bulk emails and have access to a bank of customizable templates. Email marketing is a powerful tool, and we appreciate that Freshsales treats it as such. We also appreciated the Freshsales’ Team Inbox feature, which brings all client communication in one place, allowing sales reps to spot any inquiry that went unanswered and sales managers to assign conversations to the most qualified team member. This greatly boosts productivity and drives collaboration. 
  • Social media. We really liked the Freshsales social media tool. You can plan and publish organic and paid content and track content performance and your click-through rates (CTR). This functionality is part of the Freshmarketer suite — a companion product to Freshsales. There’s a free tier you can add to your Freshsales account; however, you may get more value by subscribing your social media manager to a higher tier for more functionality. We also liked the platform’s smart integration with LinkedIn tools like Sales Navigator and Lead Gen Forms, as well as its ability to set LinkedIn-specific tasks as part of sales sequences. This helps centralize business communication and boost lead generation efforts.
  • Other communication channels. We were pleased that all paid subscription levels let you communicate with customers by SMS, Facebook Messenger, Instagram DM, WhatsApp, LINE and Google Business Messages. We particularly appreciated the system’s ability to send SMS in bulk — something that we haven’t seen in other providers. Sales managers can also configure SMS-related workflows and, for example, notify both a contact and a deal owner of the upcoming renewal payment by SMS. All messages, when tagged to a person or contact, are recorded in their client history. We also like that the web chatbot function can create new records and amend existing ones in the CRM according to the contact details given by site visitors. 
Freshsales LinkedIn

Freshsales allows users to include LinkedIn-specific tasks as part of sales workflows. Source: Freshworks

FYIDid you know
Like Freshsales, Zoho features integrated omnichannel communication in its CRM. Read our review of Zoho to learn more.

Built-in Phone Functionality and Automation

Sales teams spend a lot of time on the phone, so investing in a CRM with built-in calling capabilities makes sense. Some CRMs — like Freshsales and Zoho — have built-in telephony systems. Other CRM solutions rely on third-party apps for telephony functions. (Read our review of Oracle NetSuite to learn how third-party telephony works in a CRM.)

We like that Freshsales lets you either use your existing business phone number or purchase a new toll-free or easy-to-remember vanity number from one of over 90 countries. When calling, sales reps can view the contact’s information and previous interactions recorded in the CRM, so they can ensure a tailored approach and build better relationships. The integrated call-recording function, available on all plans, documents your inbound and outbound calls for future reference. You can also use these calls as examples when coaching and training your sales agents. We also liked that you can pre-record your voicemails, saving time and improving efficiency.

Freshsales’ interactive voice response (IVR) system automatically greets and routes callers based on their keypress input or voice commands. You can send incoming calls to a call queue, agent extension, voicemail or a phone tree with additional options, such as the retention department or an after-hours emergency hotline. We appreciated that Freshsales includes call-specific reports, allowing sales managers to review call metrics and evaluate individual sales reps’ performance. We also liked that you can connect Freshsales to your existing VoIP phone system via a marketplace app or a REST API connection if you prefer.

TipBottom line
Other features like warm transfers, power dialer, advanced call queues and conference calling are available on higher-tier subscription packages.
Freshsales call history

Freshsales can display your call history and allow direct dial-out. Source: Freshworks

E-Commerce Integration

E-commerce businesses often have trouble finding a CRM system that can handle their unique processes and needs; only a few solutions offer dedicated e-commerce features, modules and integrations. Freshsales is one of those rare exceptions. We like that you can easily communicate with customers by sending SMS, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp or Apple Business messages right from Freshsales, so no query remains unanswered. 

We particularly liked that Freshsales has a Configure, Price, Quote (CPQ) module, which allows team members to add products and documents to easily generate and send branded quotes and contracts to customers. It also includes a built-in e-signature functionality. This saves time on data entry and standardizes the process across the company. The Freshsales CPQ feature costs $19 per user per month, but one free license is available on all paid plans, so users can evaluate the functionality prior to buying. We appreciated that the quotes can also include subscriptions, which is particularly important for SaaS companies and other businesses that operate on a recurring revenue model. 

Freshsales Suite users can also benefit from a customizable Shopify integration to sync customer data across the two platforms, run targeted marketing campaigns, hold live conversations, and set up chatbot flows. 

Freshsales CPQ

The Freshsales CPQ module allows team members to add products and documents, which are used to generate and send out quotes and contracts. Source: Freshworks

Did You Know?Did you know
CPQ features are becoming more common on CRM systems. To see how other platforms integrate CPQ, check out our Zendesk CRM review and our review of Pipedrive CRM.

AI-Powered Assistant

We were impressed by Freddy AI, Freshsales’ artificial intelligence tool. Freddy offers an objective analysis of sales efforts and strategies to help your sales team make better business decisions. It gathers data from sales activity and engagement, chatbots, customer tracking tools, notes, sales pipelines and more to generate reports. Then, it recommends the next best steps to increase your team’s chances of successfully closing a deal. Freddy can also help generate sales emails and customer messages, as well as tailor their tone to match the overall conversation.  

Freddy also learns from the data stored in your CRM to forecast deal outcomes. It uses predictive lead scoring to identify the best prospects and leads in your sales pipelines. We liked how easy it is to spot the lead’s score, with Freddy using a familiar star rating system to indicate the customer’s fit. The AI is also transparent in its lead scoring, highlighting the factors behind the rating. Freddy can also flag stalled deals with an “at risk” tag, so no potential issues slip through the cracks. However, unlike some of its competitors, Freshsales doesn’t currently offer a ChatGPT-like AI view that can pull up or summarize CRM information. While this functionality is partially available in Freshworks’ customer service product, Freshdesk, there are currently no plans to deploy it in Freshsales CRM. 

TipBottom line
Read our review of Salesforce CRM to learn about its Einstein advanced AI tool, so you can compare and contrast Freddy's AI capabilities with Einstein’s.
Freshsales lead scoring

Freshsales uses a transparent, AI-powered lead scoring system, using numerous factors and presenting the score as a star rating. Source: Freshworks

Workflow Automation

Automating routine, repetitive tasks frees your sales agents to focus on closing the deal and ensures consistent workflows across teams. 

We were pleased to see that you can use Freshsales’ automation function to send emails at precisely the right time in the customer journey, update customer records, create tasks, and move deals through pipeline stages. You can also notify team members, managers and entire teams of important changes in the contact or deal’s status using their communication tool of choice. The function can even surface warm and cold leads for follow-up before the opportunity disappears. 

We also liked the provider’s Battlecards functionality, which allows managers to create comprehensive reference materials that sales reps can use to handle customer objections, quickly provide background information, or highlight their company’s benefits as opposed to the competition. Managers can choose from multiple editable templates or create battlecards from scratch. Freshsales’ AI can help generate the materials using available CRM and online data and suggest relevant battlecards for sales reps to use in real time.  

FYIDid you know
Freshsales’ AI can recognize when a contact is ‘out of office’ based on their auto-response email, tag them, and display a pop-up, allowing sales reps to schedule a timely follow-up.
Freshsales battlecards

Freshsales’ battlecards are grouped into multiple categories, allowing you to easily find the needed reference materials. Source: Freshworks

Freshsales Pricing

Freshsales offers various service levels. We like that there’s a Free plan that includes contact, deal and task management; two-way email sync; email templates; website tracking; a mobile app; and built-in phone and chat solutions. The free tier is available for up to three users and can be a good solution for smaller businesses. A generous 21-day free trial provides access to all of the CRM’s features, including Enterprise-level functionality.  Not every CRM includes a free tier and an unrestricted free trial.

The prices we’ve listed below are for annual billing; however, month-to-month billing is also available at a slightly higher monthly cost. Freshsales charges no setup or implementation fees.

  • Growth: $9 per user per month. This plan includes everything in the Free plan, plus custom fields, automated workflows, a team inbox, a product catalog, visual sales pipeline management, custom dashboards, call recording, chat auto-assignment, limited automation, messaging integrations, and file storage of 2GB per user.
  • Pro: $39 per user per month. This plan includes everything in the Growth plan, plus custom sales activities, advanced workflows, custom reports, sales teams, auto-assignment rules, territory management, sales sequences, multiple pipelines, sales forecasting, AI-powered contact scoring and deal insights, power dialer, and file storage of 5GB per user.
  • Enterprise: $59 per user per month. This plan includes everything in the Pro plan, plus automatic profile enrichment, custom modules,  field-level permissions, automatic contact profile enrichment, deal teams, holiday call routing, AI-powered deal forecasting insights, advanced sales metrics, audit logs, 5,000 bulk emails per user per day, file storage of 100GB per user, and a dedicated account manager.
  • Add-ons: Pricing varies. Optional features include additional workflows, chatbot sessions, phone credits, website conversion rate optimization, and a CPQ module.

Businesses that need both sales and marketing features in their CRM would benefit from choosing the Freshsales Suite. Its pricing ranges between $9 and $59 per user per month, with support for 1,000 marketing contacts and the opportunity to purchase more. Depending on the plan, Freshsales Suite comes with several email marketing campaigns, webhooks, live tracking and landing pages. Considering that the price of the Suite is the same as the individual CRM product, it can be a cost-effective solution for larger or multi-team businesses. However, given the increased number of features, implementing such a product can be more challenging and time-consuming.  

Onboarding and Implementation

We like that setting up the Freshsales CRM is a straightforward process supported by extensive online walk-throughs, in-app tutorials and interactive feature tours, and support documentation. However, the time it takes to implement and deploy the software depends on your plan, required customization level and add-ons. For instance, the Pro and Enterprise plans — which have advanced customization capabilities — will take longer to deploy than the Free or Growth plans, which have basic sales functionality.

To make onboarding and implementation easier, we recommend setting up the most basic features first, including phone numbers, email accounts, mission-critical business app integrations, and user roles and permissions. Next, set up customer data management. Migrate data from your previous CRM, if applicable, or import customer data spreadsheets to populate the contact database. Then you’ll be ready to onboard users, configure additional settings, create workflows, and fully use the CRM. We liked that Freshsales makes it easy to set up the essential features and processes by including a setup guide with helpful shortcuts, pinned to the top of the screen.  

We were surprised that Freshsales doesn’t advertise the available paid onboarding services, but upon request, the company’s customer support representative was able to direct us to an account manager for additional details. The provider offers Platinum and Enterprise onboarding packages and a number of onboarding sessions that vary depending on your plan. The onboarding services are free on the Pro plan with 10 users or more and on the Enterprise plan, with a minimum of six users. 

However, since all plans include 24/5 phone, email and chat support to troubleshoot CRM implementation issues, the setup process shouldn’t be daunting. The Enterprise plan gives you a dedicated account manager for personalized assistance — an investment that may be worth it for business owners concerned about whether their in-house marketing team and tech team will need setup help. 

TipBottom line
If you’re looking for more personalized support to get started, you can request a one-on-one Freshsales demo straight from the in-app Help chat. You can also enroll in a premium 16-week onboarding program if you're switching CRM systems or have more extensive needs.

Customer Support

We were impressed with Freshsales’ customer support, available 24 hours a day on weekdays. Accessing the in-app chat is easy and straightforward. Unlike many other CRMs we reviewed, Freshsales connected us straight to a service agent, rather than a chatbot, within 2 minutes. However, receiving an email response from a customer service representative took somewhat longer. That said, we liked that Freshsales allows you to use the chat to request a demo, inquire about pricing, and provide feedback about the product. 

Similar to other providers, all service plans include access to an extensive knowledge base with how-to guides on everything from general setup to creating multiple sales pipelines. We liked that you can pull up the required information on a specific topic straight from the app. You can also submit an online ticket for additional help, email the customer support team, or use a toll-free phone number. 

Limitations 

Freshsales offers many features that businesses and their sales managers will find useful. However, we did identify some limitations. 

  • Pricing plans could be more balanced. We felt that Freshsales’ pricing plans could be improved. For example, essential features like custom reports, sales forecasting and sales sequencing are not included in the basic plan. There’s a significant price jump from the mid-level to the top plan, with not much additional value provided. The mid-level plan offers the best value unless your business can’t function without using custom modules or deal teams. Freshsales’ AI tool, Freddy, is a major selling point, and we were somewhat disappointed that none of its tools are available on the starter plan, and AI-powered deal forecasting is only included in the Enterprise tier.
  • Less experienced teams may experience feature overload. Freshsales’ expansive CRM feature set is a clear selling point. However, it may also be a drawback. Experienced users will likely find their way around the software quickly, thanks to the smart user interface design. However, it may take sales teams with little to no CRM experience a bit longer to learn. Feature overload is one of the major barriers to CRM adoption and a common challenge small businesses face using CRMs, and the Freshsales system is no different.
  • Cumbersome customization process. While Freshsales provides extensive customization options for contact and deal management, the process is somewhat cumbersome. It takes users to separate tabs, which could interrupt the workflow. It can also be difficult to locate certain features, like Products, without admin access, as the system makes it somewhat challenging to edit its UI and navigation panes. Companies looking for straightforward in-app customization functionality might be better off with more flexible CRM software

Methodology

When evaluating the best CRM software, we compared dozens of CRM solutions on the market. Our in-depth research included platform demonstrations, support team correspondence, hands-on trials to assess product functionality, and an analysis of each provider’s tutorials and support materials. We also took pricing into consideration. When assessing the best CRM software for sales managers specifically, we looked closely at contact and deal management, sales enablement, reporting and analytics, workflow automation, team management and collaboration, e-commerce functions, and available integrations. Our product review process was designed to help you find the right CRM for your business.

FAQs

Freshworks is an umbrella brand that offers a number of specialized solutions for different business teams: Freshsales for customer relationship management, Freshdesk for customer support, Freshservice for IT service management, Freshteam for HR, Freshmarketer for marketing, and the Freshsales Suite for the powerful combination of sales and marketing.
Both the regular Freshsales CRM and Freshsales Suite have a Free plan with limited contact, deal and account management features, as well as built-in phone and chat solutions. The provider also offers a generous 21-day enterprise-level free trial.

Bottom Line

We recommend Freshworks’ Freshsales CRM for …

  • Sales managers who want advanced AI-powered reporting, automation and CRM customization options.
  • Sales teams that regularly communicate with customers via phone, chat, SMS and social media platforms.
  • Budget-conscious businesses that need an affordable solution to manage their sales efforts but may want to upgrade to a combined marketing and sales CRM in the future.

We don’t recommend Freshworks’ Freshsales CRM for …

  • Entrepreneurs or small business owners who don’t need extensive team management and sales enablement features.
  • Less experienced CRM users who want an easily customizable, out-of-the-box system.
  • Larger businesses that require weekend customer service.
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Nadia Reckmann
Written by: Nadia Reckmann, Senior Analyst
Nadia Reckmann has spent years exploring her passions for advertising, customer relationship management and SaaS software more generally. With a master's degree in advertising, she started her career working on B2C and B2B marketing campaigns, executing everything from white papers to social media posts with the help of A/B testing and data-driven strategies. For business.com, Reckmann covers CRM solutions and remote access PC software. At OnePageCRM, Reckmann worked with software developers, UX designers and product managers to properly convey the CRM's value proposition and overhauled the company's website. She also worked with the CEO on thought leadership and launched a video learning hub for salespeople. With her intimate understanding of customer relationship management, Reckmann has gone on to analyze leading CRM solutions and other business software and provides detailed recommendations to business owners.
Freshsales logo
Editor's Rating9.3/10