Freshsales CRM Review 2025

Freshsales CRM is one of the tools you’ll come across when you’re looking for small business CRM software.

It’s a popular option that promises to make sales smarter with artificial intelligence and omnichannel communication.

But does being an AI-assisted CRM automatically make Freshsales the right choice for your small business?

We’ve thoroughly tested Freshsales CRM to see if it’s worth a try for small businesses.

Overview of Freshsales CRM for Small Business

As an AI-powered CRM, Freshsales comes with a built-in AI copilot that scores your leads and gives you summaries of each contact’s journey.

Beyond the AI assistant, Freshsales stands out for its communication options. This small business CRM lets you connect with customers through email, calls, SMS, WhatsApp Business, Facebook Messenger, LINE, and Google Business. Everything flows into one inbox, so you don’t have to switch between different apps to talk to customers.

The platform handles standard CRM tasks too. You can manage contacts and deals, set up basic automation workflows, and connect with over 280 other business tools.

But Freshsales has some limitations. The cheaper plans only give you one pipeline, which is not great if you sell multiple products or services. You can’t manage duplicate contacts unless you pay for the expensive plans. Email sequences don’t exist on the low subscription either.

Moreover, there’s a 4x difference between the lowest subscription plan and the next upper plan, making this CRM potentially expensive for scaling businesses that are not looking for an omnichannel CRM.

Developed by Freshworks, an enterprise software for customer service, Freshsales resembles more of a comprehensive help desk rather than a sales CRM system.

If you’re considering Freshsales for your small business, read on for a detailed look at what you’re really getting.

Freshsales CRM Pros and Cons

Every small business CRM has its strengths and weaknesses. Here’s what we discovered during our hands-on testing of Freshsales.

Key CRM Features of Freshsales CRM

For you to understand what Freshsales offers, we’ve broken down all the important features. We created a table showing what you get (and don’t get) on the Growth plan (the lowest paid subscription), and provided detailed explanations of how everything works.

Here’s the table showing Freshsales CRM’s features.

• Core Features

  • Mobile app
    ✅ Android and iOS
  • Contact management
    ✅
  • Follow-up tracking

    

    As a small business looking to close more sales, you need to stay on top each opportunity, so you don’t lose them. Follow-up tracking is what makes that happen.
    ❌
  • Pipelines
    ✅ 1
  • Duplicate management
    ⚠️ Higher plans only

• Centralization Tools

  • Centralized workspace

    

    A centralized workspace is an essential small business CRM feature that lets you manage your whole business on just one page.
    ⚠️ Limited
  • Dashboard
    ✅
  • Number of integrations
    280+

• Communication Tools

  • Two-way email sync
    ✅
  • Click-to-call options
    ⚠️ via Freshcaller
  • Multi-channel inbox
    ✅
  • Meeting scheduling
    ✅

• Simple Automation

  • CRM workflows
    ✅ 20 workflows
  • Sales email sequences
    ⚠️ Higher plans only
  • Free web forms
    ✅
  • Browser extension for auto lead capture
    ❌

• Customer Support

  • Email support
    ✅
  • Live chat
    ✅
  • Phone support
    ✅

• Pricing

  • Starting price
    $9 per seat/month
  • Free trial
    ✅ 21 days
  • Free plan
    ✅ Up to 3 users
  • Next paid plan
    ⚠️ Expensive ($39 per seat/month)

Below, you’ll find the detailed explanation of the key features.

Contact Management

On the Contacts tab, you’ll find a list of all contact records in your CRM. From this page, you can add/import contacts, categorize and add tags, create notes, send emails, make calls, add tasks, and schedule meetings. Freshsales CRM also lets you change the lead owner and update the status of the lead.

Clicking on a contact opens up a sidebar where you can oversee their entire journey. Manage all their data, create tasks, share files, make calls, send emails, manage and advance deals, and keep a log of every single thing you do concerning the contact.

Moreover, you can move leads to the next stage of the sales cycle and access the app marketplace right from that sidebar. Freddy AI (Freshsales’ native AI assistant) also provides a summary of the contact’s journey, as well as a sales lead score.

Activity Management

When creating an activity on Freshsales CRM, you can set the deadline and choose the kind of activity it is: follow-up or call reminder. Once created, you’ll be able to monitor the task from the page of the linked contact or deal.

However, there is no dedicated tab for managing activities. What you do have is an “Activities Dashboard” in the Dashboard tab. It shows every activity you have for the day, but you can filter it to show everything on your plate within the next 30 days.

It lists the activities and automatically arranges them according to their deadlines. When one becomes overdue, it’s indicated with the text “overdue” in red color, and when you complete an activity and mark it as such, it’ll go to the bottom of the list.

All of this looks okay, but it’s not really follow-up tracking for more reasons than one.

Since Freshsales CRM doesn’t automatically prompt you to link every task to a contact or deal, a lot of activities end up being generic to-dos, not real follow-ups. This makes it easy to miss out on next steps or lose important sales opportunities.

The second issue is with the Activities Dashboard. By default, it lumps all your activities — calls, meetings, and follow-ups — together. If you only want to view your follow-ups, you’ll have to filter them out manually each time. This adds an extra step and makes it easier to overlook what matters most.

Pipeline Management

The deal page in Freshsales CRM presents your pipeline in a Kanban board by default. There, all your deals appear as cards, organized according to what stage they are in your pipeline.

On each card, you can see basic details about the deal, as well as notes and any related tasks. You can also add new notes, make calls, send emails, or schedule a meeting. And if you feel the need to move the deal forward in the pipeline, simply drag and drop it to the next stage, and you’re done.

If a deal crosses the rotting date, it becomes a rotten or stale deal, and the deal card turns red in your Freshales pipeline. The default rotting date on Freshsales CRM is 30 days, but you can change it; just go to the pipeline setup page in your Admin Settings tab.

In Freshsales, quite a few pipeline features are gated behind upper plans (starting from $39/month/user). For example, sales forecasting, multiple pipelines, and sales targets (quotas). This can make Freshsales an expensive solution for small sales teams.

Deal Management

Like many small business CRMs, Freshsales offers a 360º deal page. If you need full context about a deal, simply click on the deal’s name to open a sidebar containing all its details.

In the sidebar, you can modify the deal’s info, create tasks, share files, make calls, send emails, add products and quotes, and keep a record of every single thing you do concerning the deal. You can also move the deal to the next stage of the pipeline.

Email Sync

Freshsales CRM syncs with your email account, whether it’s a Gmail, Microsoft Outlook, Zoho, or other provider.

With this, you can send, receive, and log emails in your CRM. You’ll find your email logs inside individual records or in the Conversations tab on the main navigation menu.

Collaboration

There are several collaboration features on Freshsales. You can add team members and collaborate by leaving them notes, assigning activities, and delegating deals to them.

The quota management module is another collaboration functionality within Freshsales CRM. This lets you set sales goals — such as total deal value or number of closed deals within a specific timeframe — for your team. However, the quotas feature is available only starting from the Pro plan ($39 per user/month).

You can also create multiple sales teams within the CRM or form temporary teams to handle specific deals.

Furthermore, the small business CRM allows your whole team to communicate with prospects from one place (team inbox).

Duplicate Management

You can’t manage duplicates with the free and lowest plans on Freshsales CRM. The duplicate management functionality is only available from the Pro plan (at $39 per user/month), via Freddy AI.

When you open a contact page, Freddy AI automatically displays duplicate records on the right side of the screen. If there are multiple duplicate records, you can select which ones you’d like to merge with the Master record or use Quick Merge to combine them all.

Dashboard and Reporting

Freshsales CRM offers detailed dashboards to give you an overview of your sales funnel.

The lowest plan allows you to create several dashboards according to various reports. There are pre-built report parameters; just select one, and then generate a dashboard for it. This feature is dubbed “curated reports”, and it’s not available on the free plan.

Freshsales CRM also allows you to create custom reports and dashboards, but you can’t access the functionality on both the free and the lowest plans.

Automations

From the lowest plan on Freshsales, you get access to basic workflow automations. However, it’s limited to just 20 workflows; if you want more, you either upgrade to the next tier or pay for the workflow add-on.

This small business CRM also has an email sequencing feature, but it’s very limited. It’s only available from the Pro plan, and even then, it’s capped at 10 per user.

Integrations

There are more than 280 business apps on the Freshworks marketplace that you can integrate with. Zapier is on this list, and with it, you can connect with thousands of other tools you need for business.

Moreover, if the integration you want isn’t available, you can still connect by going the API access route.

Mobile App

Freshsales CRM has a mobile app for Android and iOS devices. You can use it to manage all contacts, accounts, and deals, just like you would on the web version of the CRM.

The mobile app features a “Google Maps” function that helps you locate contacts in your database. The Android version automatically logs all inbound and outbound calls. When you have an incoming call from a CRM contact, Freshsales’ iOS app shows you the name of the contact and the related account.

And if you’re on the Pro or Enterprise plans, you’ll be able to use the mobile CRM without any internet connection.

Ease of Use

Freshsales CRM has a relatively clean interface. With 6 tabs on the main menu, most of the features on this small business CRM are easy to access.

Also, the “+” icon at the top of the screen lets you do basically anything — from creating contacts, adding tasks, meetings, sending emails, creating deals, and more — no matter which of the 6 tabs you’re in.

Moreover, there’s a host of onboarding resources to help you get started with the CRM software. When you log into your account and look at the top of the page, you’ll find the setup guides.

Despite all this, using Freshsales can still be mentally draining. It was developed by Freshworks, which primarily serves enterprises. That’s why Freshsales UI is data-heavy and might be overwhelming for small businesses that are new to CRMs or don’t need to collect as much information as much bigger companies.

Some of the features are not as user-friendly as others. For example, if you try to work with reports in this CRM, you might quickly get frustrated. Besides, many pages look cluttered as they store a lot of data, which can be an overkill for a small business.

Customer Support

The quality of Freshsales customer support is equal across all plans. You can get assistance via phone, chat, and email. It’s available all day, 5 days a week (24/5).

However, many users say that the Live Chat restarts mid-conversation and that the support team takes too long (weeks, even) to respond to tickets. Some also mention that the onboarding resources on Freshsales CRM are inadequate.

Moreover, since Freshales is part of Freshworks, which offers a variety of tools, their Help Site is not always up-to-date, and you might come across many outdated articles.

It also seems like there are two different Help Sites available. One has very outdated information, and the other has more recent information. The existence of two help sites makes it harder to find answers promptly.

Freshsales CRM Pricing Structure

Freshsales uses a tiered pricing model with four different plans. Each tier unlocks more features, but the jumps between plans are significant.

Some basic features you’d expect in any CRM are locked behind expensive plans. This means small businesses have to choose between working with limited tools or spending way more than they planned.

You’ll also need to budget for add-ons like phone credits and extra workflows, which can increase your costs beyond the advertised prices.

How Much Does Freshsales CRM Cost?

Freshsales CRM has a free plan for up to 3 users. Although it covers the basic features of a small business CRM, it still won’t be ideal for many businesses, as it has some limitations:

• You get just 1 pipeline
• There are no basic CRM workflows, nor are there advanced automations
• No email sequences or duplicate management features
• No access to communication channels like SMS, Facebook, WhatsApp Business, Line, and Google Business.
• You can’t store any files in the CRM

As such, you’ll need to upgrade to the Growth plan, which costs $9 per user/month.

But even this is limited as well:

• Only 1 pipeline
• No duplicate management
• No email sequences

This is quite poor, considering there are several other small business CRMs within the same price range that offer these features. At this rate, you might have to opt for their Pro plan before you receive any real value.

However, the Pro plan is about 4 times the price of the Growth tier ($39 per user/month). That’s too much, especially since there aren’t that many extra vital features to justify the $30 jump in the price.

It’s important to note: Freshsales has another set of pricing plans called “Freshsales Suite”. On the suite, there’s a free tier for up to 3 users, and the lowest plan — which is also dubbed Growth — starts from $9 per user/month.

On the lowest paid subscription, Freshsales Suite offers marketing automation features, including email marketing campaigns, drag-and-drop landing page creation, Facebook lead generation, social media campaigns, segmentation, and more.

However, you can’t keep multiple pipelines, deduplicate records, or create email sequences. Similarly, you can only include just 500 contacts in your marketing efforts, no matter what Freshsales Suite plan you’re on.

Is Freshsales CRM Pricing Affordable for Small Businesses?

The $9 starting price sounds like a good deal until you realize what’s missing.

Most small businesses need functionalities like multiple pipelines, duplicate management, and email sequences.

None of these come with the $9 plan, which means you’ll need to pay $39 per user/month for the Pro subscription. That’s a 300%+ price increase just to get basic features that many competitors include in their starter plans.

Three users cost $117 monthly—that’s over $1,400 yearly just to access almost the full set of basic CRM functionalities. When you add extras like phone credits ($5) and more automated workflows ($5 per 10), your costs can quickly get out of hand.

Moreover, Freshsales pricing can be a bit misleading. For example, many built-in calling features mentioned on the CRM’s pricing page are available only if you subscribe to paid tools provided by Freshworks, such as Freshcaller or Freshdesk Omni. This not only drives up costs but also makes it difficult to accurately determine the final price of the software.

The file storage is quite limited, too. Even on the Pro plan ($39/user/month), Freshsales offers only 5 GB per user. So if your business handles a lot of attachments and files, you’ll quickly run out of free space and will need to either upgrade to the Enterprise plan ($59 per user/month) or look for another small business CRM.

Besides, if you sign up for Freshsales Suite, it doesn’t matter whether you’re on the lowest tier ($9 per user/month) or the highest ($59 per user/month); the number of marketing contacts is capped at 500.

Final Verdict: Is Freshsales the Best CRM for Small Businesses?

Freshsales CRM does some things well. The AI features are helpful, the interface is relatively easy to use, and having phone support on all plans is great. The ability to communicate through 8 different channels is also a plus for businesses that need more than just email and calls.

But the limitations are hard to ignore. No follow-up tracking means you might miss important sales activities. Being stuck with one pipeline on the Growth plan is frustrating if you sell different products. And needing to pay $39 per user just to manage duplicates feels excessive.

Freshsales might work for small businesses that are willing to pay a premium price for the absolute basics. If you need a full-featured CRM at a reasonable price, you’ll probably want to look elsewhere.

According to our evaluation standards (Value, Impact, and Speed), Freshsales’ fit for small businesses is Moderate.

With better options available at similar prices, it’s not the best CRM for small businesses.

Best Alternative for Freshsales CRM

If Freshsales’ limitations are a problem for your business, OnePageCRM offers a better solution.

Value: High
Impact: High
Speed: High
Pricing starts from: $9.95

OnePageCRM gives you what Freshsales doesn’t. You get multiple pipelines, real follow-up tracking, duplicate management, and full automation features—all in the basic plan.

For basically the same price as Freshsales’ Growth plan, OnePageCRM includes everything that Freshsales makes you pay $39 for. That makes it a much better deal for small businesses that want more value for their investment.