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Freshdesk vs Salesforce Sales Cloud vs Salesforce Service Cloud comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
6.1
Freshdesk boosts efficiency and customer service with Salesforce integration, cost-effectiveness, and detailed insights for improved operations.
Sentiment score
6.7
Salesforce Sales Cloud boosts data visibility, efficiency, team collaboration, and productivity, enhancing nonprofits' fundraising and grant competitiveness.
Sentiment score
6.5
Salesforce Service Cloud achieves 135% ROI by enhancing efficiency, productivity, and service business, despite implementation costs.
Salesforce Sales Cloud is a fantastic tool but requires disciplined data entry by sales personnel and operations teams to maintain data quality.
We are not just implementing Salesforce Sales Cloud; we need to understand what the customer wants to achieve in 5 to 10 years.
Salesforce Service Cloud requires significant maintenance effort to see ROI.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.3
Freshdesk's support is praised for responsiveness and efficiency, but some users report email integration challenges and response delays.
Sentiment score
7.0
Salesforce Sales Cloud's support is efficient and helpful when paid, but free support is slow and basic.
Sentiment score
5.6
Salesforce Service Cloud is praised for helpful support and community, despite some critiques on initial response and proactiveness.
We have not needed to contact technical support, as Freshdesk has met our needs efficiently.
From my experience, once it is set up, we have never had problems.
The first-time response should be within 30 seconds.
Support requires a subscription and when taken, the service is pretty nice.
Unless you have premium support, assistance is restricted.
Salesforce directly does not give you the support, and it is through the partner that you have to go, leading to some time delays.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.8
Freshdesk offers scalable, cost-effective SaaS for growing companies with versatile features, though some note integration limitations.
Sentiment score
7.7
Salesforce Sales Cloud is scalable and adaptable across organizations but faces challenges with performance and licensing impact on scalability.
Sentiment score
8.1
Salesforce Service Cloud offers exceptional scalability for enterprise growth, handling increased users and transactions seamlessly across industries.
Additional features like email, WhatsApp, and SMS ticketing, along with Slack integration, can be enabled as required.
In our environment, which is a fairly small company in one country, Freshdesk is easy to scale.
Salesforce is highly scalable and operates efficiently.
Salesforce Sales Cloud is totally cloud native, requiring no additional effort for scalability.
Salesforce Service Cloud is the most advanced in scalability, rating around nine to ten.
Nobody can compete with Salesforce Service Cloud's scalability.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.4
Freshdesk is stable and reliable with minor issues, praised for quick support, though connectivity and integration occasionally affect performance.
Sentiment score
8.1
Salesforce Sales Cloud is stable and reliable, with high ratings, minor issues from configuration, and occasional performance slowdowns with large datasets.
Sentiment score
7.9
Salesforce Service Cloud is highly stable, reliable, quickly resolves issues, and is positively rated across industries for dependability.
The goal is always to respond to customer tickets in a timely fashion, ensuring that customers feel seen and heard while also providing solutions.
After installation and continuous operation, I have encountered no problems.
Salesforce Sales Cloud is very stable.
I have not experienced any degradation in Salesforce's performance.
We rarely encounter stability issues with Salesforce Service Cloud, although when they occur, they cause significant disruption.
 

Room For Improvement

Freshdesk users seek improvements in automation, integrations, support, language options, workflows, and reporting to boost efficiency.
Salesforce Sales Cloud is complex and expensive, with user interface, integration, scalability, and customization challenges impacting usability.
Salesforce Service Cloud requires improvements in email integration, UI/UX, reporting, analytics, and cost efficiency for better user experience.
Currently, some features like SMS or WhatsApp integration are only available to larger user groups, but even smaller teams should have access based on their specific needs.
The current integration is more complicated and doesn’t work as well.
More automation would be beneficial, as it could greatly improve our efficiency and reduce manual tasks.
Compared to AWS, it is slower, which could be a hindrance.
With today's generative AI capabilities like ChatGPT, it should be possible to directly communicate with the software rather than navigating through the entire system manually.
Salesforce Service Cloud should focus on simplification.
Configuring Flows in Salesforce Service Cloud is very difficult.
The pricing of Salesforce Service Cloud is expensive compared to other solutions like our current SAP CRM, which is much cheaper.
 

Setup Cost

Freshdesk pricing is competitive at 79 Euros annually per agent, but additional features and costs may arise.
Salesforce Sales Cloud is costly but valued for ROI, with pricing varying by edition and negotiable for discounts.
Salesforce Service Cloud is seen as costly but negotiable, with user-based pricing offering potential ROI through strategic use.
Our organization pays about 200,000 Indian rupees per year for the license.
Pricing has always been handled by the company I work with, and even when I get in-house feedback, I have never had issues with pricing or complaints when compared to what others have outside.
Without negotiation, costs can become expensive.
This happened for the first time because of the new CEO, Arundhati, who revolutionized pricing strategies, allowing discounts of 60-70% for Salesforce Sales Cloud in India.
I would rate the price for Salesforce Sales Cloud as a three, where one is a high price.
The approximate licensing costs for Salesforce Service Cloud are around three hundred dollars a year per user.
Salesforce Service Cloud is expensive.
 

Valuable Features

Freshdesk provides a user-friendly, scalable support platform with automation, integrations, and omnichannel capabilities to enhance customer service.
Salesforce Sales Cloud enhances sales efficiency with customization, integration, automation, and analytics, appealing to organizations seeking seamless processes.
Salesforce Service Cloud is praised for customization, integration, automation, user-friendliness, scalability, and features enhancing productivity and visibility.
The auto-assignment feature is particularly valuable as it alleviates the administrative task of manually checking for available engineers to assign tickets.
These features are easy to use, and the filtering is really good, providing a good overview of active tickets and who's working on them.
Some of the best features of Freshdesk include automation, user-friendly interface, and comprehensive support options that enhance our workflow.
Its easy-to-navigate interface aids in delivering clear vision and organization, especially for sales and business management.
The Einstein Analytics and the inbuilt reporting are very useful for keeping track of pipeline movement.
The biggest benefit of the Salesforce Sales Cloud is a centralized point, a centralized source of truth for customer-related information; you centralize all the information in a single database, and that's the biggest benefit.
Salesforce Service Cloud improved our organization with its mobile capabilities.
Salesforce Service Cloud offers pre-built packages that are best in class.
Usability is one of the strongest characteristics of Salesforce Service Cloud.
 

Mindshare comparison

Customer Experience Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Freshdesk3.0%
Salesforce4.9%
Genesys Cloud CX4.1%
Other88.0%
Customer Experience Management
CRM Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Salesforce Sales Cloud3.7%
Microsoft Dynamics CRM4.5%
SAP CRM4.1%
Other87.7%
CRM
CRM Customer Engagement Centers Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Salesforce Service Cloud13.7%
Microsoft Dynamics CRM19.1%
ServiceNow Customer Service Management9.3%
Other57.900000000000006%
CRM Customer Engagement Centers
 

Featured Reviews

Bharanidharan K - PeerSpot reviewer
User-friendly interface but needs enhancement in ticket tracking and response times
There is no room for improvement in Freshdesk. We can set a time period for particular employees as something that could be better. For example, if some new employees are unfamiliar with Freshdesk, it should be more user-friendly. They need to give shortcut keys to use the ticketing portal. If some users don't know how to generate a ticket, providing them with a help desk or tutorial portal would be useful for the end-user.
Kamal Deep - PeerSpot reviewer
Experience exceptional project enhancements and seamless automation integration
Salesforce Sales Cloud itself is a wonderful solution, and there are two different versions: Lightning and classic. The Lightning version is a new generation version compatible with any mobile device, whether it's a phone, iPad, or any size of screen. The reporting and analytics functionalities, especially with the Einstein feature, are wonderful because it allows for analysis of data regarding your opportunity pipeline, giving insight into how long it will take to close deals. This gives a great understanding of running different levels of campaigns and defining smart workflows, where if one task is done, the other task can automatically get created and assigned to different team members. This flexibility is a key benefit of Salesforce Sales Cloud. Lead management is a great feature in Salesforce Sales Cloud because if you go for enterprise and above licenses, you can define different record types. For example, if one company is into two different businesses such as real estate and car reselling, both being opposite, this can be defined in Salesforce Sales Cloud, allowing for different workflows, fields, and mechanisms that do not affect each other's operations. The predictive insight feature known as forecasting is a very old feature of Salesforce Sales Cloud, giving predictions based on your pipeline and previous opportunity closings. The new Einstein analytics feature is more advanced and is enabled with AI, providing better forecasting based on your current pipeline. Salesforce Sales Cloud is working smartly with AI to help close more deals based on opportunity stages, trends, and industries, advising on the steps to take next. Lead generation is the most important thing because every sale starts from the lead. At the lead level, different stages and resources can be defined. You can capture leads from various resources, with Salesforce Sales Cloud offering a web-to-lead feature and integrations with LinkedIn to fetch data. Once a lead is qualified and converted into opportunities, there are stages with percentages, and workflows can help in easily closing deals.
MARIA PILAR CANDA - PeerSpot reviewer
Improved customer service and post-sales support saves time
The solution could be more affordable as it's quite expensive for some organizations, particularly middle-sized companies. Additionally, finding technical talent for improving the solution is challenging. Configuring Flows in Salesforce Service Cloud is very difficult. There are very few technical people in the market capable of implementing all the flows that clients need at this moment. It's primarily a matter of talent limitation, and flow is the technical mechanism of Salesforce Service Cloud for process automation. In general, while they have the knowledge and help solve problems, finding the right person to address specific issues is very challenging.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
23%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Educational Organization
6%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
University
6%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Performing Arts
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business21
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business54
Midsize Enterprise26
Large Enterprise40
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise24
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Freshdesk?
Freshdesk significantly improved our customer issue resolution process. We can now easily record and track all custom...
What needs improvement with Freshdesk?
With the advancements in AI now, I will say Freshdesk should consider integrating more AI, but so far, I am satisfied...
What is your primary use case for Freshdesk?
As a customer success manager for over six years, I can sum up the benefits I've seen from using Freshdesk: it has pl...
What do you like most about Salesforce Sales Cloud?
The features of Sales Cloud most useful for testing and running email campaigns are highly valuable.
What needs improvement with Salesforce Sales Cloud?
From a customer perspective, it's a very stable system, and people are used to its functionalities, good and bad. Imp...
What is your primary use case for Salesforce Sales Cloud?
For managing two different things, I'm managing some sales pipeline, the pipeline of sales of some products, and also...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Salesforce Service Cloud?
The approximate licensing costs for Salesforce Service Cloud are around three hundred dollars a year per user.
What needs improvement with Salesforce Service Cloud?
The solution could be more affordable as it's quite expensive for some organizations, particularly middle-sized compa...
What is your primary use case for Salesforce Service Cloud?
We have many clients with Salesforce Service Cloud and numerous use cases. The main use is in the sales area rather t...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Sales Cloud, SFDC, Salesforce
Service Cloud
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Honda, 3M, Hugo Boss, Petronas, Sony Pictures, The Atlantic, goodreads, Clear Channel Radio, Penn University of Pennsylvania, unicef, Kuoni, Movember
Coca-Cola Enterprises, Kuoni Global Travel Services, Financial Times, Just Eat, Jobsite, H.R. Owen, PlayerLayer, O2, DMGT, Philips, Xtreme.ie, Business Stream, Remote Asset Management, Dialogue Group
Stanley Black & Decker, Coca-Cola, Activision, Wells Fargo, Spotify, Aldo, Philips, The Red Cross, Blue Shield of California, Sprouts Farmers Market, Direct Energy Solar, Inspirato, Kiva
Find out what your peers are saying about Salesforce, Qualtrics, ServiceNow and others in Customer Experience Management. Updated: August 2025.
867,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.