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Freshsales vs Salesforce Sales Cloud vs Zoho CRM 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:
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the CRM category, the mindshare of Freshsales is 1.0%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Salesforce Sales Cloud is 2.1%, down from 9.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zoho CRM is 1.8%, down from 3.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
CRM Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Salesforce Sales Cloud2.1%
Zoho CRM1.8%
Freshsales1.0%
Other95.1%
CRM
 

Featured Reviews

Manojkumar Reddy - PeerSpot reviewer
Associate Technology Consultant at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Automation has boosted sales efficiency and improves follow-ups across multiple customer segments
The automation runs whenever a certain trigger point is met. For example, if the person details captured indicate they are interested in proceeding further, then when we update the particular field, it automatically goes to the next person at a higher level, and then the status gets changed. There are many features including recently enabled AI that gives a brief description to the contact person about what that particular promotion is about. There are also features like auto email getting triggered and marketing emails. All of those features are part of Freshsales.
Jonny Katz - PeerSpot reviewer
VP of Business Operations at PeerSpot
Uses data-driven insights to improve workflows and highlights a need for simpler automation tools
Salesforce Sales Cloud can be improved in several areas. First, the UI is an area for enhancement. Even though they've launched Lightning, it's clunky at times with page load speeds. It also needs to be made extremely more user-friendly. For new people using Salesforce Sales Cloud, there is a steep learning curve. Additionally, giving non-admins the ability to make changes on the fly is something that I feel is necessary. Currently with Salesforce Sales Cloud, you need to have a consultant. It's hard to build the flows or workflows. Making it easier for that end-user who's not so technically minded to help themselves is essential. I choose seven out of ten because I think you need a consultant or a consulting company to help you build it out. Certain changes should be made much easier and more user-friendly where an admin can do it. The automation processes need to be much simpler. If you're looking at other tools out there, for example SalesLoft or HubSpot, it's much easier to build those workflows and do automation.
NaveenKumar S - PeerSpot reviewer
Software Engineer at Maximus
Zoho CRM improves lead conversion with AI assistance but could have better technical support
Zoho Zia has helped our lead conversion process by serving as a private AI of Zoho CRM that assists in boosting lead conversation by analyzing customer data, predicting outcomes, and automating workflow follow-ups. Regarding how Zia helps with lead conversion, there's lead scoring and conversion predictions, sentiment analysis, and workflow suggestions. For lead scoring, Zia analyzes past lead conversation patterns and assigns scores to new leads, and high score leads get prioritized for faster follow-up. In terms of conversation predictions, Zia predicts the probability of lead conversion based on demographics and engagements, helping the sales team focus on the most promising leads. Another point is sentiment analysis, where Zia scans customer emails, chats, and notes to detect tones such as positive, negative, or neutral, guiding us on how to approach the leads better. For workflow suggestions, it recommends automated workflows such as sending emails and assigning tasks to agents, improving our engagements. Additionally, the conversational AI feature through Zia chatbot can interact with leads via website chat or capture details and push them into Zoho CRM automatically. The analytics and reporting features in Zoho CRM helped me understand sales patterns and customer behavior through standard reports that include pre-built reports for leads, deals, sales activities, and campaigns. We can customize reports as well, creating reports based on any module fields, and we can integrate with Zoho Analytics for direct capture of reports from our modules. We can merge leads reports to contact reports using SQL, allowing for effective sales funnel tracking to identify drop-offs and optimize conversation strategies. Auto-generated reports are also available for daily scheduling, ensuring that admin receives daily basis reports through automation. With advanced BI features such as drag-and-drop dashboards and predictive analysis using pivot tables, we can create insightful dashboards while pulling CRM and external data from sources such as Google Ads and Facebook Ads for unified analytics. The automation capabilities in Zoho CRM have helped streamline our organization's sales and marketing tasks by handling repetitive tasks such as sending follow-up emails, assigning leads, and updating fields. For example, if a lead score is greater than 80, it automatically assigns that record to the senior sales representative. There are also blueprint options to define the step-by-step sales process, ensuring every sales representative follows the same process. Automation includes assignment rules, lead scoring, priority load options, sales signals, macros, and territory management, which automatically routes leads based on geography, revenue, and industries. Additionally, deal stage automations trigger actions when a deal moves stages, such as sending a contract when it moves to negotiation. For marketing, there are tools for email campaign automation, behavior-based triggers, campaign to lead sync, and social media automations. The overall benefits I have seen from using Zoho CRM include centralized customer data, where all customer interactions are visible in one place, providing a 360-degree view. Improved lead conversations through AI-powered scoring and automation helps us focus on the right leads, with end-to-end sales automation managing tasks from lead capture to deal closure, thereby saving time on repetitive tasks. This leads to better marketing ROI, as we can track campaigns, ad spend, and lead sources, connecting marketing efforts to revenue. Enhanced collaboration through shared notes, tasks, and role-based access enables teamwork within our internal users and sales teams, contributing to customer satisfaction. Moreover, Zoho CRM is scalable and customizable, adapting to startups, SMBs, and enterprises with its flexible modules and fields. Lastly, it is cost-efficient compared to Salesforce and HubSpot while including a wide range of features.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"One of the most valuable features is the ability to divert deals based on the potential revenue or specific market to certain sales teams."
"I like Freshsales because it's integrated with Shopify which we use to host our website."
"The solution is a low-cost CRM product compared to other CRM alternatives."
"Freshsales is user-friendly, scalable and stable."
"Freshsales is user-friendly, scalable and stable."
"To conclude, the productivity and automation features are the most useful."
"Email integration is easy."
"Freshsales is very simple to use, but it's fairly limited in its functionalities, and it's very cheap."
"Salesforce is very flexible and provides developmental tools in case you have special requirements."
"Salesforce Sales Cloud is a stable solution."
"On the high level, it's all about managing the clients, managing the opportunities around those clients, managing the tasks, calls, activities, all those things."
"I have found Salesforce Sales Cloud to be stable."
"One of the most valuable features is the automation of Sales Cloud. It gives us the ability to easily—without the use of coding—create automation in order for us to do our work a lot more efficiently, whether it's notification reminders or certain automatic processes."
"From a personal perspective, one of the key things Salesforce.com provides us is insight into our business that would be difficult to achieve otherwise."
"It has custom fields and custom reports which can align to our business objectives and marketing focus."
"It's one of those solutions where you can just start using the product immediately; you don't really need to do any setup or any thinking, and after using it for three months, you probably will never go back."
"Zoho CRM is flexible due to its integrations, like with Zoho Campaign, helping integrate marketing efforts with CRM processes."
"Customer tracking, order management, sales tracking and PO tracking provide efficiency."
"There's no installation required."
"The initial setup is pretty fast."
"The most valuable features are the lead, opportunity and task management as well as dashboard creation, reporting, contact management and campaigns."
"It is customizable. We have customized the CRM according to our needs."
"We're able to easily track messages and notes."
"What I appreciate about Zoho CRM is the customization."
 

Cons

"We have a problem with the time to delivery for our customers, although this is not specific to this solution."
"The reporting for this solution across all their products could be improved. Currently, we have clients who export their data from Freshservices to third party solutions such Power BI to create more comprehensive reports."
"We have a problem with the time to delivery for our customers, although this is not specific to this solution. Time to delivery can be 90 days."
"The solution needs to improve the user experience and leads capture."
"The price of this solution could be improved as well as the reporting functionality."
"The reporting for this solution across all their products could be improved."
"We can use only one domain in the basic package."
"The licensing costs should be based on the amount of data and number of clients that one can insert into the application."
"It does not include a professional accounting system, it is operations and it is CRM. It is not capable of accounting things."
"And here, based on my past experience, I can say that Salesforce still has room for integration improvements."
"Sales Cloud could be improved with more training. In general, the training is very good, but you have to really seek out some good options in order to upskill yourself."
"We have a very broad set of products at our company. The process to get that information accurately into the Sales Cloud system could use improvement."
"The solution's configuration could be improved because getting a purchase order and administrating the right fields can be a real headache for us, especially when the Sales Cloud system enters an error stage."
"The product lacks to offer some AI capabilities."
"One thing that's lacking, especially when I talk to a lot of customers, is the forecasting and revenue capabilities."
"The user interface could be more intuitive."
"If the client's requirements involve managing large datasets, I would go directly to Salesforce due to its capability to store and structure big data, but it tends to be more expensive."
"Custom development is often necessary to make such extensive changes, and it does come with associated costs."
"The chatbot feature is not very intelligent and lacks AI capabilities."
"It would be useful to have some way of mapping organizations that could add more value."
"The login process could be improved as some users find it unfriendly. The documentation could also be more user-friendly and better organized."
"The tool is hard for people who have worked with Microsoft Office for a long time."
"Customer Service: Only chat is available, connecting over the phone is impossible."
"The support is not quite good."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The basic price is affordable. The add ons are expensive."
"The price for this solution is good in general, but in Brazil we do pay additional taxes."
"The tool is not that expensive."
"If one is a very low price and ten is expensive, I rate the product price as a three."
"Freshsales is an economical product."
"The subscription is on a monthly basis."
"Its license is expensive. It is probably a lot more than smaller solutions. It is around £500 a month, but I don't know how many licenses we have."
"Salesforce Sales Cloud is an expensive solution."
"In terms of investment value and return of the investment, Salesforce right now is pretty good on the Western markets where the price of the employees is pretty high."
"Implementation and add-ons may be additional costs."
"I have found Salesforce Sales Cloud to be expensive. However, it is the number one CRM solution in the world. It is worth the money."
"The licensing fees are reasonable."
"The price of Salesforce Sales Cloud could be reduced. It is expensive."
"Zoho CRM is an expensive tool."
"Professional plans cost $35 per user in the USA and EUR 35 in Europe."
"On a scale of one to ten, where one is a high price and ten is a low price, I rate the pricing a five. However, the pricing is fine because we chose the enterprise plan as a private limited company."
"Zoho CRM is available at a fairly average price"
"The licensing is the subscription, where we pay $50 per month per user."
"This solution is less expensive than Salesforce."
"The price of Zoho CRM is already competitive, but we would always like to have a better discount. Most of the features are included in the price but if we want the extra features then we have to purchase them."
"There is an annual license."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
15%
Comms Service Provider
13%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Construction Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Construction Company
10%
Marketing Services Firm
9%
Outsourcing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise1
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business55
Midsize Enterprise26
Large Enterprise40
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business45
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise10
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Freshsales?
The licensing costs should be based on the amount of data and number of clients that one can insert into the applicat...
What is your primary use case for Freshsales?
I use the solution in my company since we are interested in the application and all the activities that salespeople d...
What advice do you have for others considering Freshsales?
I can tell others that it is a good product and it is perfect for medium and large-sized companies because the setup ...
What are the pros and cons of MS dynamics vs. Salesforce CRM?
When comparing Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Salesforce CRM in 2026, both are leading CRM platforms, but they serve slig...
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?
Salesforce Sales Cloud can be improved in several areas. First, the UI is an area for enhancement. Even though they'v...
What do you like most about Zoho CRM?
Zoho CRM integrates easily with customer service workflows.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zoho CRM?
Zoho CRM and all of Zoho's software are quite affordable because they are specifically designed for small and medium ...
What needs improvement with Zoho CRM?
I think areas of Zoho CRM that need to be improved or enhanced include the permission structure, which can be easy to...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Sales Cloud, SFDC, Salesforce
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Caratlane, Pykih, Buying Show, INTUO, WallyPark, Exploring Vacations, Raved, Forest, Ascendore, MagePlaza, Vacasa,
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
JetHub, Anderson Sales Advantage, ActionCoach, Milagro Advisory Group, TECO Pneumatic, Proteomics Consult
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Salesforce, Zoho and others in CRM. Updated: March 2026.
885,444 professionals have used our research since 2012.