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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 September 2025, in the CRM category, the mindshare of Freshsales is 0.9%, down from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Salesforce Sales Cloud is 3.7%, down from 10.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zoho CRM is 1.8%, down from 4.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
CRM Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Salesforce Sales Cloud3.7%
Zoho CRM1.8%
Freshsales0.9%
Other93.6%
CRM
 

Featured Reviews

Cristina Neri - PeerSpot reviewer
Cheaply-priced and does not require much customizations
It is a scalable solution. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten. At the moment, the tool functions quite well for our needs. Around five people use the tool. In the future, my company might plan to increase the use of the solution. Currently, all the sales people in our company use the product.
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.
NaveenKumar S - PeerSpot reviewer
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

"The solution is a low-cost CRM product compared to other CRM alternatives."
"Freshsales is user-friendly, scalable and stable."
"I like Freshsales because it's integrated with Shopify which we use to host our website."
"The solution's most valuable feature is its well-organized sales cycle, which is important to us."
"Email integration is easy."
"One of the most valuable features is the ability to divert deals based on the potential revenue or specific market to certain sales teams."
"Freshsales is very simple to use, but it's fairly limited in its functionalities, and it's very cheap."
"The most significant features of Salesforce Sales Cloud that boosted our sales productivity are workflow management and integrated commentary. Workflow management allows us to progress from exploration and qualification to closing a sale. The integrated commentary feature lets us open conversation threads around a sale and bring in team members, enhancing collaboration."
"You can adapt Salesforce for all customer needs."
"Salesforce Sales Cloud is very stable."
"It is a very good tool. There are a lot of interesting features. It is one of the best solutions."
"The most valuable features of Salesforce Sales Cloud are opportunity management and metric integration."
"This is a stable product."
"The most valuable features of Salesforce Sales Cloud are code hub management and sale opportunity management."
"The most valuable features are custom objects, custom workflows, triggering, and integration with other SaaS solutions."
"Zoho CRM is quite scalable; I have worked with clients who started with ten companies and have scaled up to managing 500 employees effectively within Zoho CRM."
"Some of the best features of Zoho CRM include the open architecture; it's fairly easy to modify it to your business process without having to get professionals involved."
"The dashboards and visualizations help us see how different markets perform. I find the dashboard feature most valuable because it's easy to visualize data. I've been trying to use the built-in quotations feature, which could reduce turnaround time. We're not using many automation features for record management and opportunity tracking. I'm trying to integrate Zoho CRM with Zoho Flow for quotation submission workflow."
"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."
"It is customizable. We have customized the CRM according to our needs."
"The solution is always stable."
"The most valuable features are the lead, opportunity and task management as well as dashboard creation, reporting, contact management and campaigns."
"One of the most important features is that it's a cloud base and, it's also quite cheaper when compared to other solutions. Zoho CRM is customizable as per your requirement and, the Zoho team is able to help you to customize the CRM based on your requirements, and you can integrate to any third-party solution."
 

Cons

"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 licensing costs should be based on the amount of data and number of clients that one can insert into the application."
"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."
"The price of this solution could be improved as well as the reporting functionality."
"We can use only one domain in the basic package."
"The solution needs to improve the user experience and leads capture."
"It lacks customizability for complex and larger use cases."
"The setup of Salesforce Sales Cloud is complex. You need specialists in that area to be able to have a good setup. Once it's set up properly, running it is seamless. That's the most beautiful thing about Salesforce Sales Cloud."
"In the next release, I would like to see more integration."
"Salesforce must build some connectors and features to make integrations easier."
"Its licensing can be improved to accommodate small companies. They provide a certain number of licenses in a set or batch, and you have to buy the set. For example, if they have 20 licenses in a set, you have to get the whole set, even if you need just three licenses, which could be a barrier for small companies. There is no option to buy fewer licenses. So, small companies have to go for a smaller CRM, such as HubSpot."
"The product lacks to offer some AI capabilities."
"I need to do a lot of customization to implement an ERP solution for an energy and utilities client versus a BFS client. Salesforce should look at the common customizations each client wants and see how much of that can be standardized into industry-specific specific solutions. That would speed up implementation, so we don't need to go through the same steps a hundred times. Salesforce could do it once and put it out for the rest of the clients to use it."
"Applications that can help with migrating data over from the sandbox to production would make it easier because sometimes change sets can be bulky and they're not always as effective. This can be frustrating when you make a lot of changes and try to put those changes into production."
"The developer console might be enhanced."
"Zoho CRM has a rule engine or a place where you can set certain rules. That's not evolved very much. They could improve this within the platform."
"The tool is hard for people who have worked with Microsoft Office for a long time."
"Since Zoho CRM is not made for the enterprise kind of company, its stability for enterprise businesses could be improved."
"It does require some technical background before starting to do anything with Zoho CRM."
"There are at least two big pieces. One is just the ability to reorganize the data and clean it up to eliminate duplicates and things like that. It is very manual at the moment. It only gives us certain fields that we can check on. Because of our particular database, it creates a problem. We deal with hospitals, and there are 50 hospitals. It is tough to figure out which one is which. Is it this one or the other one? So, trying to clean things up is very difficult. I'd like to have more ability to share data fields. The data is structured into different buckets, and I frequently have to create the same field in two different buckets. It would be nice if I could just do a view-only field in another bucket. In my contact bucket, I would like to be able to have just a view-only of the account information so that I don't need to enter it again, which is what I have to do currently."
"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."
"They should provide an option to customize modules."
"This solution needs a more user-friendly interface."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The basic price is affordable. The add ons are expensive."
"If one is a very low price and ten is expensive, I rate the product price as a three."
"The price for this solution is good in general, but in Brazil we do pay additional taxes."
"Freshsales is an economical product."
"The tool is not that expensive."
"I've seen the prices for Salesforce Sales Cloud, but I haven't been the one to handle the money. As someone who's only visually looked at the price, I would imagine it's on the pricier side, but they do have a ton of leverage, and seeing that everyone I've worked for has always been dedicated to continuing Salesforce. I've never worked for anyone who has threatened to leave. Everyone has accepted the pricing for what they offer."
"Salesforce Sales Cloud is an expensive solution."
"Sales Cloud is expensive."
"The subscription is on a monthly basis."
"It is alright for now because we ended up getting a discount off the base price. So, for now, it is okay. We may have to renegotiate when we get more users, and I don't know if the price would stay the same or increase. It has just a standard licensing fee. If you end up hiring a consultant for implementation, you will have to pay for the implementation. Other than that, there are no additional fees."
"We pay a yearly subscription fee."
"The tool's pricing is based on the number of users. It has a different pricing for 0-100 and another for 100-500 users."
"The overall price of Salesforce Sales Cloud could be better, it is more expensive than other competitors. There is an annual license for Salesforce Sales Cloud."
"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."
"Professional plans cost $35 per user in the USA and EUR 35 in Europe."
"The product costs $35 per user per year."
"The solution is cost-effective."
"This solution is less expensive than Salesforce."
"Zoho CRM has a subscription-based license, which is not too expensive."
"The licensing is the subscription, where we pay $50 per month per user."
"I rate the product a four out of ten. The cost for Zoho CRM is not fixed; different editions are available, and the features depend on the edition chosen. Some capabilities, such as integrating with workflows, might incur additional costs, but these are well-documented and not hidden."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Insurance Company
8%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
University
7%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
University
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise2
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business54
Midsize Enterprise26
Large Enterprise40
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business44
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 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 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?
The main improvement needed for Zoho CRM is introducing SQL code for reports, similar to what's in Zoho Analytics. Zo...
 

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, SAP and others in CRM. Updated: September 2025.
867,836 professionals have used our research since 2012.