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Freshsales vs Zoho CRM comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 19, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

Freshsales
Ranking in CRM
23rd
Ranking in Opportunity Management
10th
Ranking in Sales Force Automation
11th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
CRM Customer Engagement Centers (9th)
Zoho CRM
Ranking in CRM
3rd
Ranking in Opportunity Management
3rd
Ranking in Sales Force Automation
3rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
59
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the CRM category, the mindshare of Freshsales is 1.0%, up from 1.0% 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 (%)
Zoho CRM1.8%
Freshsales1.0%
Other97.2%
CRM
 

Featured Reviews

Cristina Neri - PeerSpot reviewer
Sales Manager Managed Services and Digital Solutions at Alosys Communications
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.
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."
"Email integration is easy."
"Freshsales is user-friendly, scalable and stable."
"The solution's most valuable feature is its well-organized sales cycle, which is important to us."
"Freshsales is very simple to use, but it's fairly limited in its functionalities, and it's very cheap."
"It has helped to manage, move forward, and also customize my processes. It has helped me with my sales pipeline, sales process, and performance."
"What I like best about Zoho CRM is the web form feature. I find Zoho CRM forms excellent."
"For the most part, the solution is stable."
"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."
"We use the solution for different projects. We use it to patch lead details from clients' sources."
"The initial setup is pretty fast."
"The login and logout times of each employee of our company are recorded by Zoho CRM for productivity calculations"
"CRM software that's simple to use, with good technical support, scalability, and stability."
 

Cons

"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 solution needs to improve the user experience and leads capture."
"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 price of this solution could be improved as well as the reporting functionality."
"We can use only one domain in the basic package."
"It lacks customizability for complex and larger use cases."
"One area of Zoho CRM that could be improved would be email support. The email support is really slow, but the in-app support is superb."
"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."
"It is hard to modify information around a customer. You need to pay for the features and the tool needs to improve it."
"The customization options for roles in Zoho CRM are currently limited."
"Zoho CRM’s customer service can be a little difficult to reach sometimes."
"Adding a new contract to the solution is quite complicated."
"The chatbot feature is not very intelligent and lacks AI capabilities."
"We would like to always email users as soon as any new features are launched."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 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."
"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."
"Zoho CRM is available at a fairly average price"
"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."
"The basic plan has changed from $15 to $25 or $30."
"The licensing is the subscription, where we pay $50 per month per user."
"Zoho CRM is an expensive tool."
"We consider it a good value and found it to be cost-effective."
"If you compare the pricing with SAP, it is well priced and you are able to pay as you go."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Insurance Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Marketing Services Firm
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

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 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 application. The number of clients in the tool is 500, which is less in number.
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 do. We track the email, then the appointment, and the feedback from the appointme...
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 phase is fast, and you don't need to do many customizations apart from the confi...
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 businesses.
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. Zoho CRM's support can improve significantly, although it's designed to require mi...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Caratlane, Pykih, Buying Show, INTUO, WallyPark, Exploring Vacations, Raved, Forest, Ascendore, MagePlaza, Vacasa,
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Find out what your peers are saying about Freshsales vs. Zoho CRM and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
883,760 professionals have used our research since 2012.