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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
20th
Ranking in Opportunity Management
10th
Ranking in Sales Force Automation
8th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
CRM Customer Engagement Centers (7th)
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 May 2026, in the CRM category, the mindshare of Freshsales is 1.1%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zoho CRM is 1.9%, down from 3.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
CRM Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Zoho CRM1.9%
Freshsales1.1%
Other97.0%
CRM
 

Featured Reviews

AB
Business Development Manager at a consultancy with 1-10 employees
Automated sales sequences have transformed outreach and now organize multi-million deal workflows
Freshsales is a very comfortable type of CRM with easy customization and user-friendliness, allowing even non-techie individuals to manage their internal pipelines effectively, as it is a highly customizable CRM that suits our business needs, whether for selling products or services. The best features that Freshsales offers begin with the Sales Sequence, which is top-ranked, followed by the marketing division that allows us to create automated marketing sequences. Freshsales also includes 24/7 customer support, web form integration for lead generation from our website, and other valuable functionalities. The Sales Sequence feature significantly helps my workflow by enabling an account manager to contact a large list of customers quickly and efficiently, sending out emails with minimal manual effort, while also providing critical statistics about email engagement, which aids in improving outreach strategies. Freshsales positively impacts our organization by creating a central repository for all our business objectives; it has helped us organize our pipelines and documents efficiently, providing a system where we can easily access any necessary files related to individual deals and allowing visibility into the performance metrics for the board of directors.
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

"Freshsales has impacted us positively; it has saved time, increased sales, and improved customer relationships."
"Freshsales is a very comfortable type of CRM with easy customization and user-friendliness, allowing even non-techie individuals to manage their internal pipelines effectively, as it is a highly customizable CRM that suits our business needs, whether for selling products or services."
"To conclude, the productivity and automation features are the most useful."
"Freshsales is very simple to use, but it's fairly limited in its functionalities, and it's very cheap."
"Freshsales is user-friendly, scalable and stable."
"I like Freshsales because it's integrated with Shopify which we use to host our website."
"Freshsales is user-friendly, scalable and stable."
"Email integration is easy."
"Complete customer relation management with the ability to add further apps if needed."
"The most valuable feature of Zoho CRM is emailing. You can send emails to customers directly from Zoho CRM. The marketing team in my company uses this feature, and it's effective."
"One of the most important features is that it's a cloud base and, it's also quite cheaper when compared to other solutions."
"We tested the solution for a year first and found it more user friendly compared to other solutions on the market."
"For the most part, the solution is stable."
"The most valuable solution of Zoho CRM is lead management and analytics."
"It also provides robust reporting capabilities to analyze and report on these key aspects of customer relationship management."
"Being able to have the solution in the cloud has made this a cost effective solution for us as we don't need to invest in hardware."
 

Cons

"We can use only one domain in the basic package."
"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."
"I believe the customization options in Freshsales could be improved, particularly regarding themes; the ability to implement our logo into the dashboard would enhance our professional image when dealing with external partners compared to larger MNCs using their internal software."
"We have a problem with the time to delivery for our customers, although this is not specific to this solution."
"The price of this solution could be improved as well as the reporting functionality."
"It lacks customizability for complex and larger use cases."
"The solution needs to improve the user experience and leads capture."
"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."
"It does require some technical background before starting to do anything with Zoho CRM."
"There are two things I would like to see from Zoho CRM. The first would be to include a calling feature that is connected to our call center. Second, I would like financial targeting and how to measure targeting for the sales agent to be connected better with bookings."
"The chatbot feature is not very intelligent and lacks AI capabilities."
"Support could be more knowledgeable."
"The integration should be more user-friendly. I think the architecture currently is pretty modularized within the Zoho system."
"I have issues with the tool's scalability."
"What needs improvement in Zoho CRM is the UI. It needs to be more user-friendly."
"Support could be more knowledgeable."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is not that expensive."
"Freshsales is an economical product."
"If one is a very low price and ten is expensive, I rate the product price as a three."
"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 basic plan has changed from $15 to $25 or $30."
"We have an annual license fee that costs $12,000."
"Compared to other CRMs, it is very cheap."
"The product costs $35 per user per year."
"It is around $1000 a month."
"We consider it a good value and found it to be cost-effective."
"Zoho CRM is available at a fairly average price"
"Zoho CRM has a subscription-based license, which is not too expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
18%
Construction Company
15%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Construction Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise1
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business46
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise10
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Freshsales?
The product is up to the mark and everything we need right now.
What is your primary use case for Freshsales?
Freshsales is our CRM tool and CRM platform. Whenever we want to sell a product to a customer or when they inquire on any promotion site, we get the customer details over Freshsales, and based on t...
What advice do you have for others considering Freshsales?
Freshsales is a must-go product if you are considering a low budget and highly scalable product. I would rate this review as a nine.
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?
I think areas of Zoho CRM that need to be improved or enhanced include the permission structure, which can be easy to set up custom permissions within Zoho Creator using different filters and runni...
What is your primary use case for Zoho CRM?
I describe the usual use cases for Zoho CRM that I mostly work with as related to sales flow. Most of my clients are involved in that; the lead system allows leads to flow into our system, which ar...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Caratlane, Pykih, Buying Show, INTUO, WallyPark, Exploring Vacations, Raved, Forest, Ascendore, MagePlaza, Vacasa,
JetHub, Anderson Sales Advantage, ActionCoach, Milagro Advisory Group, TECO Pneumatic, Proteomics Consult
Find out what your peers are saying about Freshsales vs. Zoho CRM and other solutions. Updated: May 2026.
895,891 professionals have used our research since 2012.