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Freshsales vs Salesforce Essentials 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
26th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
CRM Customer Engagement Centers (10th), Opportunity Management (7th), Sales Force Automation (10th)
Salesforce Essentials
Ranking in CRM
17th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the CRM category, the mindshare of Freshsales is 1.0%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Salesforce Essentials is 0.3%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
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.
Srini-Dhanaraj - PeerSpot reviewer
Manages service requests and dispatches engineers to resolve issues
I work from home for a heater manufacturing company. They wanted to move away from their current SAP CRM system to Salesforce. There is a fulfillment process, which involves taking an order, delivering it, and providing service. Salesforce is used to manage the order-taking process. Once an order is taken, the backend system, SAP ERP, handles product manufacturing, delivery, and installation. After installation, the Service Cloud in Salesforce takes over for ongoing service management. Once your order is confirmed, integration with the SAP ERP backend will be seamless. The system takes the sales order from Salesforce and starts processing it for procurement, starting with creating a production order, manufacturing, and then delivery. Once the product is delivered, this information is passed back to Salesforce Service Cloud. In the Service Cloud, a service engineer receives a notification indicating that a product needs to be delivered to a specific location for installation. The engineer then inspects and installs the product at the designated site. SAP ERP manages the product manufacturing and delivery processes. After the product is delivered to the customer, Salesforce Service Cloud takes over. It manages service requests and dispatches engineers to resolve issues reported by customers. Service Cloud captures the information and creates an incident record when a customer reports a product fault. Engineers receive this information and promptly visit the client site to fix the issue. The solution is easy to implement. Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Email integration is easy."
"The solution is a low-cost CRM product compared to other CRM alternatives."
"I like Freshsales because it's integrated with Shopify which we use to host our website."
"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."
"Freshsales is user-friendly, scalable and stable."
"The solution's most valuable feature is its well-organized sales cycle, which is important to us."
"The product is stable."
"Salesforce makes tracking every product and customer activity easy, enabling managers to monitor their products, such as key products and their peak performance."
"The combination of product and service are exceptional."
"I can download the data to Excel, create tables, and do whatever I want. I am very comfortable with the tool's mobile application. Its main benefit is transparency because I can share it with representatives."
"The most important feature is how Salesforce Essentials brings together information from multiple channels. The nature of our complex custom product data has been challenging due to our manufacturing nature. Salesforce also allowed business processes like finance, credit lines, customer complaints, and quality issues to integrate seamlessly. I haven’t used the mobile app functionality, because we haven't fully utilized because of our preferance of more personal interactions over using mobile apps."
"The solution helps to track the performance of salespersons before closing deals."
"Salesforce Essentials is a reliable and powerful application."
"I've found the product's basic AI functionalities, such as predictive analytics and workflow automation useful for optimizing processes and improving productivity."
 

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."
"The price of this solution could be improved as well as the reporting functionality."
"The solution needs to improve the user experience and leads capture."
"The licensing costs should be based on the amount of data and number of clients that one can insert into the application."
"It lacks customizability for complex and larger use cases."
"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."
"Integrating Salesforce with SAP, considering our business relies heavily on SAP for ERP, has been quite challenging due to the intricate product configurations. Unlike standard products like computers with a few options, our products have hundreds of configurable options, making the integration complex. If such integration were possible, it would have been easier to understand the unique nature of our industry and the limited number of customers who buy steel products, unlike consumer electronics."
"The solution could be cheaper."
"Improvements in connectivity issues, especially for the online version, would enhance the user experience for the product."
"The solution's UI is not user-friendly."
"Less integration would be better. It should work independently."
"I have seen Salesforce evaluate a lot of AI and analytics into that. But as an end user, I don’t have that much input."
"Salesforce should encourage new users by offering smaller license packages, such as packages for three or two users."
"The primary area for improvement in Salesforce Essentials is its pricing. There are other competitors, like Zoho CRM, that offer similar features at a lower cost."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The basic price is affordable. The add ons are expensive."
"Freshsales is an economical product."
"The tool is not that expensive."
"The tool is moderately priced."
"There is a need to make yearly payments towards the licensing costs attached to the solution."
"We chose quarterly payments."
"I rate Salesforce Essentials' pricing an eight out of ten."
"The pricing is a bit on the expensive side."
"The pricing is on the higher side, especially with additional costs for professional services like consultants."
"It's a perpetual license, and the subscription can be expensive."
"Salesforce Essentials is quite expensive, almost 10 out of 10. I don't have the exact cost, but we found it to be very expensive based on our budget constraints."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Government
8%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Freshsales?
Freshsales is very simple to use, but it's fairly limited in its functionalities, and it's very cheap.
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 do you like most about Salesforce Essentials?
Salesforce provides the best they have with the current version. Most of the features we need are already there, and it's very easy to use.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Salesforce Essentials?
The pricing is a bit on the expensive side, maybe when we compare it with other solutions. I would rate the pricing a nine out of ten, with one being low price and ten being high price. The licensi...
What needs improvement with Salesforce Essentials?
I have seen Salesforce evaluate a lot of AI and analytics into that. But as an end user, I don’t have that much input. So, I would like to have more AI functionality here. That would be really help...
 

Comparisons

No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Caratlane, Pykih, Buying Show, INTUO, WallyPark, Exploring Vacations, Raved, Forest, Ascendore, MagePlaza, Vacasa,
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Freshsales vs. Salesforce Essentials and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
848,716 professionals have used our research since 2012.