The Nerd Series

CRM Powerhouse: Freshworks & Its Products For Every Business

Software February, 05, 2025

Freshworks enables businesses to delight their customers and employees. They do this by building affordable quick-to-implement software-as-a-service for the end-user. Freshworks makes it easy for IT customer service sales marketers and HR to do their jobs and delight customers. Freshworks' SaaS is used by over 50000 businesses to improve customer experience. Freshworks is a scalable multiproduct software solution for businesses. Its five products support CRM for customer service sales and marketing as well as IT and HR.

Freshworks software provides a complete CRM solution for commercial businesses. Users can access customer support sales marketing HR and IT. The free version of Freshworks is a great option for users on a tight budget as it has all the features necessary for a sole proprietor or small business. Freshworks also has a very quick setup time—roughly 48 hours. On the other hand most competitors' products can take weeks or months to set up. Freshworks on the other hand has fewer customization options than its competitors. Salesforce or HubSpot may be suitable for larger firms that need big UI modifications or custom fields. Freshworks is a well-rounded software suite for small businesses despite limited customization options.

Freshworks provides 6 products each with pricing levels based on your needs and the size of the organization. Each product addresses a specific business need such as customer service sales marketing HR or IT.

This review compares products to the competition and tells everything you need to know to decide if Freshworks is the best CRM software.


1 Freshdesk

Freshdesk is a customer service CRM that works across all channels. Its primary function is to provide a ticketing system that consolidates all customer inquiries into a single inbox. Tickets are then automatically processed and routed to the appropriate agent. Users can specify which agent receives each type of ticket and which tickets are prioritized.

Freshdesk is a capable CRM that allows your company to provide excellent customer service. The software manages email live chat and a call center and is more than Zendesk.

Freshdesk provides four Support Desk plans that do not include Messaging or Call Center as well as three Omnichannel plans that do. Before committing to a subscription you can try out any plan for 21 days. Freshdesk accepts monthly or annual payments with annual subscribers saving 17%.

Freshdesk has 4 different monthly plans each of which is billed on a per-support-agent basis.

  1. Free- $0 (unlimited free agents)
  2. For a growing business you can choose between a monthly payment of $18 per agent or an annual payment of $15 per agent.
  3. Monthly billing of $47/agent/month or annual billing of $39/agent/month (prorated)
  4. Monthly fees of $83 or $69 annually per agent are charged by Enterprise.

2 Freshsales

Freshsales has advanced contact management workflow automation and AI insights. It's ideal for ambitious sales teams in small and medium-sized businesses who want to reach out to prospects in a more strategic way. Freshsales' intuitive customizable interface makes it a good choice for CRM newcomers and requires little team training to set up.

Built-in phone and email allow you to communicate directly with CRM contacts and the mobile app captures data on the go. Freshsales' lead-generation tools require an upgrade and third-party integrations are limited. If you want a CRM with more integrations might be a better option.

Freshsales is an affordable CRM with all the standard features your sales team needs. Freshsales has 4 price tiers including an Enterprise package with AI greater storage sales teams processes and sequences. Plans are billed monthly or annually with annual billing providing a discount.

Free: No Cost Unlimited Access Expansion: $18 per user per month (or $15 per user per month) payable annually Compared to competitors Pro charges $39/user/month when paid annually or $47/user/month when paid monthly. Business: $69 per user per month when paid annually (or $83 per user per month when paid annually).


3 Freshmarketer

Freshmarketer is marketing CRM software provided by Freshworks. It lets you upload potential marketing contacts into a single database and run email marketing campaigns. Freshmarketer is a Freshworks CRM for marketing along with Freshsales Freshservice and Freshdesk.

It is a marketing CRM tool for small and medium-sized businesses. Its primary function is to allow users to run various email-focused marketing campaigns on a lead database. It was also recently updated with a landing page builder tool that works in tandem with the automatic marketing campaign builder.

While you can build a custom journey from scratch using Freshmarketer's templates is faster. Before starting from scratch look through the available templates and see if you can modify one to meet your needs. Freshmarketer's primary function is to help users create email-based marketing campaigns. Freshmarketer lets users input leads into a database and build automated email campaigns. You can also design landing pages with a call to action to close the deal.

There are 3 different pricing tiers each of which increases in price as more features and contacts are unlocked. You can try out the service risk-free for 21 days before committing to a paid subscription of any kind.

The entry-level Sprout plan is always free but limits you to 500 contacts and a few other basic capabilities. Its primary use is to organize one's inbox.

Garden is the second tier of Freshmarketer's pricing structure. Prices range from $49 per month (billed annually) for 1000 contacts to $309 per month (billed monthly) for 25000 contacts.


4 Freshservice

Freshservice provides a ticket-based solution where agents manage support requests. Freshservice lacks social ticketing skills-based ticket assignment and marketing integration. Email phone calls or web forms produce tickets not Twitter or Facebook.

They both have basic reporting team collaboration tools a knowledge base and templated responses in common. Freshservice manages incident change problem release asset software license contract and project.

It has all the necessary parts to handle hardware and software deployments where users need full-service solutions. These tools can be used internally for a large company or externally to support software contracts but Freshservice is best for internal support. This tool is designed for IT staff not a helpdesk team to manage support requests and track department response times.

Blossom Garden Estate and Forest are the Freshservice tiers and they range from $19 per month per agent to $99 if billed annually.

There is also a fee for managed assets on the system which ranges from free for up to 100 assets to $1500 per month for unlimited assets. Because this is not a linear cost 1000 assets cost $130 and 5000 assets cost $650.


5 Freshteam

Freshteam is intelligent human resource software for growing businesses. With Freshteam you can hire onboard offboard manage employee information and time off all in one place.

Freshteam helps recruit top talent through a customizable career site job boards and social media. Once candidates are in recruiters and hiring managers can screen and interview them share feedback and make offers to the best.

Freshteam allows HR to onboard new hires before day one by filling out forms signing documents and handing out handbooks with a few clicks. It also allows you to create an onboarding task list and assign it to the appropriate people. You can gather information create employee profiles manage employee information and document access etc.

Employee and manager self-service for employees to raise requests manager approval workflows and time off reports for teams and the entire organization.

Up to 50 active employees are free. Growth: $1 per employee per month + $59 monthly platform fee billed annually Pro: $2 per employee per month + $99 monthly platform fee billed annually Enterprise: $4 per employee per month plus a monthly platform fee of $169 billed annually.


6 Freshchat

Customers demand individualized help on familiar channels as contactless service spreads. Businesses of all sizes may take advantage of AI-powered customer messaging software to offer first-class digital support via messaging channels including WhatsApp Apple Business Chat Facebook Messenger and their own websites and mobile apps. It's a multichannel AI-driven customer support chatbot for large and small businesses.

It is a standalone product that can only be of use to businesses that also use Freshworks for their help desk online sales and other business tools. This will cost you at least three times as much as Freshchat and restrict your choice of technologies. Other more adaptable customer service chatbots exist that provide as much or more capability as Freshchat at a lesser price.

Using Freshchat's in-app communications you may interact with certain user groups and broadcast ads to them. Onboarding support and proactive communications are all handled via in-app chat. Starting with the Garden plan you'll be able to use this function.

Freshchat includes a free plan to get a feel for the platform but it's not enough for a sales or support team. Costs increase from the free tier to a maximum of $99 per agent each month at the Enterprise tier. The advanced features and other Freshworks software your team requires are what will push you into an expensive plan.


7 Freshping

Freshping (Insping) is an uptime and performance monitoring tool for websites APIs and web services that is FREE FOREVER. Bloggers MSPs Marketers and Enterprises can monitor website availability and performance with real-time monitoring.

Freshping monitors 10 global URLs and integrates with Slack Freshdesk and Freshservice. You can also get downtime notifications via SMS and email.

Freshping's real-time dashboard allows users to check website response times. Instant downtime alerts and SMS/text message alerts notify users of website outages. Freshping lets you send alerts to any team member and control who can create/edit/delete monitors & who can view them.


Final Verdict:

Freshworks is a robust system at an affordable price. It's unlike most CRMs in that it provides extensive help for human resources and information technology.

Additionally, its setup process is simple. Freshmarketer, one of many available functions, can be put to use immediately. While other CRMs may take several weeks to launch, Freshworks may be up and running in as little as 48 hours.

It has a growing marketplace of over 650 apps and respectable personalization possibilities. Companies with strong customization needs may prefer Salesforce or HubSpot. Freshworks' comprehensive product portfolio has something for everyone. The company's wares are and need minimal setup time. They're adaptable to a large number of situations and provide enough room for personalization. Freshworks is also quite adaptable, and it provides a fully functional free tier for all of its offerings.

We recommend it for budget-conscious customers or businesses that value quick startup and ease of use over customization.