Freshsales vs Zendesk comparison

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Freshsales

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 29, 2025

Freshsales and Zendesk are competing in the customer relationship management and customer service spaces. While Freshsales offers competitive pricing and responsive support, Zendesk's robust feature set makes it an attractive option for those who prioritize capabilities.

Features: Freshsales provides intuitive lead scoring, seamless email tracking, and a built-in phone system tailored to boost sales team efficiency. Zendesk is equipped with a strong ticketing system, automation capabilities, and multichannel support, all of which are beneficial for extensive customer service operations.

Room for Improvement: Freshsales could enhance its enterprise-level features to cater to larger businesses more effectively. Zendesk might focus on simplifying its deployment process for non-technical users and providing more pricing flexibility for smaller organizations. Freshsales can also work on expanding its range of customizations, while Zendesk could improve on its initial setup to ease the onboarding process.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Freshsales impresses with its straightforward deployment and highly responsive customer service, making onboarding seamless for new users. Zendesk, while offering comprehensive resources and support channels, can be more complex to deploy without technical support, making it more suitable for larger teams with technical expertise.

Pricing and ROI: Freshsales is valued for its cost-effective pricing, offering good ROI for budget-conscious businesses. Zendesk, despite its higher costs, provides a justified ROI through its expansive functionalities and support, beneficial for companies requiring advanced support tools.

To learn more, read our detailed Freshsales vs. Zendesk Report (Updated: March 2026).

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Freshsales vs. Zendesk

March 2026

Helped 884,933 peers since 2012

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 Customer Engagement Centers

9th

Ranking in CRM

23rd

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Opportunity Management (10th), Sales Force Automation (11th)

Zendesk

Ranking in CRM Customer Engagement Centers

4th

Ranking in CRM

9th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Help Desk Software (4th), IT Service Management (ITSM) (5th), Reporting (10th), Knowledge Management Software (3rd), AI Customer Support (20th), AI IT Support (5th)

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the CRM Customer Engagement Centers category, the mindshare of Freshsales is 2.9%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zendesk is 8.2%, up from 5.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

CRM Customer Engagement Centers Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Zendesk	8.2%
Freshsales	2.9%
Other	88.9%

CRM Customer Engagement Centers

Featured Reviews

Manojkumar Reddy

Associate Technology Consultant at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Automation has boosted sales efficiency and improves follow-ups across multiple customer segments

The automation runs whenever a certain trigger point is met. For example, if the person details captured indicate they are interested in proceeding further, then when we update the particular field, it automatically goes to the next person at a higher level, and then the status gets changed. There are many features including recently enabled AI that gives a brief description to the contact person about what that particular promotion is about. There are also features like auto email getting triggered and marketing emails. All of those features are part of Freshsales.

Read full review

AmandaSanchez

Consultant and Startup Founder at AimHi Enterprises

Macros and automation have streamlined workflows and reduced manual effort across support teams

The ability to communicate on the Zendesk ticket through the actual user software, so TOPs, would have been helpful. Somehow seeing a user's ticket history within our app would have been beneficial. That is the only thing that I do not think existed at the time that might have been helpful. Some people struggled with Zendesk, but it was always easy enough to show them how to use it and what they were missing. The only times we really had people report concerns about it was when they did not understand that it could do that or how to use it in that way.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Freshsales is user-friendly, scalable and stable."

"Freshsales has impacted us positively; it has saved time, increased sales, and improved customer relationships."

"Freshsales is very simple to use, but it's fairly limited in its functionalities, and it's very cheap."

"The solution is a low-cost CRM product compared to other CRM alternatives."

"Email integration is easy."

"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."

"The solution's most valuable feature is its well-organized sales cycle, which is important to us."

"The ROI is amazing."

"We chose Zendesk because of its ease of use and the projected ROI."

"It's very great for tracking your customer service activities, building reports, and gaining satisfaction from responses."

"This is one of the better solutions on the market for SMBs."

"I'd say that the integration options that Zendesk offers are the most valuable features to our team."

"Its agility and simplicity are the most valuable features. This tool is very user-friendly."

"All companies with high standards should use Zendesk because it's a reliable tool, constantly improving the old features and also bringing new ones on the market, in accordance to their customers’ needs."

"The benefits I have seen from using Zendesk include faster response times; as a CSM, faster response is the goal, which solves the customer's challenge in a timely manner, and Zendesk offers that capability, which is beneficial."

More Zendesk pros

Cons

"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."

"We can use only one domain in the basic package."

"The price of this solution could be improved as well as the reporting functionality."

"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."

"Customer Service: 6/10 – usually helpful but sometimes very slow. Technical Support: 6/10 – usually helpful but sometimes very slow."

"The reports could be more fine tuned to enable better handling of tickets by individual agents and teams."

"Partitioning rules and triggers need improvement."

"It needs to have a more intuitive application of macro’s in changing ticket statuses."

"You couldn't give administrative access to new hires."

"We have been quite frustrated lately with Zendesk, to the point where we are actually considering switching to different software that is more intuitive and better organized."

"There are various aspects of this product that need improvement such as its flexibility, price, and installation."

"The solution could integrate better with QR codes from some websites such as Facebook."

More Zendesk cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 tool is not that expensive."

"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."

"Zendesk's licensing is not cheap. For Enterprise, we are paying $200 per agent. It's a per-month cost, so it's pretty steep. There are some services you need to pay extra for. For example, with Zendesk Guide, we had to buy the most expensive offering in order to get Multibrand and everything. We also had to pay a lot of money for themes."

"From what I hear, Zendesk's pricing is a little expensive."

"The price is very competitive."

"We pay for the solution on a yearly basis and my understanding is that the cost is about $30,000. That's the cost for 24 to 25 agents."

"You have to pay extra for better support. So it's not only the license that you pay for, but you have to pay extra for the support as well."

"There are different plans that are offered. We are using the entry-level plan. The overall price of the solution should be reduced. The price is too high."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

13%

Outsourcing Company

11%

Insurance Company

11%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Performing Arts

Outsourcing Company

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	6
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	1

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	36
Midsize Enterprise	21
Large Enterprise	11

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 Zendesk Support?

I found the user experience with vendors on Zendesk to be straightforward, especially when it comes to understanding and searching for specific tickets. The search and navigation tools are easy to ...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zendesk Support?

From what I recall, the experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Zendesk was quite expensive and that is what prohibited us from expanding usage of it into more users and using more o...

What needs improvement with Zendesk Support?

I wish there was a more easily dynamic tool. Currently, it is quite difficult because not all the tools are labeled. A feature that would be beneficial is if hovering over an icon would tell you wh...

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Product Reports

Download Freshsales product report

CRM

March 2026

Download Zendesk product report

February 2026

Also Known As

No data available

Zendesk Support, Zendesk Guide, Zendesk Sell

Overview

Freshsales is a single solution CRM designed for high-growth, high-velocity sales teams. The software includes integrated phone and email, user behaviour tracking, and lead scoring on one platform. Users can track events and manage a visual sales pipeline, as well as view custom reports and analytics. Email tracking features enable users to know when and how many times an email was opened, or a link was clicked on. Users can effectively engage with prospects by targeting the next set of email actions, and create personalised sales campaigns from email templates. Insightful email metrics tell users which emails are performing well and which aren’t. The Awaiting Response feature automatically lists contacts that need to be replied to. Freshsales enables direct calling with a simple click on a contact’s phone number. The solution records the entire conversation history including email conversations in one place. Users can add notes, schedule tasks, as well as make appointments. Freshsales also offers personalised welcome and voicemail messages for greeting customers. In-depth customer insights on prospects allow users to plan relevant conversations, and keep track of touch points using the activity timeline. Freshsales collects data and segments activities based on a contact’s behaviour. Users can get perspective on leads with advanced lead scoring, and prioritises important follow-ups. The visual sales pipeline provides complete visibility of deals across various stages. Users can sort and filter by close dates, helping to make more guided decisions for climbing up the sales ladder. Freshsales’ drag and drop navigation tool enables users to move deals across the sales pipeline into any stage. Users can call or email prospects directly from the deals dashboard for a non-interruptive workflow. Visual sales reports and revenue analytics monitor sales progress and identify successful campaigns by source, sales rep, territory, and more. Freshsales mobile apps for iOS and Android let users access deals while on-the-move and stay up-to-date on prospects at all times. Freshsales is part of the Freshworks product family, whose products include Freshdesk Customer Support Software, Freshservice IT Service Management Software etc. – with more than 100000 customers worldwide, including Cisco, Honda, 3M, The Atlantic, and QuizUp.

Freshworks

Zendesk Support is intuitive, and it's built with support agents in mind. Everything they need lives in a single, dynamic help desk interface so it's easy to be productive and manage customer interactions.

Sample Customers

Caratlane, Pykih, Buying Show, INTUO, WallyPark, Exploring Vacations, Raved, Forest, Ascendore, MagePlaza, Vacasa,

Mailchimp, Tesco, Vimeo, Instacart, Mediaocean, Slack, Uber