Choosing the right CRM can transform how you attract, engage, and delight customers, but with so many options on the market, it’s hard to know which platform truly delivers.
HubSpot is often seen as one of the premier choices for growing B2B businesses thanks to its all-in-one suites, intuitive interface, and powerful automation tools.
But how does it stack up against Freshsales?
In this comparison, we’ll break down the key differences between HubSpot and Freshsales, looking at everything from features and flexibility to pricing to technical details, such as integrations, which will help you decide which platform fits your business best.
A slight caveat before we get into the meat of this article - we’re a HubSpot Solutions Partner. We’re well-versed in working with the platform, and we think it’s a brilliant fit for most B2B businesses. However, we would never recommend it if it doesn’t fit your specific business requirements.
Throughout this article, we will give an impartial comparison between HubSpot and Freshsales to help you make the correct decision for your circumstance.
Starting with HubSpot, there are numerous ways to get onboarded and started within the system. You can start with:
Either one of the three is effective in getting you started and helping you set up your portal in the correct way. And once you’re set up, you can take advantage of the numerous products that HubSpot offers.
Whilst, like all other CRMs, there may be an initial learning curve, HubSpot's user-friendly design supports businesses in effectively leveraging the platform's capabilities to drive growth and improve customer engagement. One user on G2 commented by saying:
Hubspot is very helpful, offering a robust way to learn and manage service, sales, and marketing. Its built-in help resources and user-friendly tools have made it much easier to understand and implement key business strategies.
With its wide array of tools and features across its three tiers, Starter, Professional and Enterprise (including a stripped-back, free version too), HubSpot is known for combining sales, marketing, service, operations and, most recently, eCommerce functionality within its suite. This makes it ideal for those B2B businesses looking to scale their business without the investment into a wide tech stack that needs external integrations to merge with your CRM.
On the other hand, Freshsales is designed to offer an intuitive and streamlined experience for sales teams.
Its user-friendly interface and straightforward setup process make it accessible for businesses seeking a CRM solution that doesn't require extensive training or technical expertise.
The system’s layout is uncluttered, with navigation that feels logical even to first-time users. Built-in communication tools, such as integrated phone and email, work out of the box, and the drag-and-drop pipeline view makes sales tracking feel familiar from day one. Onboarding resources include video tutorials, email support, and guided setup flows, making it suitable for teams without dedicated admin roles.
A user praised Freshsales for its ease of use when starting out:
The time it takes to get used to Freshworks when you implement it is straightforward. It is nice and easy to implement and get the process off the ground.
That said, while Freshsales excels in simplicity, it does so by focusing on core CRM capabilities. More advanced onboarding resources, such as live onboarding support or deeper cross-functional alignment between sales and marketing, may require workarounds or additional tools to fully realise the potential of the CRM system.
HubSpot’s flexibility is one of the key reasons businesses continue to scale with - and use - the platform. With the ability to create custom properties, objects, workflows, and dashboards, teams can shape the system around their exact processes rather than adapting their processes to fit the tool.
Whether it’s segmenting contacts with bespoke criteria, building out tailored sales pipelines, or automating marketing workflows based on specific behaviours, HubSpot’s customisation options and flexibility enable users to design a system that mirrors their real-world operations. As one G2 reviewer puts it:
Adapt quickly with a flexible system that allows you to architect your business exactly as it appears in the real world... without months of custom dev work.
This level of adaptability means that even as your business evolves, HubSpot evolves with you, without the need for expensive development work or third-party tools
Like most of its competitors, Freshsales offers a balance of customisation and usability, catering to businesses that require a CRM adaptable to their unique sales processes, without the added complexity.
Users can tailor the system through customisable fields, modules, and workflows, allowing for a personalised experience that aligns with specific business needs. This flexibility extends to the creation of custom reports and dashboards, enabling teams to focus on metrics that matter most to them. One user commented:
Flexibility + Automation = amazing product. It is highly customizable (sic) and great for collaboration.
However, some users have noted limitations in the depth of customisation, particularly when compared to platforms like HubSpot, which offer more advanced customisation options and a broader range of integrations.
While Freshsales provides a solid foundation for customisation, businesses with more complex needs may find it lacking in certain areas.
This will be no surprise, but HubSpot’s main standout strength is its unified system across all business departments.
From marketing automation and sales pipelines to customer service, CMS, and operations, every tool is designed to work together on a single platform. This native integration removes the friction of jumping between disconnected systems and gives teams a clearer, shared view of the customer journey. It also connects up to your CRM, which enables your users to have a single-view of the customer.
What really sets HubSpot apart, though, is the balance between depth and usability.
Each Hub is feature-rich in its own right, with a level of practicality that you would usually assume to be reserved for specialist, independent tools. Having all these tools under a single umbrella enables businesses to take advantage without the need to patch together a load of third-party apps. As one reviewer puts it:
HubSpot is more than just a CRM – it's an ecosystem of powerful tools that seamlessly integrate to help you grow.
In contrast, Freshsales, on its own, offers a tightly integrated set of tools, tailored towards sales teams - not all customer-facing teams.
It does, however, connect seamlessly with the wider Freshworks ecosystem, including Freshmarketer and Freshdesk, to aid alignment between teams that you can’t quite achieve with just Freshsales.
Some core features include AI-powered lead scoring via Freshworks’ Freddy AI, which prioritises contacts based on engagement and likelihood to convert. Users can manage deals using a visual sales pipeline that supports drag-and-drop functionality, helping sales teams track progress and spot bottlenecks at a glance. Built-in communication tools such as email, phone, and live chat are included natively in the platform, creating a single view of the customer.
Finally, the platform also offers workflow automation, enabling users to automate repetitive tasks like follow-ups, lead assignments, and task creation.
With all these features, however, some users have noted the steep learning curve when getting onboarded onto the system. While the platform is relatively intuitive, it can take time to fully explore and configure its full capabilities, particularly for businesses with more complex sales structures. As one reviewer noted:
The onboarding was a little bit long, it took around 3 days, even though we started with a few contacts by then.
This is where HubSpot can get tricky, as it’s not exactly a cheap option if you want all the bells and whistles.
HubSpot offers a free CRM option, but only allows you to store up to 1,000 non-marketing contacts within this tier. From there, if you want the customer platform (which is the bundle which encompasses all ‘Hubs’), it comes priced at:
However, what HubSpot does allow you to do is scale your tiers as you grow and adopt new features within ALL tiers if you choose the customer platform option. However, if you don’t you can also pick and choose what tier of each suite and make your own, personalised bundle - something that other CRM providers don’t often allow.
Comparitively, Freshsales comes in at a much cheaper price than HubSpot. The platform splits pricing up into three separate tiers, each with increasing features added to it.
The system offers a free version for those with small teams of up to three users, with the basic functionality of the system and limitations on the number of contacts. As for paid plans, they are priced at:
As we mentioned earlier, this is a lot cheaper than HubSpot - however, you need to consider the depth of sales, marketing, service and operations tools you acquire when signing up to HubSpot.
Freshsales, on its own, only caters to your sales team. If that’s what you require at this stage, Freshsales may be a budget-friendly option at this stage of your growth. However, if you need a deeper feature set, then HubSpot is probably your best option.
The final comparison point is regarding integrations and how easy it is to connect multiple apps to the CRM.
Firstly, HubSpot offers an extensive integrations ecosystem, featuring over 1,500 native integrations through its App Marketplace. This allows users to connect their CRM with a wide array of tools, including, for example, QuickBooks, Microsoft Teams, LinkedIn Sales Navigator and other ERP & CRM tools.
This connectivity ensures that data flows smoothly between platforms, including HubSpot’s CRM, which reduces manual input and enhances operational efficiency. A Capterra user highlighted the value of HubSpot’s integration abilities by saying:
The integrations of HubSpot are unmatched, big reason they charge big is those ecosystem integrations.
This flexibility ensures that, as your business evolves and introduces more systems into your tech stack, HubSpot can adapt with you without needing substantial change.
Freshsales, as we mentioned earlier, integrates perfectly with the rest of the Freshworks suite. But how else does it fare when it comes to integrations?
The platform provides native integrations with several popular applications, including Google Workspace, Office 365, Slack, and WhatsApp, allowing for efficient communication and collaboration within the CRM environment. Additionally, Freshsales integrates with accounting software like QuickBooks and Xero, facilitating financial data synchronisation.
For broader connectivity, Freshsales supports integration via Zapier and Make (formerly Integromat), enabling users to connect with over 1,000 additional applications. This allows you to integrate a whole suite of tools into your CRM to enable effective automation.
Developers seeking deeper customisation can leverage Freshsales' RESTful API, which provides access to a wide range of endpoints for creating, reading, updating, and deleting data within the CRM.
However, its lack of native integrations has been seen as a hindrance for some users who don’t want to expand their tech stack to realise the extensibility potential of Freshsales. Tech Radar noted:
While the number of native integrations is limited compared to some competitors, Freshsales' open API and compatibility with Zapier and Make provide ample opportunities for extensibility.
While it may not match the extensive native integrations that platforms like HubSpot have, for those looking for simple connections to their CRM, Freshsales can facilitate your business’ tech stack within the platform - if they’re on Zapier or Make.
Choosing the right CRM comes down to your team’s needs, technical capabilities, and growth ambitions. While Freshsales may offer strong features in certain areas, HubSpot stands out for its ease of use, unified ecosystem, and scalability, particularly for growing B2B businesses.
If you're leaning towards HubSpot and want to get implementation right from day one, download our 5 Stages of HubSpot Implementation guide. It walks you through each phase of a successful rollout, helping you avoid common pitfalls and maximise ROI from the get-go.