Best CRM Software 2021

Freshworks CRM vs. HubSpot

Are you deciding between Freshworks CRM and HubSpot? This in-depth, feature-by-feature breakdown will help you select the best CRM tool to help you manage your relationships with potential and existing customers.

Individuals, SMBs, and enterprises use CRMs to manage relationships with potential and existing customers. In a market filled with many different types of CRMs, it can be difficult to decipher which solution is the best for you and your business.

We’ve written this guide to help you better understand the main differences between Freshworks CRM and HubSpot. Below, we describe how each platform differs in terms of features, pricing, usability, and ideal customer type.

All of our recommendations are based upon extensive research, discussions with CRM users, and dozens of hours spent hand-testing the leading CRM software platforms. The details of our research process can be found on our CRM category page.

Comparison Summary

Freshworks CRM and HubSpot are two of the most popular CRM solutions. We rated Freshworks CRM 86 out of 100, and HubSpot 91 out of 100, respectively.

HubSpot was rated higher than Freshworks CRM because HubSpot’s features are more robust, but also user-friendly. Freshworks CRM was rated lower because its platform is less feature-rich.


This breakdown shows our review criteria and the ratings that Freshworks CRM and HubSpot received for each category.

CriteriaAnalyst RatingFeaturesUsabilityPricingCustomer Support
Freshworks CRM868.75988.5
HubSpot919.59.589

When compared to HubSpot, Freshworks CRM is the more affordable solution. Freshworks CRM’s most popular $69 per month and its most expensive plan costs $119 per month. In contrast, HubSpot’s most expensive plan costs $4,000 per month. However, it should be noted that HubSpot offers a robust free CRM plan, while Freshworks CRM does not. Freshworks CRM and HubSpot both offer industry-standard CRM features. This includes tools for lead capture, contact and deal management, workflow automation, and insights reporting. Overall, HubSpot’s features are more robust and user-friendly.

Overall, Freshworks CRM is an intuitive CRM solution that is better for first-time CRM users than HubSpot. It’s best for smaller businesses who would benefit from a wide range of strong communication tools.

HubSpot is best for medium to large businesses who prefer an all-in-one CRM to support their complex workflows. It is also ideal for those who need high quality digital marketing tools, like for email and social media.

Here’s a few key differences between the solutions to determine which is best for you:

You'll prefer Freshworks CRM if:

  • You want a more affordable CRM that is better for small businesses
  • You want a HIPAA compliant solution
  • You want to take advantage of Freddy AI for lead scoring

Try Freshworks CRM Today

You'll prefer HubSpot if:

  • You want a robust, free CRM
  • You want a user-friendly, advanced CRM solution
  • You want high-quality digital marketing tools

Try HubSpot Today


Table of Contents

Freshworks CRM & HubSpot Price Comparison

Overall, Freshworks CRM is cheaper than HubSpot. Freshworks CRM’s most expensive plan costs $119 per month. In contrast HubSpot’s most expensive plan costs $4,000 per month. It should be noted that HubSpot offers a robust free CRM plan.

Freshworks CRM Pricing Details

Freshworks CRM’s pricing ranges from $35 to $149 per month. You can also save up to ~18% if you pay for an annual subscription upfront. Freshworks CRM also offers a 21-day trial of each plan.

Freshworks CRM PlanPricing
Starter$35 per month
Professional$85 per month
Enterprise$149 per month

HubSpot Pricing Details

HubSpot’s pricing ranges from $25 to $300 per month. All HubSpot plans are charged on an annual basis. HubSpot also offers a free 30-day trial for each plan.

Here’s an overview of HubSpot’s pricing plans:

HubSpot PlanPricing
Essentials$25 per month
Professional$75 per month
Enterprise$150 per month
Unlimited$300 per month

Freshworks CRM & HubSpot Feature Comparison

Freshworks CRM and HubSpot offer standard and advanced CRM features. This includes lead capture tools, contact and deal management tools, workflow automations, and insights reporting.

As you can see below, HubSpot offers more lead capture methods. This includes offering social media as a lead capture tool.

For a full analysis of each solution’s features, read our Freshworks CRM review and HubSpot review.

FeatureFreshworks CRMHubSpot
Lead Capture Social MediaNoYes
Lead Capture FormsYesYes
Lead Capture Live ChatYesYes
Lead Capture EmailYesYes
Contact ProfilesYesYes
Custom Contact FieldsYesYes
Contact Activity FeedYesYes
Contact List SegmentationYesYes
Contact Tags/ CategoriesYesYes
Email MarketingYesYes
Social Media MarketingYesYes
Direct MessagingYesYes
Phone CallsYesYes
PipelinesYesYes
TasksYesYes
Task RemindersYesYes
Lead ScoringYesYes
Triggered EventsYesYes
Insights ReportingYesYes
Mobile CRMYesYes
IntegrationsYesYes

Freshworks CRM & HubSpot Top Feature Comparison

Below we thoroughly analyze the five key feature categories that are included in Freshworks CRM and HubSpot. This includes lead capture, contact and deal management, workflow automation, and insights reporting.

Overall, besides contact activity tracking and lead scoring, HubSpot is the stronger solution.

Lead Capture

Freshworks CRM and HubSpot both offer form, live chat, and email as lead capture tools. However, HubSpot is better for lead capture because it offers social media as a lead capture method, and offers a higher quality email lead capture tool.

Email Lead Capture

Freshworks CRM offers a feature that lets you automatically capture email senders who are not already labeled within your system as sales qualified leads. However, a disadvantage of it is that it does not capture other information that can be found in emails like phone numbers, company names, and websites.

HubSpot lead email

As shown above, HubSpot offers a chrome extension that is able to capture information found in emails such as names, phone numbers, company names, company locations, and even industries. This feature even lets you further edit leads’ details all within Gmail.

Lead Capture Through Social Media

HubSpot lets you capture leads through an integration with Facebook and LinkedIn. The integration allows you to run ads and attach lead capture forms.

Once you’ve created your ad and form, you can set up a basic automation that creates a contact list of those who submit your form. HubSpot also lets you send yourself email notifications when someone becomes a lead from your ads and forms.

Contact Management

Freshworks CRM and HubSpot offer contact management tools that let you create robust contact profiles and organize your contacts efficiently. Overall, Freshworks CRM is better for managing less than 50 contacts at once, and HubSpot is better at managing more than 50 contacts at once.

In terms of contact profiles, Freshworks CRM and HubSpot offer their own advantages that you should evaluate in order to determine which platform is better for your business. For example, Freshworks CRM’s contact activity feed is slightly more robust than HubSpot’s.

Contact Profiles

Freshworks CRM and HubSpot let you create above average contact profiles – each offers its own advanced capabilities. Therefore, we recommend evaluating these advanced capabilities to determine which system is better for your business.

Freshworks CRM contact profile

As shown above, Freddy AI is Freshworks CRM’s own artificial intelligence system that provides insights as to whether or not a contact is a good fit with your business. Freddy AI uses your CRM data, including other contacts and deals, to predict a contact’s score.

You can train Freddy AI by inputting positive and negative data involving contact properties, engagement, and web or in-app activities.

HubSpot contact profile

HubSpot’s contact profile feature lets you capture someone’s website activity and how a contact was obtained. You can use this information to better understand which marketing methods are most productive.

Automatic Contact Activity Feed

Both Freshworks CRM and HubSpot offer features that automatically keep track of your contacts’ activity. This type of activity tracking keeps you up-to-date on where prospects are in your sales process.

Freshworks CRM contact activity

Both Freshworks CRM and HubSpot let you view contact activity for emails, events, website activity, phone calls, meetings, chats, and tasks. However, unlike HubSpot, Freshworks CRM lets you track when a contact was last contacted and organize your contact activity by date.

HubSpot Contact Activity

Deal Management

Deal management within a CRM involves managing pipelines, tasks, and lead scoring. Overall, Freshworks CRM is better if you have less than 50 simultaneous deals, and HubSpot is better for managing more than 50 simultaneous deals.

The solutions primarily differ in terms of task management and lead scoring. HubSpot is better for task management and Freshworks CRM offers a higher-quality lead scoring tool.

Task Management

Tasks in a CRM are actions that are taken in order to bring a deal to completion. Overall, HubSpot’s task management feature is more robust than Freshworks CRM.

HubSpot task management

Both solution’s let you customize your task’s titles, descriptions, and due dates. However, unlike Freshworks CRM, HubSpot lets you set reminders for tasks. Reminders reduce the chance of losing a potential deal.

Another advantage of HubSpot’s task management feature is that you can use filters like task type, priority level, creation date, and creation source to organize your tasks. Freshworks CRM only lets you organize your tasks by days or whether they are open, completed, or overdue.

Freshworks CRM task management

Lead Scoring

Freshworks CRM and HubSpot let you assign numerical values to a lead, which reflects the likelihood of a lead becoming a paying customer. These values also help your sales representatives prioritize their time and resources.

Overall, Freshworks CRM’s lead scoring tool is more advanced than HubSpot’s because Freshworks CRM uses artificial intelligence to score your leads – Freddy AI. Freddy AI uses your CRM data to provide a score, whereas HubSpot makes you manually input positive or negative score indicators.

Workflow Automation

Freshworks CRM and HubSpot offer triggered events as tools that automate common tasks. Overall, HubSpot’s work automation tools are superior to Freshworks CRM’s.

HubSpot workflow

Both Freshworks CRM and HubSpot let you perform actions like field updates, sending emails, and task creation. However, HubSpot also lets you perform actions related to record reassignment, and list, ads, and property management.

Freshworks CRM workflow

As shown below, HubSpot also includes sequences as a workflow automation tool. Sequences are best for developing 1:1 relationships between leads and sales representatives. With sequences, you can send automated follow up emails that contain highly targeted content to a potential lead.

HubSpot sequences

Insights Reporting

Freshworks CRM and HubSpot offer insights reporting for key information like deals won and lost, pipeline progression, sales forecasting, and sales funnel performance. Overall, HubSpot’s insights reporting feature is slightly more advanced because it offers more dashboard customization capabilities.

HubSpot Reporting

As shown above, HubSpot lets you drag & drop and resize reports in a dashboard. Customizing your dashboards in these ways lets you emphasize the metrics that are especially relevant to your business.

Freshworks CRM Reporting

Bottom Line

Overall, Freshworks CRM is better for small businesses who want a beginner platform. Those in need of strong communication tools would greatly benefit from using Freshworks CRM.

In contrast, HubSpot is an advanced, all-in-one platform with robust features. It is a higher quality solution compared to Freshworks CRM, but is also much more expensive. While user-friendly enough for small businesses, HubSpot is better for medium to large businesses who also need high-quality digital marketing tools.

If you’re interested, visit Freshworks CRM or HubSpot today to get started.

Amy Yang

Amy Yang is a Junior Research Analyst at SoftwarePundit, where she conducts in-depth analyses on software markets and products. Amy has expertise in content production and managing digital and social platforms. She has a Bachelor of Science in Communication & Media, and a Minor in Web Programming and Applications from NYU. You can connect with Amy on LinkedIn.

Amy is an expert in several software categories including:

  • Course creation software
  • Electronic signature software
  • Social media software
  • Website builder software

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