Freshsales
Freshworks' CRM, a HubSpot-shaped suite at a third of the price, with phone and chat built in from the entry tier and EU hosting at signup.
Who owns it
Freshsales (Freshworks Inc., San Mateo, California, NASDAQ-listed since September 2021, founded as Freshdesk in Chennai in 2010) is the closest thing to HubSpot's shape at a small-business price. The free plan covers three users with contacts, deals, email tracking, built-in phone logging, chat and a mobile app. Prices in GBP, ex VAT per the terms, read 8 September 2026: Growth is £7 a user a month on annual commitment or £9 monthly, with pipelines, lifecycle stages, chat, email and phone and basic workflows. Pro, at £29 annual or £35 monthly, is the tier a 10-seat team needs: sales sequences, contact scoring, deal insights, territories. Enterprise (£49 / £59) adds forecasting insights, custom modules, sandbox and audit logs. The Suite variant bundles marketing (forms, landing pages, journeys) with 500 marketing contacts, more from £75 per 5,000 a month. Phone is genuinely built in, with 2,000 to 5,000 free inbound minutes a month by tier. Freddy AI's customer-facing agent is metered at £36 per 100 sessions after 500 free ones. You pick a hosting region at signup, including the EU. The API has published limits (2,000 calls an hour on Pro), SSO is available across tiers, and the marketplace lists over 1,000 apps. No MCP server was found.
What it costs
Read the terms before signing an annual contract. Section 6(c), effective 1 April 2026: "Upon renewal, Freshworks will adjust the Fees to reflect delivered innovation, general cost inflation, and other relevant factors", on 30 days' notice, with no cap, and any discount is lost if you reduce seats or plan. Section 5(a) blocks any mid-term reduction in users or downgrade in plan, so a team that shrinks in month four pays until renewal. Fees are non-refundable and there is no money-back guarantee. Support is email, chat and phone according to secondary sources; Freshworks' own pages do not publish a channel-by-tier matrix, so this profile does not claim one.
What you get and what to watch
The reputation signal is the weakest of the mid-price group. There is no Freshsales-specific Trustpilot page; the Freshworks group page is 1.3 on 120 reviews, 57% one-star, with 2026 themes of renewal charges after cancellation, an account locked while billing continued, and slow support. G2 and Capterra both sit around 4.5. Freshworks has also cut roughly 22% of its headcount in two rounds since November 2024 while growing revenue, which a buyer weighing product and support continuity should know. The product is good value for a team that wants phone, chat and sequences in one place without HubSpot's fees; the contract is the part to negotiate.
Not yet tested by Saaskly: assessed on published pricing, documentation and third-party reviews.
Pros
- +Phone, chat and email built in from the £7 Growth tier; free plan for three users
- +Sequences and scoring on Pro at £29; EU hosting region chosen at signup; published API limits
- +Suite variant adds forms, landing pages and journeys
Cons
- −Renewal clause allows uncapped increases for "delivered innovation, general cost inflation"; no mid-term downgrade or seat reduction
- −Freshworks group Trustpilot 1.3 on 120 reviews; two rounds of layoffs since late 2024
- −No MCP server found; support tiers not published
Pricing
Minimum commitment: £84 (£7/mo × 1 seat × 12 months). The least you can spend before walking away; excludes numbers, minutes and add-ons.
Growth
£9/mo · month-to-month
£7/mo on an annual commitment
Month-to-month costs 29% more
- ✓Per user, ex VAT per the terms. Pipelines, lifecycle stages, chat, email, built-in phone (2,000 free inbound minutes/mo), basic workflows. Free plan: 3 users. 21-day trial.
Pro
£35/mo · month-to-month
£29/mo on an annual commitment
Month-to-month costs 21% more
- ✓The tier a team needs: sales sequences, contact scoring, deal insights, territories, 3,000 phone minutes. Enterprise £49 / £59 adds custom modules and audit logs. Freddy AI agent £36 per 100 sessions. Suite marketing contacts from £75 per 5,000/mo.
Specifications
| Rating | 3.6 |
| Pricing and plans | |
|---|---|
| Month-to-month (entry plan) | £9/mo |
| Annual commit, per month | £7/mo |
| Monthly premium | 29% |
| Real tier, per user* | £29/user/mo (Pro) |
| Real tier, month-to-month | £35/user/mo |
| Seat minimum (real tier) | None |
| Onboarding fee | None |
| Renewal terms** | Increase allowed, uncapped |
| Pricing pattern | Transparent tiers |
| Free tier | Limited free plan |
| Real tier, monthly premium | 21% |
| Renewal clause | Terms s.6(c): fees adjusted at renewal for innovation, inflation and other factors, 30 days' notice, no cap; s.5(a) no mid-term downgrade |
| Free trial (days) | 21 |
| Contact-based pricing | No |
| Commitment for annual rate (months) | 12 |
| Features | |
| How you get live | Self-serve |
| Built for | Small business (10 to 50) |
| Marketing automation | ✓ |
| Email marketing built in | ✓ |
| Quotes & invoicing | No |
| AI assistant | ✓ |
| Email sequences | ✓ |
| Gmail / Outlook sync | ✓ |
| Workflow automation | ✓ |
| Custom objects | ✓ |
| Custom reporting | ✓ |
| Mobile app | ✓ |
| Integrations and developers | |
| API | ✓ |
| MCP server | No |
| SSO | ✓ |
| Open source | No |
| Self-hostable | No |
| Ownership and trust | |
| Owner | Freshworks Inc. |
| EU data residency | ✓ |
| UK data residency | No |
| Trustpilot (reviews) | 1.3 (120) |
| HQ | US (founded India) |
| Publicly listed | ✓ |
| 2FA | No |
| Support | |
| Built-in phone | ✓ |
| Phone support | No |
| Support channels | Email, Chat, Phone (not published by tier) |
*Real tier: the plan a 10-seat business with a pipeline, email sequences, basic automation and reporting actually needs, because CRM entry tiers are deliberately thin. Prices are per user per month on annual commitment, as shown to a UK visitor on the research date, in the currency the vendor bills UK customers in; see each profile for the VAT basis and for what the entry tier leaves out.
**Renewal terms: what the vendor's published customer terms allow it to do to your price when an annual contract renews. "Fixed" means the terms contain no uplift clause; "capped" means an increase is allowed up to a stated percentage; "uncapped" means the vendor may set a new price on notice. Read with the profile, which quotes the clause.
Researched and drafted with AI assistance; reviewed and approved by Tim Meredith. How we use AI
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