Freshsales vs Insightly
An independent, review-free comparison compiled by the SaaSTracker editorial team. Both products are profiled in full, and neither can pay for placement here.
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The short answer
Both sides assessedFreshsales compared with Insightly
Insightly starts at $29 per user per month and bundles post-sale project management with the CRM, which Freshsales does not attempt. Freshsales is cheaper at entry, better on communications, and cleaner to use. Businesses that deliver projects after the sale fit Insightly; businesses whose work ends at closed-won fit Freshsales.
Insightly compared with Freshsales
Freshsales Pro at $39 is cheaper, cleaner to use, and includes native calling, SMS, and WhatsApp, but it stops at the closed-won line. Insightly costs more and continues into delivery with projects, milestones, and tasks. Phone-driven sales teams should take Freshsales; project-driven service businesses should take Insightly.
Choose Freshsales if
Small and mid-sized sales teams that make a lot of calls and want telephony, SMS, WhatsApp, and chat inside the CRM without stitching together a dialer, particularly companies already using Freshdesk or Freshservice.
Choose Insightly if
Small and mid-sized project-based businesses (agencies, consultancies, professional services, specialist contractors) that need the sale and the delivery to share one system, and that value record scale and permissions over deep sales automation.
Side by side
13 attributes| Attribute | Freshsales | Insightly |
|---|---|---|
| Category | CRM | CRM |
| Starting price | $0 for up to 3 users, then $9 per user per month on annual billing (Growth) | $29 per user per month, billed annually (Plus) (14 days trial) |
| Pricing model | Per-user subscription across a free 3-user plan and three paid plans, billed monthly or annually, with Freddy AI agent sessions metered, phone credits purchased separately, and branded documents sold as a per-user add-on. | Per-user subscription across three CRM plans billed annually, with marketing automation priced by prospect volume, service ticketing priced per user, and the AppConnect integration platform priced by monthly task volume. |
| Free plan | Forever-free plan for up to 3 users covering contact, account, and deal management, the mobile app, and chat, email, and phone support, without workflows, sequences, or reporting depth. | No |
| Free trial | 21 days with full product access, no credit card required | 14 days |
| Best for | Small and mid-sized sales teams that make a lot of calls and want telephony, SMS, WhatsApp, and chat inside the CRM without stitching together a dialer, particularly companies already using Freshdesk or Freshservice. | Small and mid-sized project-based businesses (agencies, consultancies, professional services, specialist contractors) that need the sale and the delivery to share one system, and that value record scale and permissions over deep sales automation. |
| Setup time | A usable instance in a few hours: import records, connect a mailbox, buy a phone number, set pipeline stages. Sequences, scoring, territories, and reporting on the Pro plan add roughly a week of part-time configuration. | A working CRM in a day or two through CSV import and pipeline configuration. Setting up project pipelines, task templates, routing rules, and dashboards so that sales and delivery genuinely connect takes 2 to 4 weeks of part-time work. |
| Learning curve | Low for reps. The interface is uncluttered and communication actions are where you expect them. Administration is moderate, with the workflow and assignment builders being the only places that require real thought. | Moderate. The CRM half is conventional and familiar, and the project half requires deliberate process design, since the value only appears if the opportunity-to-project handoff mirrors how the business actually delivers. |
| Platforms | Web app, iOS, Android, Gmail and Outlook integrations | Web app, iOS, Android, Gmail and Outlook integrations |
| Compliance | SOC 2 Type 2, ISO 27001, GDPR | SOC 2 Type II, GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA (Business Associate) |
| Founded | 2010 | 2009 |
| Headquarters | San Mateo, California, United States, with major operations in Chennai, India | San Francisco, California, United States |
| Ownership | Public company (NASDAQ: FRSH) | PE-owned (Crest Rock Partners, merged with Unbounce in July 2024) |
Strengths and limitations
Freshsales
Strengths
- Native telephony, SMS, and WhatsApp inside the CRM record, with automatic logging, which removes an entire class of integration pain for phone-heavy teams.
- Clean, modern interface that reps adopt easily, noticeably lighter than Zoho's and comparable to Pipedrive's.
- A real forever-free plan for three users plus a 21-day full-product trial, so evaluation costs nothing.
- Strong unified customer record combining email, calls, chat, and web activity on a single timeline.
Limitations
- The $9 entry plan is significantly hollowed out: no sequences, no multiple pipelines, no scoring, no custom reports, which makes the headline price misleading.
- Custom modules are locked to the $59 Enterprise plan, four times the price at which Zoho ships the same idea.
- Freddy AI is metered by session, so AI-forward teams face a variable and easily underestimated cost.
- The Freshworks Marketplace is much smaller than HubSpot's or Pipedrive's ecosystems, so niche integrations often mean Zapier or custom API work.
Insightly
Strengths
- Genuine project management inside the CRM, with opportunities converting into delivery projects that keep the customer history attached; almost nothing else in this price band does this properly.
- Generous record and storage limits (up to 500,000 records and 250 GB) compared with most small-business CRMs.
- Serious administrative controls at the top tier including sandboxes, audit logging, and serverless function authoring.
- One vendor now covers landing pages, CRM, marketing automation, and service following the 2024 Unbounce merger, which is a coherent story for marketing-led service businesses.
Limitations
- No free plan and a 14-day trial only, with an entry price double Zoho Standard for less configurability.
- The Plus plan has no workflow automation and only two permission roles, which makes $49 Professional the real starting point.
- Native sales sequencing and cadence tooling are thin; serious outbound follow-up pushes you toward the separately priced marketing product.
- Four separate subscriptions (CRM, Marketing, Service, AppConnect) make total cost of ownership opaque, and AppConnect at $249 a month is expensive for an integration layer.
Pricing compared
Freshsales
Per-user subscription across a free 3-user plan and three paid plans, billed monthly or annually, with Freddy AI agent sessions metered, phone credits purchased separately, and branded documents sold as a per-user add-on.
- Free$0
- Growth$9
- Pro$39
- Enterprise$59
At the Pro tier, Freshsales is priced identically to Pipedrive Growth and roughly 70 percent above Zoho Professional, and the thing it gives you that neither does is genuinely native telephony, SMS, and WhatsApp with automatic logging. If your team makes calls all day, that bundling is worth real money and removes a dialer subscription. If your deals move by email and meetings, you are paying a communications premium you will not use, and Zoho gives more configuration for $23 while Pipedrive gives a better pipeline interface for the same $39. The free plan and $9 tier are best understood as acquisition pricing rather than as viable long-term homes for a sales team.
Insightly
Per-user subscription across three CRM plans billed annually, with marketing automation priced by prospect volume, service ticketing priced per user, and the AppConnect integration platform priced by monthly task volume.
- Plus$29
- Professional$49
- Enterprise$99
Insightly is not cheap and does not pretend to be. Against pure sales CRMs it looks expensive: $49 for the automation tier where Zoho charges $23 and includes far more configuration. The value case rests entirely on the project layer. If your business genuinely delivers work after the sale and would otherwise buy a CRM plus a project tool plus an integration between them, Insightly at $49 a user is competitive and simpler. If you would never open the project module, you are paying a premium for shelf space, and the multi-product pricing around it makes the total cost harder to predict than most competitors here.
Editorial verdict on each
Freshsales
Freshsales is a good, clean CRM whose real differentiator is communication: native calling, SMS, and WhatsApp on the record, logged automatically, without a dialer subscription or a fragile integration. Judge it at Pro, $39 per user per month, because the $9 Growth plan lacks sequences, multiple pipelines, and custom reports and will not carry a sales process. At that price it competes squarely with Pipedrive on interface and loses to Zoho on configurability, so the deciding question is simple: if your reps spend their day on the phone, Freshsales earns its price and removes a tool from the stack. If they do not, buy the cheaper or the better-designed alternative and skip the telephony you were never going to use.
Read the full Freshsales profileInsightly
Insightly is a specialist wearing a generalist's clothes. As a sales CRM it is fine and slightly expensive; as a system that carries a customer from lead to won deal to delivered project on one record, it is one of very few options a small business can buy self-serve. Agencies, consultancies, and contractors are the natural buyers, and they should budget for the $49 Professional plan because Plus has no automation and only two permission roles. Treat the surrounding product family with caution: marketing, service, and AppConnect are separate subscriptions that can triple the bill. And factor in that the company is two years into private equity ownership and a merger with Unbounce, so the combined-platform pitch is still a promise. If the project layer is not the reason you are looking, buy something cheaper.
Read the full Insightly profileFreshsales profile last reviewed 2026-09-26; Insightly last reviewed 2026-09-26. Pricing is compiled from public sources and can change without notice. See our methodology.
The best in Sales CRM
23 trackedSales CRMs are the system of record for pipeline: they store every contact, company, and deal, and structure the follow-up work that turns conversations into revenue.
The free CRM that defined the modern entry point, with the deepest ecosystem a small business can grow into.
The most capability per dollar in the category, if you are willing to configure it.
The AI-native CRM betting that agents will do the pipeline work, and shipping toward that bet faster than any incumbent.
A CRM that fills itself in from email, calendar, and phone signals, removing the data entry that kills small-team CRM adoption.
Setup under an hour with support staff importing your spreadsheet free, and non-technical users productive on day one make it the gentlest CRM here.
Frequently asked questions
6 questionsWhat is the difference between Freshsales and Insightly?
Insightly starts at $29 per user per month and bundles post-sale project management with the CRM, which Freshsales does not attempt. Freshsales is cheaper at entry, better on communications, and cleaner to use. Businesses that deliver projects after the sale fit Insightly; businesses whose work ends at closed-won fit Freshsales.
Is Freshsales or Insightly cheaper?
Freshsales starts at $0 for up to 3 users, then $9 per user per month on annual billing (Growth). Insightly starts at $29 per user per month, billed annually (Plus) (14 days trial). The billing models differ, so the entry price is rarely the whole cost. Freshsales pricing model: Per-user subscription across a free 3-user plan and three paid plans, billed monthly or annually, with Freddy AI agent sessions metered, phone credits purchased separately, and branded documents sold as a per-user add-on. Insightly pricing model: Per-user subscription across three CRM plans billed annually, with marketing automation priced by prospect volume, service ticketing priced per user, and the AppConnect integration platform priced by monthly task volume.
Does Freshsales or Insightly have a free plan?
Freshsales has a free plan. Forever-free plan for up to 3 users covering contact, account, and deal management, the mobile app, and chat, email, and phone support, without workflows, sequences, or reporting depth. Trial terms: 21 days with full product access, no credit card required. Insightly has no free plan. Trial terms: 14 days.
Who should choose Freshsales?
Small and mid-sized sales teams that make a lot of calls and want telephony, SMS, WhatsApp, and chat inside the CRM without stitching together a dialer, particularly companies already using Freshdesk or Freshservice.
Who should choose Insightly?
Small and mid-sized project-based businesses (agencies, consultancies, professional services, specialist contractors) that need the sale and the delivery to share one system, and that value record scale and permissions over deep sales automation.
What are the best alternatives to Freshsales and Insightly?
SaaSTracker profiles 23 products in Sales CRM. The Summer 2026 awards in the category went to HubSpot CRM (Category Leader), Zoho CRM (Best Value), Attio (Momentum). Every profile is compiled from primary sources, so a shortlist can be built from pricing, limitations, and fit rather than from star ratings.
