


Picking a CRM is tough. You need something that keeps your customer info organized.
You’re probably worried about wasting money on the wrong tool.
What if it’s too complicated? Or what if it doesn’t have the features you need?
Good news! We’re going to break down Freshsales CRM vs Insightly in simple terms.
We’ll look at the key differences and help you decide which is the right fit for your business.
Overview
We’ve spent considerable time exploring both Freshsales CRM and Insightly.
Our team dove into their features, tested workflows, and analyzed user feedback.
This hands-on approach allows us to provide a real-world comparison, not just a surface-level review.

Freshsales CRM might be the one for you. Its intuitive interface makes it an excellent choice.
Pricing: It has a free trial. The premium plan starts at $9/month.
Key Features:
- Contact Management
- Deal Tracking
- Reporting and Analytics

Need a CRM that goes beyond sales with robust project management tools? Insightly’s got you covered.
Pricing: It has a free trial. The premium plan starts at $29/month.
Key Features:
- Project Management
- Workflow Automation
- Relationship Linking
What is Freshsales CRM?
So, Freshsales CRM. What’s the deal? It’s a sales-focused CRM.
Think of it as a tool to help you close more deals.
It’s easy to use, organizes your sales process, and offers features that boost your sales team’s efficiency.
Also, explore our favorite Freshsales CRM alternatives…

Our Take

Freshsales CRM is a solid choice for businesses prioritizing ease of use and affordability. It’s a great way to use CRM without a steep learning curve.
Key Benefits
- User-friendly interface: Easy to navigate and learn.
- Built-in phone and email: Connect with customers directly from the platform.
- AI-powered insights: Get helpful suggestions and predictions.
- Affordable pricing: Offers a free plan and competitive paid plans.
Pricing
- Growth + 500 Marketing Contacts: $9/user/month.
- Pro + 500 Marketing Contacts: $39/user/month.
- Enterprise + 500 Marketing Contacts: $59/user/month.

Pros
Cons
What is Insightly?
Okay, so what’s Insightly all about? It’s a CRM, but it adds project management.
Think of it as a tool for sales and project tracking.
It helps you manage relationships and deliver projects.
It’s designed for businesses that need both.
Also, explore our favorite Insightly alternatives…

Our Take

Insightly is a solid choice for businesses that need a scalable CRM with project management capabilities.
Key Benefits
- Scalable for growth: Adapt the platform as your business expands.
- Project management features: Keep your projects organized and on track.
- Customizable dashboards and reports: Get the insights you need to make informed decisions.
- Integrations with popular apps: Connect with your favorite business tools.
Pricing
- Plus: $29/user/month.
- Professional: $49/user/month.
- Enterprise: $99/user/month.

Pros
Cons
Feature Comparison
It’s time for the deep dive. This section will show you how each customer relationship management platform handles key functions.
We break down the details so your sales activities are seamless.
1. AI and Intelligence
- Freshsales CRM: This platform features Freddy AI. It automates lead scoring and gives predictive insights. It helps your sales team prioritize who to call next. The AI focuses on boosting productivity.
- Insightly: Insightly also uses AI for analytics. However, its main focus is workflow automation. It uses rules to manage tasks and data flow.
2. Project and Task Management
- Freshsales CRM: Primarily a sales tool. Its task management is focused on sales activities within the sales pipeline. It’s clean but basic for complex projects.
- Insightly: This is Insightly’s unique strength. It is a full-featured CRM and project management system. You can assign tasks and track entire projects for customers right next to your customer data.
3. Contact Management
- Freshsales CRM: Provides a 360-degree view of your contacts. It automatically gathers customer data from emails and social media. This gives your team a quick, full picture.
- Insightly: Offers advanced contact management. It is great at linking contacts to companies, projects, and sales opportunities. This shows the full customer relationship management context.
4. Workflow Automation
- Freshsales CRM: It offers strong workflow automation focused on the sales pipeline. You can automate follow-up emails and lead assignment. It’s simple to create helpful rules.
- Insightly: Insightly’s workflow automation is powerful and cross-functional. It can automate sales, marketing, and project steps. It’s built for complex business processes.
5. Marketing and Campaigns
- Freshsales CRM: The platform is part of the Freshsales suite. This means it seamlessly connects to Freshmarketer for full marketing features, like advanced email automation.
- Insightly: Insightly offers Insightly Marketing as a separate but well-integrated product. It provides marketing teams with tools to manage campaigns and leads effectively.
6. Pricing and Free Access
- Freshsales CRM: Offers a robust free trial and a generous free tier for up to three users. This offers excellent value for smaller teams. No credit card required to start the free plan.
- Insightly: Insightly starts at a higher price tier. It does offer a free trial, but it does not have a permanent free plan like Freshsales.
7. Ease of Use and Onboarding
- Freshsales CRM: Generally has a faster learning curve. The interface is clean and modern, making onboarding easy. This leads to better productivity right away.
- Insightly: The platform is powerful, but that power adds complexity. It may take your team member more time to get comfortable. PC Magazine notes its depth of features.
8. Customization and Platform
- Freshsales CRM: Offers good customization but is a simpler platform. You can customize sales pipeline stages and fields. It’s built to streamline the sales process.
- Insightly: Provides extensive customization options. You can tailor page layouts, dashboards and create custom objects to fit the specific needs of medium-sized businesses.
9. Sales Monitoring and Dashboards
- Freshsales CRM: Offers clear dashboards focused on sales activities and forecasts. It gives real-time visibility into your sales pipeline.
- Insightly: Provides comprehensive reporting and a customizable dashboard. You can monitor both sales opportunities and project progress in one platform.
What to Look For When Choosing CRM Software?
When shopping for crm tools, you want to ensure the platform is a true asset.
Look beyond the basic features to the functionality that makes it a modern crm teams love.
- Project Integration: Can the CRM seamlessly create and assign tasks related to your account and organization? This is a key advantage of insightly crm and other Insightly products if you manage projects.
- AI & Automation Value: Does it offer intelligent features like Freddy AI or advanced workflow automation? This should improve team productivity, not just add-ons.
- Third-Party Integration: Ensure the crm tools seamlessly integration with core services like Google Workspace and other other crms. Test the connection yourself.
- Cost and Scalability: Look at the total costs, including how you are billed annually. Check if a free trial or plan is available, but be wary if a credit card is required upfront.
- User Adoption: Is the app and web platform easy to use? The learning curve should be short. An intuitive layout is vital for quick team adoption.
- Mobile Access and Respond: Can users access and update records from the mobile app? A good new version must allow quick updates on the go, making the site properly accessible.
- Data Security: Check the security features and compliance (like GDPR). The verification successful waiting message should reflect proper data handling and access control for managers.
- Customization and Knowledge: Can you customize email templates, fields, and the opportunities dashboard? The ability to tailor the solutions and page layouts is key.
- Support Quality: Test their customer support. Is there a human to respond quickly? Look at the quality of their knowledge base and service offered.
Final Verdict
So, after looking at both, we picked Freshsales CRM. Why? It’s all about productivity.
Freshsales is easy to use. It helps sales teams close deals faster.
The Fresh Sales Suite offers many tools at a lower cost. If you want a seamless sales process, Freshsales is an excellent choice.
We’ve used both, and we think Freshsales gives you more bang for your buck.
You can get started quickly. Trust us, it’s worth it.
Also, the built-in phone features are a huge time saver, and the AI helps you focus on the hot leads.
If you are looking for a project-heavy CRM, Insightly might be better, but Freshsales is better for sales.


More of Freshsales CRM
Here’s a brief comparison of Freshsales CRM with these software solutions:
- Freshsales CRM vs Pipedrive: Freshsales CRM provides a comprehensive sales solution with integrated communication and AI, whereas Pipedrive excels in visual sales pipeline organization and deal tracking.
- Freshsales vs GoHighLevel: GoHighLevel is a robust, all-in-one platform with strong marketing automation and a steeper learning curve, often favored by agencies. Freshsales focuses more on streamlined sales processes and ease of use.
- Freshsales CRM vs Keap: Freshsales CRM emphasizes intuitive sales management and AI-powered insights; Keap offers powerful sales and marketing automation with a focus on contact management.
- Freshsales CRM vs ActiveCampaign: Freshsales CRM is a dedicated sales CRM with built-in phone and email; ActiveCampaign is strong in marketing automation, email campaigns, and advanced segmentation.
- Freshsales CRM vs Hubspot: Freshsales CRM offers AI-powered sales tools and a quicker setup; HubSpot provides an extensive all-in-one suite covering marketing, sales, and customer service.
- Freshsales CRM vs Clickfunnels: Freshsales CRM is a sales-focused CRM for managing customer interactions, whereas ClickFunnels is a specialized tool for building sales funnels and landing pages.
- Freshsales CRM vs Folk: Freshsales CRM offers a comprehensive sales platform with AI and automation; Folk focuses on simple, collaborative contact management and visual pipeline organization.
- Freshsales CRM vs Instantly: Freshsales CRM is a full-fledged sales CRM with robust features; Instantly is primarily an email outreach and cold email automation tool.
- Freshsales CRM vs ClickUp: Freshsales CRM is designed for streamlining sales processes and managing pipelines; ClickUp is a versatile work OS that encompasses project management, tasks, and CRM functionalities.
- Freshsales CRM vs Monday CRM: Freshsales CRM provides a dedicated sales solution with intelligent insights, while Monday CRM offers highly customizable boards for managing workflows, including CRM.
- Freshsales CRM vs Capsule CRM: Freshsales CRM offers a more robust sales CRM with AI features; Capsule CRM focuses on straightforward contact management and sales opportunity tracking.
- Freshsales CRM vs Insightly: Freshsales CRM is a dedicated sales tool with AI and comprehensive sales automation; Insightly provides a broader CRM experience, including strong project management capabilities.
- Freshsales CRM vs Salesforce: Freshsales CRM offers an intuitive, AI-powered sales platform with competitive pricing; Salesforce is a highly customizable, enterprise-grade CRM with an extensive ecosystem and advanced features.
- Freshsales CRM vs Zendesk: Freshsales CRM focuses on sales automation and pipeline management, while Zendesk is primarily a customer service platform with robust ticketing and support features.
More of Insightly
Here’s a brief comparison of Insightly with these software solutions:
- Insightly vs Pipedrive: Insightly focuses on CRM with integrated project management; Pipedrive specializes in visual sales pipeline management, often preferred by sales-centric teams.
- Insightly vs GoHighLevel: Insightly is great for combining CRM with project management. It helps track sales and projects together. GoHighLevel is an all-in-one platform for marketing agency needs. It offers strong marketing and sales automation tools and can manage multiple clients.
- Insightly vs Keap: Insightly offers a robust CRM with project tracking; Keap provides powerful marketing automation, email campaigns, and comprehensive sales features.
- Insightly vs ActiveCampaign: Insightly merges CRM with project management capabilities; ActiveCampaign excels in advanced marketing automation, email sequencing, and lead scoring.
- Insightly vs HubSpot: Insightly offers a strong CRM with project management, while HubSpot provides a vast all-in-one platform for marketing, sales, and customer service.
- Insightly vs Clickfunnels: Insightly is a CRM with project management; ClickFunnels is primarily a sales funnel builder for creating landing pages and automating sales processes.
- Insightly vs Folk: Insightly is a comprehensive CRM with project management capabilities; Folk is a more streamlined, collaborative contact management tool.
- Insightly vs Instantly: Insightly offers a robust CRM and project management solution; Instantly focuses on automated cold email outreach and lead generation.
- Insightly vs ClickUp: Insightly integrates CRM and project management; ClickUp is a versatile work management platform that can be configured for CRM tasks.
- Insightly vs Monday: Insightly combines CRM with project management; Monday CRM is a highly customizable work operating system, adaptable for various CRM needs.
- Insightly vs Capsule CRM: Insightly is a more feature-rich CRM with project management, while Capsule CRM is a simpler, straightforward contact and sales opportunity tracker.
- Insightly vs Freshsales: Insightly offers a robust CRM with project management; Freshsales CRM provides advanced sales automation, AI insights, and multichannel communication.
- Insightly vs Salesforce: Insightly is a comprehensive CRM with integrated project management; Salesforce is an enterprise-grade, highly customizable, and expansive CRM solution.
- Insightly vs Zendesk: Insightly is a CRM with project management features; Zendesk primarily focuses on customer support and service ticketing.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Freshsales CRM or Insightly better for small businesses?
Freshsales CRM is often better for small businesses due to its lower cost and ease of use. It focuses on sales, which is key for growth. Insightly is suitable for those needing project management, but it’s pricier.
Can Freshsales CRM integrate with my existing tools?
Yes, Freshsales CRM offers various integrations. It works with many popular apps, including email, calendars, and other Freshworks products. This helps streamline your workflow and keep data consistent.
Does Insightly offer project management features?
Yes, Insightly is known for its strong project management features. It allows you to link projects to customer relationships and track progress, making it ideal for businesses that manage projects alongside sales.
How does Freshsales CRM help with lead management?
Freshsales CRM uses AI to score and prioritize leads. It provides a clear view of lead activity, helping your sales team focus on the most promising opportunities and close deals faster.
Which CRM offers better customer support and onboarding?
Both Freshsales CRM and Insightly offer good customer support. Freshsales is known for its user-friendly onboarding and quick setup. Insightly provides detailed resources, but its complexity might require more time.













