Article

Your Guide to Freshsales CRM vs Freshchat: What’s the Difference?

SmallBizCRM Staff – September 2nd, 2025

 

When small businesses explore Freshworks tools, two popular names often surface, Freshsales CRM and Freshchat. While they share the Freshworks DNA, they serve very different purposes. Freshsales is a fully-fledged customer relationship management system (CRM), while Freshchat is a conversational messaging tool, not a CRM itself. Understanding this distinction is essential when deciding which tool best supports your business needs.

What is Freshsales CRM?

Freshsales CRM is an AI-powered sales platform built for managing pipelines, nurturing leads, and closing deals. It’s designed to streamline workflows by combining contact management, deal tracking, built-in email, and telephony into one intuitive system.

Key features include:

  • Freddy AI insights to prioritize deals

  • Built-in communication tools like calls and emails

  • Sales automation to reduce manual work

  • Custom pipelines for businesses of any size

Freshsales shines as a CRM solution for sales-driven teams who want structure, automation, and measurable insights to boost growth.

What is Freshchat?

Freshchat, by contrast, is not a CRM but a modern messaging and live chat platform. It helps businesses connect with website visitors, app users, and social audiences in real time.

Its strengths lie in:

  • Proactive chat triggers to engage potential customers

  • AI-powered chatbots for automation and FAQs

  • Multi-channel messaging (web, mobile, WhatsApp, Messenger, etc.)

  • Analytics to track engagement and support response times

Freshchat is an excellent fit for businesses that want to enhance customer engagement and provide instant support across multiple platforms.

Head-to-Head Feature Comparison

Feature Freshsales CRM Freshchat
Core Purpose Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Customer Messaging & Engagement Tool
Best For Sales teams needing pipeline & lead management Support & engagement teams
Communication Built-in email, phone logging Real-time chat, bots, messaging
Automation & AI AI for lead scoring & pipeline insights Chatbots & automated FAQs
Integration Works with Freshchat & other tools Works with Freshsales & other Freshworks apps

Why Integration Matters

When used together, Freshsales and Freshchat become a powerful combination. Imagine a visitor lands on your website and starts a chat in Freshchat. That conversation can automatically be logged in Freshsales as a lead, complete with chat history and context for your sales team to follow up.

This seamless handoff ensures no opportunity slips through the cracks—Freshchat engages, Freshsales converts.

Pros & Cons at a Glance

Freshsales CRM
✔ Comprehensive CRM for managing leads & deals
✔ Affordable with a free plan available
✔ AI-powered automation tools
✘ Advanced automation only on higher tiers

Freshchat
✔ Real-time engagement with customers
✔ Chatbots reduce manual workload
✔ Works across multiple channels
✘ Free plan has limited functionality
✘ Not a CRM system

Conclusion

Freshsales and Freshchat may look similar under the Freshworks umbrella, but they address very different needs.

  • If your priority is sales management and CRM workflows, Freshsales is the right choice.

  • If your focus is customer engagement and instant support, Freshchat shines.

  • For the best of both worlds, integrating them creates a streamlined flow—from first chat to final deal.