Freshsales vs. Monday comparison (and how Pipedrive stacks up)

Freshsales promises a ready-made sales suite, while Monday offers a build-it-yourself workspace. That difference leaves many teams stuck deciding which approach actually delivers value, rather than flexibility for its own sake.

In this post, you’ll learn how each platform supports day-to-day sales work, where each one falls short and which option makes sense for different team setups. We’ll also introduce a powerful CRM alternative that’ll help you build reliable revenue from day one.

Key takeaways from Freshsales vs. Monday

• Freshsales is a dedicated CRM with built-in communication tools like phone and email, well-suited to sales teams that prioritize outreach.

• Monday is a CRM built on top of a work management platform, best for teams that need to bridge project management and deal tracking.

• Freshsales offers better out-of-the-box sales features, while Monday offers greater flexibility for non-sales workflows.

• Pipedrive balances ease of use with sales-specific functionality, reducing setup time while giving teams clear visibility into deals, priorities and next actions. Try it free for 14 days.

Freshsales vs. Monday at a glance

Freshsales is a customer relationship management (CRM) platform that helps teams communicate with leads and manage pipelines using traditional sales tools.

Monday CRM is a versatile project management and collaboration tool. It extends the Monday.com work OS, letting teams manage deals through a customizable interface with added sales capabilities.

Here’s how the features compare for Monday vs. Freshsales:

Below, you’ll get a closer look at the core features, pricing and reviews of each platform, so you can choose the best CRM software for your team.

Freshsales vs. Monday: core features compared

Freshsales shines when your team spends most of their day on the phone or email and needs built-in communication tools to support outreach at scale.

Monday CRM works better when your priority is connecting deals to delivery, especially in organizations where sales, operations and project teams work closely together.

Here’s how each solution compares.

Freshsales: built for high-volume outreach

Freshsales helps teams communicate with leads without leaving the CRM, by centralizing calls, emails and activity tracking.

For example, the sales sequences feature lets reps automate their follow-up process:

Instead of manually tracking who needs a reminder, reps can set up personalized email campaigns that run in the background. If a prospect replies, the sequence stops, so you never send a generic follow-up.

Freshsales also includes an activity timeline that gives reps a clear snapshot of past interactions before every call or email, making conversations more contextual.

This view shows what a lead has done, giving sales reps the context they need to start conversations that convert.

Freshsales includes other key features, like:

• Visual pipelines that let you drag and drop deals across stages to keep your forecast accurate

• Web forms that capture visitor details and populate your CRM

• Territory management tools to assign leads to the right reps based on pre-set rules

Freshsales is a good choice for teams that prioritize outreach speed and centralized communication.

Monday: visual deal tracking meets project management

Monday.com CRM delivers core sales functionality within its familiar board-based interface.

The platform focuses on customizable, visual sales pipelines that look like colorful spreadsheets:

Team members can use these boards to track leads, projects and other data points using drag-and-drop columns. This flexibility is powerful, but it also means sales processes need to be designed rather than enabled by default.

Monday also excels at cross-team collaboration. When a deal closes, you can trigger an automation to create a project board for the operations team, ensuring a smooth handoff.

Monday Sales CRM’s core features include:

• Email sync and tracking (Gmail and Outlook) to log communications within deal cards

• Post-sales project management to track client onboarding and deliverables

• Customizable dashboards for viewing high-level metrics across multiple boards

• No-code automations to reduce manual task management

Monday works well for teams that see sales as one part of a broader operational workflow.

For quota-driven sales teams, however, the added layers of project management can become a distraction.

Pipedrive: a distraction-free alternative for sales teams

Pipedrive is built around activity-based selling, helping sales teams prioritize actions that move deals forward.

Its interface mirrors how salespeople think about pipelines, making it easy to see where deals stand and what needs attention next.

Pipedrive empowers sales teams with features like:

• An AI sales assistant (called Notifications) that analyzes your past performance and suggests what to focus on next

• Smart Docs to track when proposals are opened and signed directly within the deal card

• Workflow automation that handles repetitive admin (like sending follow-up emails) so reps can sell more

• A dedicated mobile app that visualizes your day and tracks calls on the go

By keeping the interface clean and focused on selling, Pipedrive helps small teams maintain momentum and improve the customer experience without the setup overhead required by more flexible platforms.

Freshsales vs. Monday: which is easier to use?

Freshsales follows a traditional CRM layout with sidebars and list views, which can feel dense for new users.

Monday has a colorful, grid-based interface that’s easy to read but requires a fair bit of configuration to behave like a sales CRM.

Here’s how the usability stacks up.

Freshsales: standard navigation with a learning curve

Freshsales follows the classic CRM structure: a left-hand navigation bar, list views for contacts and profile pages.

For experienced sales managers, this familiarity is a plus.

However, because the platform packs so many options into one screen, the interface can become overwhelming.

While data accessibility is good, the density of buttons and tabs means teams will need training sessions to understand where specific functions are located.

Monday: intuitive to use but slow to set up

Monday avoids the cluttered look of traditional software but introduces a different challenge: starting from a blank slate.

While it comes with templates, they rarely match sales teams’ workflows out of the box. You need to design a sales process and define the rules to set it up yourself.

For small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) that just want to log in and start selling, the setup time can be a major speed bump.

In other words, Monday is easy to click through, but difficult to master if you don’t have a clear plan for your data.

Pipedrive: rapid onboarding and fast time to value

Pipedrive’s design minimizes cognitive load. The interface mimics how salespeople think and helps them accomplish their goals.

The design is intuitive, so new hires can start using it immediately. One example is the sales activity icons (green, yellow and red) which show users the health of a deal without them having to read any text.

There are no complex sidebars or hidden menus. Everything you need to move a deal forward is right in front of you.

In the rare situation where reps can’t figure out how to do something, there’s a detailed knowledge base full of tutorial videos and information and teams on any plan can access onboarding resources and support.

Freshsales vs. Monday: how do pricing and value compare?

Freshsales offers a free starting point for very small teams, but its advanced features quickly become expensive.

Monday CRM offers excellent value for slightly larger teams, but requires a minimum seat commitment that can catch businesses off guard.

Here’s a closer look at each platform’s costs.

Freshsales: low entry cost, higher price for AI

Freshsales is attractive for startups because it offers a free forever plan.

However, to access the features that make it worth using in sales, such as Freddy AI and sales sequences, you need to upgrade to higher tiers.

Paid plans start at $9 per user per month when billed annually, with enterprise pricing available for advanced capabilities.

Freshsales works best for small teams that need a free tool or for growing companies willing to pay the premium for AI capabilities.

Monday: competitive mid-tier pricing with seat minimums

Monday CRM is more affordable than Freshsales at the Pro level, making it a budget-friendly option for sales teams.

The main difference is that Monday requires a minimum of three seats per plan.

While this works well for established teams, it can inflate costs for solopreneurs or very small sales teams.

Pipedrive: clear costs, flexible add-ons

Pipedrive uses a modular pricing structure that keeps your software expenses predictable.

You choose a base plan that fits your size (Lite, Growth, Premium, Ultimate) and then stack only the specific add-ons your strategy demands.

You can also keep your base plan cost low and add key capabilities with flexible add-ons:

This modularity prevents you from paying for bloated feature sets you never touch.

Since there are no seat minimums, you can forecast your exact monthly budget based on your actual headcount without paying for unused licenses.

Freshsales vs. Monday: which has more integrations?

Both Freshsales and Monday CRM integrate with hundreds of apps, but Freshsales offers deeper integration within the Freshworks ecosystem.

Here’s what you can connect to each system.

Freshsales: extensive marketplace and native suite

Freshsales integrates with the wider Freshworks suite, including Freshdesk (for customer support), Freshchat (for messaging) and Freshmarketer (for marketing).

Beyond this family of apps, Freshsales includes a marketplace with over 1,000 third-party integrations.

You can plug in tools like QuickBooks, Xero and Mailchimp to keep your data flowing between departments.

Monday: collaboration first, CRM second

Monday.com integrates with over 200 apps, but the selection skews toward productivity and development tools rather than sales-specific software.

For example, it integrates with tools like Slack, Microsoft Teams, Jira and Zoom – all useful for projects and software development.

However, Monday relies on Zapier and Make to build complex integrations that aren’t in the native library.

Freshsales vs. Monday: which AI and automation is more powerful?

Freshsales’ Freddy AI sits in your sales workflow and acts like an assistant to help you close deals.

On the other hand, Monday uses logic-based automations to move tasks between boards, with lighter AI features for drafting text and summarization.

Next, you’ll find out how these intelligent features compare.

Freshsales: predictive AI for closing deals

Freshsales uses Freddy AI to analyze historical data and help reps focus on the right opportunities.

For example, it assigns a score to every open deal based on engagement signals. Your reps can see which deals are likely to close (or are at risk) in real-time, without having to analyze the signals themselves.

Freshsales also uses AI to:

• Suggest the next best action (call, email or SMS) most likely to move a deal forward

• Estimate revenue based on deal confidence and predictive forecasting

• Generate writing, like rephrasing emails to improve tone and engagement

It’s the better choice for teams that want AI to analyze data and guide strategy, rather than just automate data entry.

Monday: practical workflow automation and generative AI

Monday’s strength lies in its step-by-step automation builder.

While it lacks deep sales-specific predictions, it’s useful for automating the operational side of a project.

For example, you might set a rule that automatically creates a new item, assigns a rep and sends a Slack notification whenever you mark a deal as “Won”.

Monday AI also handles content tasks, like:

• Instantly summarizing long updates or meeting notes into bullet points

• Using Smart Blocks to extract information from an item and populate columns automatically

Monday is the right choice if you plan to scale a company where sales, finance and delivery all trigger workflows among themselves.

Neither Monday nor Freshsales fully addresses a common SMB challenge: knowing what to do next in a live sales pipeline without adding complexity.

That’s why teams start looking beyond feature-heavy AI toward tools that surface priorities clearly without constant configuration or the need to work out what it means.

Freshsales vs. Monday: what do customers say?

Freshsales users praise its affordable feature set, but frequently criticize its limited reporting capabilities.

One G2 review notes that the analytics are too basic for data-driven teams:

Users mostly appreciate Monday’s CRM for its flexible interface.

However, some sales teams get frustrated with the setup, noting that it also lacks powerful reporting tools.

Ultimately, while the visual appeal is strong, the steep learning curve for analytics can be a major roadblock for managers who need hard data.

Pipedrive: why SMBs switch to this sales powerhouse

SMBs switch to Pipedrive when they want a platform that’s ready to sell the moment they log in.

Pipedrive’s reporting features offer deep insights straight out of the box, solving the data limitations that often frustrate users of both Freshsales and Monday.

According to Oliver Lee, Sales Director at CreativeRace:

Pipedrive gives SMBs the stability and focus they need to scale revenue, without the technical headaches of Freshsales or the manual setup required by Monday.

How to choose the right CRM for your company

Choosing the right CRM depends less on feature volume and more on how your team actually works day to day.

To ensure you make the right choice, do your due diligence:

• Check the reviews. Look at user feedback on G2 or Capterra to see how each solution holds up for teams your size.

• Verify the features. Make sure the tools you need (like sales sequences or lead routing) are available on the plan you can afford.

• Trial the software. Sign up for free accounts to test the setup speed.

• Test the support. Reach out to customer service during your trial to gauge their responsiveness.

If your sales team relies heavily on calls and email outreach, Freshsales’ built-in communication tools may offer immediate value. Its traditional CRM structure supports high-volume engagement, but can feel crowded for teams that prefer a lighter interface.

If you run a revenue-driven SMB sales team that needs speed, clarity and predictability, look to Pipedrive. It offers superior sales and deal management features, a transparent plan structure and a much easier setup.

Freshsales vs. Monday FAQs

Final thoughts

There’s no universally “best” CRM – only the one that best supports your team’s selling motion.

Choosing between Freshsales and Monday depends on how your team sells and how much flexibility you’re willing to manage.

Freshsales suits outreach-heavy teams that want built-in communication tools. Monday works best for organizations that need sales tightly integrated with projects and operations.

If your priorities are clarity, speed and predictable sales execution, Pipedrive offers a sales-first alternative that reduces setup effort while keeping teams focused on closing deals. Try Pipedrive free for 14 days to build a predictable revenue machine that scales effortlessly as your small business expands.