Freshdesk has been rated the #1 help desk software

 

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Why is Freshdesk the best Hubspot alternative

Unlike Hubspot Service Hub, which lacks critical functionalities such as incident management, time tracking, and custom helpdesk reporting, Freshdesk offers a comprehensive omnichannel helpdesk that has all these capabilities - plus it’s scalable and affordable.

Support your customers wherever they are

With only a Beta version of the inbound calling feature, severe limitations in setting up automated workflows, and lack of access to critical channels such as [phone calls, SMS, and automated emails], Hubspot is not fully equipped to offer an omnichannel experience to agents & customers, and Hubspot restricts customer support to live chat, email, and Facebook Messenger.

Freshdesk offers omnichannel customer support that allows agents to manage customer queries across multiple communication channels like email, live chat, Whatsapp, Facebook, Twitter, Apple business chat, phone calls, website widgets, and chatbots. Freshdesk also allows you to

  • Get a unified view of customer queries from across communication channels 

  • Get complete context around customer issues to resolve support tickets within record response time

  • Automatically assign support tickets to the right agent based on their expertise and workload

  • Transition and manage customer queries from across different communication channels

  • Create seamless omnichannel customer experiences and encourage customer feedback

Learn more about omnichannel support

omnichannel customer support omnichannel customer support

Automate processes to offer quick resolutions

Hubspot lacks basic automation features like skill-based routing resulting in poor CSAT scores. It also faces limitations in handling repetitive queries as its help desk workflow automation capabilities cannot understand customer intent.


Whereas in Freshdesk, we have powerful flow builders which can trigger custom bot flows to cater to specific requests. With skill-based routing and load balancing, Freshdesk empowers the support team to offer a rich customer experience. It also offers out-of-the-box features for time tracking, which is not easily possible in Hubspot. Freshdesk further allows you to

  • Set up automation rules to trigger service-level reminders and notify the right people when a support ticket approaches its SLA deadline

  • Define the escalation rule and name the agent to whom the notification should be sent

  • Alert the right support agents within Freshdesk or via email when the SLA is violated

  • Create high and low-urgency incidents based on the priority of the event within Freshdesk

  • Freshdesk also shows a warning if the SLA target is shorter than the time to remind agents 

Learn more about helpdesk automation

agent productivity agent productivity

Get a pulse of what your customers need

With minimal AI investment, Hubspot lacks key features like AI-based customer insights, intelligent automation, or deep-data recommendations. Whereas, Freshdesk is an AI-powered helpdesk software that makes it easy to configure, deploy and maintain without depending on developers' or third-party solutions.

 

Freshdesk offers native integrations with the entire Freshworks suite of products, including CRM and marketing automation solutions. This extends the entire workflow automation and customization functionality to improve agent experience while offering seamless customer experiences. You can also

  • Empower your agents to build custom help desk reports, custom ticket fields and customize your customer portals 

  • Capture customer feedback to improve customer satisfaction scores

  • Enable chatbots with intent-driven conversation capabilities and derive insights specific to your business needs

  • Offer consistent customer support across different touchpoints of the customer journey

Learn more about customizable helpdesk

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Freshdesk vs Hubspot Service Hub

Compare the features and capabilities of the two customer service offerings.

Feature
FRESHDESK
HUBSPOT SERVICE HUB
Ticketing Management

Time tracking not included
SLA Management
Knowledge Base

Included in paid plans only
Unified Dashboard

Included in paid plans only
Team Inbox
Incident Management
Call
Email
Chatbot
SMS

Paid add-on
Live Chat
Facebook Messenger
Twitter
Apple Message for Business
Google Message for Business
WhatsApp for Business

Paid add-on
Instagram
Canned Responses
Single Sign On

Included in Enterprise plan only
Omnichannel Analytics
Email Support

Included in paid plans only
Mobile App
Pricing/agent/year

$29

$540 (inc. 2 agents)

Why 60,000+ businesses trust Freshdesk

Intuitive UI

Freshdesk offers an intuitive and easy-to-use UI. This means you can simply onboard your agents, and they can start supporting immediately without any special training. Freshdesk is easy to configure and has a shorter implementation cycle, so you can start realizing its value in weeks.

Scalable

Collaborate with multiple teams and external vendors to resolve evolving customer issues as your business grows. Freshdesk scales as your business grows- Support multiple products, manage custom SLAs, and reduce ticket volumes effortlessly.

Affordable pricing

Freshdesk offers effortless omnichannel experiences within your budget. Check out the simple and uncomplicated pricing- We won't bog you down with pricey add-ons and additional APIs for basic support functionalities. Absolutely no hidden costs.

24x7 support

Freshdesk offers 24x7 support. You can reach out to us with any issue, and someone from our support team will be with you right away. Configuration and onboarding support is offered from the start to set you up for success with the support tool.

Real-time analytics

Freshdesk Analytics is a powerful reporting tool that lets you spend less time building reports and more time operationalizing results. Get instant and accurate insights about your helpdesk performance and agent productivity and improve overall service desk efficiency.

User reviews for Freshdesk vs Hubspot Service Hub

Here’s what actual users who have used Freshdesk and Hubspot have to say on Capterra.

Helpdesk
Freshdesk
Hubspot Service Hub
Ease of use
4.5
4.5
4.4
4.4
Features
4.3
4.3
4.0
4.0
Value for money
4.4
4.4
4.2
4.2
Likelihood to recommend
8.2
7.1
Interested in evaluating Freshdesk? Check out our 100% transparent pricing plans

Freshdesk combines best-in-class ticketing, self-service, and reporting.

Free

Get going for free

$0

Up to 2 agents

 

 

€0

Up to 2 agents

 

 

£0

Up to 2 agents

 

 

₹0

Up to 2 agents

 

 

A$0

Up to 2 agents

 

 

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  • Integrated ticketing across email and social Convert all email and social inquiries into tickets and track, prioritize, and reply using Freshdesk.
  • Ticket Dispatch Categorize, prioritize, and route tickets to the right teams by creating your own business rules.
  • Knowledge Base Enable customers to help themselves by finding answers on their own.
  • Ticket Trend Report Analyze trends and stay on top of tickets by allocating resources at the right time.
  • Out-of-the-box analytics and reporting
  • Choose your data center location
  • Team collaboration
  • 24x7 email support

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Growth

Intuitive, industry-leading support for growing businesses

$15

/agent/month, billed annually

$18

/agent/month, billed monthly

€15

/agent/month, billed annually

€18

/agent/month, billed monthly

£12

/agent/month, billed annually

£15

/agent/month, billed monthly

₹999

/agent/month, billed annually

₹1199

/agent/month, billed monthly

A$25

/agent/month, billed annually

A$30

/agent/month, billed monthly

start free trial

Everything in Free and…

  • Automation Automate follow-ups, escalations, and other tasks using specific time and event-based triggers to perform any action of your choice.
  • Collision Detection Know when another agent is viewing/replying to a ticket to avoid duplicating each other’s effort.
  • 1000+ marketplace apps Get access to 1000+ apps and extend the capabilities of your helpdesk with the Freshworks Marketplace.
  • In-depth helpdesk report
  • SLA management & business hours Set the right expectations with customers and agents on the response and resolution timeframes for every ticket in your helpdesk, and set the right business hours.
  • Custom Email Server
  • Custom Ticket Views
  • Custom ticket fields & status
  • Custom SSL
  • Easily track time spent by agents on tickets
  • 24x5 phone support

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ProPopular

Advanced automation for high performance

$49

/agent/month, billed annually

$59

/agent/month, billed monthly

€49

/agent/month, billed annually

€59

/agent/month, billed monthly

£35

/agent/month, billed annually

£42

/agent/month, billed monthly

₹3599

/agent/month, billed annually

₹4299

/agent/month, billed monthly

A$69

/agent/month, billed annually

A$83

/agent/month, billed monthly

Start free trial

Everything in Growth and…

  • Multiple products Up to 5 products
  • Includes up to 5000 Collaborators Invite external agents and third parties into Freshdesk to help full-time agents resolve complex customer issues.
  • Round-robin routing Automatically assign tickets to all available agents in a group in a circular fashion.
  • Custom Roles Provide or restrict access to your agents at granular levels.
  • Custom objects Create or bring in business-critical data right inside your Freshdesk.
  • Custom Reports and Dashboards Create powerful reports and dashboards unique to your business and draw deeper insights from your Freshdesk data.
  • Segment customers for personalized support
  • Customer journey Show agents the solution articles that a customer opened before they created a support ticket.
  • Canned forms
  • Manage versions in knowledge base
  • Community forums
  • Extendable API Limits
  • CSAT surveys & reports
  • Multiple SLA policies & business hours Set custom Service Level Agreements (SLA) for multiple regions, products and business units to prioritize and deliver by suitable deadlines for each requirement.
  • SLA reminder & escalation
  • Multilingual knowledge base Supports 42 languages.
  • Custom apps Extend your support capabilities by building apps customized for your business.
  • Average handling Time (AHT)
  • Custom Metrics
  • Report Sharing

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Enterprise

Fully featured with bots for enterprise-level support

$79

/agent/month, billed annually

$95

/agent/month, billed monthly

₹5699

/agent/month, billed annually

₹6899

/agent/month, billed monthly

€79

/agent/month, billed annually

€95

/agent/month, billed monthly

£60

/agent/month, billed annually

£72

/agent/month, billed monthly

A$109

/agent/month, billed annually

A$131

/agent/month, billed monthly

Start free trial

Everything in Pro and…

  • Assist bot Guide agents through pre-configured steps to help resolve customer queries faster. Does not require bot sessions. Freddy
  • Email bot Automatically respond to email tickets with relevant solution articles. Consumes bot sessions. Freddy
  • Auto-triage Automatically predict basic ticket fields like Type, Priority & Group and other custom ticket fields. Freddy
  • Article suggester Let Freddy suggest solution articles to your agents to help them respond to tickets faster. freddy
  • Canned response suggester Let Freddy suggest canned responses to help your agents respond to tickets faster. freddy
  • Unlimited products
  • Sandbox Create a secure test environment to try new features and settings in Freshdesk without impacting agents or customers.
  • Easily manage agent shifts across time zones
  • Audit log Monitor changes and always stay up-to-date on what’s happening with your helpdesk.
  • Skill-based routing Match tickets to the agent most skilled in handling specific types of issues within the group.
  • Knowledge base approval workflow Track, review, approve, and publish knowledge base articles.
  • Flexible knowledge base hierarchy Categorize articles up to 5 folder levels and scale your knowledge base.
  • IP range restriction Increase helpdesk security by allowing certain IP addresses to access your portal.

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Faster resolution on conversations, tickets, or both.

Growth

For fast growth

$29

/agent/month, billed annually

$35

/agent/month, billed monthly

€29

/agent/month, billed annually

€35

/agent/month, billed monthly

£25

/agent/month, billed annually

£30

/agent/month, billed monthly

₹2299

/agent/month, billed annually

₹2799

/agent/month, billed monthly

A$45

/agent/month, billed annually

A$55

/agent/month, billed monthly

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Omnichannel

  • Web widget
  • Messaging channels WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, Apple Business Chat, Google's Business Messenger, LINE
  • Email

Self-Service

  • Customer portal
  • Knowledge base
  • Chatbots

Conversational Engagement

  • Unified agent inbox
  • Conversation switch
  • Proactive support and campaigns

Ticketing

  • Agent collision detection
  • Custom agent status

Administrator Capabilities

  • Collaboration - Threads and tasks
  • Customizable contact, conversation and ticket properties

Contacts and Account Management

  • Customer 360 - Contact events tracking and lifecycle

Dashboard and Analytics

  • APIs - Report extraction, conversations, tickets
  • Reports - Curated and custom
  • Real-time dashboards

Security and Privacy

  • Role-based access control
  • Single Sign On

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ProPopular

For high performance

$69

/agent/month, billed annually

$83

/agent/month, billed monthly

€69

/agent/month, billed annually

€83

/agent/month, billed monthly

£55

/agent/month, billed annually

£66

/agent/month, billed monthly

₹5499

/agent/month, billed annually

₹6599

/agent/month, billed monthly

A$105

/agent/month, billed annually

A$126

/agent/month, billed monthly

Start free trial

Everything in Growth, plus:

Omnichannel

  • Bring your own channel (BYOC)
  • Bring your own telephony (BYOT)

Self-Service

  • Multilingual knowledge base
  • Article versioning
  • Full portal customization
  • Community forums

Conversational Engagement

  • Multilingual conversations

Ticketing

  • Ticket templates
  • Canned forms
  • Dynamic ticket fields (sections)
  • Advanced custom fields

Contacts and Account Management

  • User targeting

Administrator Capabilities

  • Multilingual CSAT
  • Business hours - Global, multiple, group specific
  • Intelliassign - round robin and load balanced
  • Multiple SLA policies
  • Parent-child ticketing
  • Dynamic email notifications
  • Multiple products
  • Collaborators
  • Custom objects

Dashboard and Analytics

  • Team dashboard - Ticket

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Enterprise

For enterprise-grade support

$109

/agent/month, billed annually

$131

/agent/month, billed monthly

€109

/agent/month, billed annually

€131

/agent/month, billed monthly

£89

/agent/month, billed annually

£107

/agent/month, billed monthly

₹8899

/agent/month, billed annually

₹10679

/agent/month, billed monthly

A$165

/agent/month, billed annually

A$198

/agent/month, billed monthly

start free trial

Everything in Pro, plus:

Self-Service

  • Approval workflow
  • Flexible knowledge base hierarchy

Ticketing

  • Agent shifts
  • Out of office scheduler

Admininstrator Capabilities

  • Sandbox for ticketing
  • Audit Logs
  • Skill Based assignment

Dashboard and Analytics

  • Custom object analytics

Security and Privacy

  • JWT authentication
  • Allowed domains
  • IP Whitelisting/Allowed IPs
  • HIPAA
  • PCI compliance

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Compare the top 5 Hubspot Service Hub alternatives

Hubspot Service Hub Alternative Key Features Free Plan Paid Plan
Freshdesk
  • Simple, easy-to-configure UI
  • Team inbox with intelligent ticket management and routing
  • Omnichannel customer support
  • Native AI, multilingual chatbots with no-code bot builder
  • Canned templates, agent collision detection, in-app notifications
  • Agent-assist bots, time-tracking in tickets, incident management
  • Customizable and multilingual knowledge base
  • Real-time dashboards and curated custom reports
  • 1000+ integrations for marketplace apps
$29/agent/month
Salesforce Service Cloud
  • Omnichannel ticket routing
  • Incident management
  • AI-powered workflows
  • Slack deep integration
$25/agent/month
HappyFox
  • Omnichannel ticketing
  • Internal communication
  • Automation suite
  • Asset management
$29/agent/month
Kayako
  • Live chat support
  • Team collaboration
  • Customer timelines
$60/agent/month
Gorgias
  • Ticket management
  • Multichannel customer support
  • Intent and sentiment detection
$50/3 agents/month

Here’s what our customers have to say

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FAQs about Freshdesk vs Hubspot