Freshsales starts at $9 a user. That plan runs one sales pipeline and has no AI. The plan that fixes both is Pro, at $39. For five people, that is $2,340 a year instead of $540, a jump of more than four times, and the reason is a second pipeline and a lead score. Bigin Express is $7 with three team pipelines, WhatsApp, a built-in phone, and 30 automations. The full AI toolkit is $12. Read on to find why small businesses prefer Bigin.
Bigin offers more value for money with features tailored for small businesses
Freshsales is a capable CRM and worth taking seriously. It has a built-in phone, a large marketplace, and an API on every paid plan. The problem is not the product; it is the ladder. Growth costs $9 and gives you one sales pipeline, no AI, and no product catalog. The next rung is Pro at $39.
Nothing sits between them. A team that outgrows one pipeline pays four times more to get a second, and picks up territory management and forecasting it did not ask for. Bigin Express is $7 with three team pipelines, WhatsApp, a built-in phone with IVR, and 30 automations. Premier is $12 with the full AI toolkit and 1,000 credits a month.
Why is Bigin the go-to CRM for small businesses?
We built Bigin around how small teams work, and priced it that way. Everything a customer-facing team runs on comes in the box: customizable pipelines, a built-in phone with IVR, WhatsApp, and email in one place, and automation that starts on the free plan. AI features join at $12/user/month with 1,000 credits every month, a number you can actually budget against.
There is a forever-free plan to start on, developer APIs from that free plan onward, help importing your Freshsales data when you are ready, and 50,000+ small businesses across 150+ countries already running on it.
Watch Overview Video
Key limitations in Freshsales'
One pipeline costs $9, and the second one costs $39
Freshsales Growth gives you a single sales pipeline. Multiple pipelines appear on Pro at $39 per user, and Freshworks' own documentation confirms this: "Multiple sales pipelines" is on the list of features you lose when you downgrade from Pro to Growth. Most small teams need a second pipeline the moment they run onboarding, renewals, or support alongside sales. Bigin Express gives you three team pipelines at $7, Premier five at $15, and Bigin 360 at $15.
The price ladder skips the middle
Growth is $9, and Pro is $39. There is nothing in between. That is a 4.3 times jump, and it is where multiple pipelines, AI, sales sequences, the product catalog, multi-currency, territory management, and time-based workflows all live at once. A five-person team crossing it goes from $540 a year to $2,340 for one or two features it actually needed. Bigin's steps are $7, $12, and $18, and each one adds a defined amount.
No AI on the $9 plan
Freddy AI, which covers contact scoring, deal insights, and AI email generation, starts at $39 on Pro. Growth accounts opened since March 2024 get none of it. The Freddy AI Agent chatbot is metered separately at $49 per 100 sessions across all plans. Bigin Premier includes the full AI toolkit at $12: writing assistant, email reply suggestions, record summaries, cross-sell suggestions, and churn signals, with 1,000 credits refreshed every month and 3,000 on Bigin 360.
WhatsApp runs through another product, with a markup
Freshsales has no WhatsApp channel of its own. Messaging comes through Freshchat, and Freshworks' own pricing article states it plainly: "Freshworks applies a 20% markup to the total WhatsApp cost billed from Meta." So you pay Meta's per-message rate, plus a fifth again, plus whatever the Freshchat license costs. Bigin Express includes WhatsApp Business at $7, on your own WhatsApp Business account, in the same customer timeline as email and calls.
The phone is included, but the calling is not
Both products ship a dialer, and that is a fair fight. What differs is what happens after you dial. Freshsales bills for numbers and minutes from a prepaid phone credit balance that auto-recharges when it drops to $5. Free local incoming minutes are capped at 2,000 a month on Growth, and Freshworks' own documentation says call recording, voicemail and transfers "incur separate charges" beyond that. Bigin has a built-in phone with IVR on the free plan and 100+ telephony providers in the marketplace.
Sending a quote costs another $19 a user
Freshsales sells quoting as an add-on: branded documents for $19 per user, listed on its own pricing page alongside the plans. The product catalog those quotes draw from is itself a Pro feature, so a Growth team wanting to quote pays $39 plus $19 on top of the $9 it started with. Bigin handles quotes and invoicing through Zoho Books and Zoho Invoice on every paid plan, and payment links are included with Express for $7.
The free plan is three seats and not much else
Freshsales does have a free plan, though its pricing page does not show it. Three users, which is more seats than Bigin's one. What those seats get is thinner: no visual sales pipeline, no custom fields, no workflows, no email sync, no file storage, and no API, all confirmed in Freshworks' own downgrade documentation. Bigin's free plan includes 1 user, a customizable pipeline, a built-in phone with IVR, 3 automations, a web form, a booking page, and developer APIs.
Custom fields are capped by type, not by count
Freshsales publishes nine separate custom-field limits per entity: 20 text fields on Growth, 5 text areas, 5 multi-select, no lookup fields, and no formula fields at all. Formula fields start on Pro. There are a lot of factors to keep in mind before you know whether the CRM fits your process. Bigin gives you custom fields, tags, filters, and views from $7, and formula fields on Premier.
Here's a list of features that Bigin offers for your business:
Team Pipelines
Team Pipelines
Connected Pipelines
Built-in AI assistance
Built-in telephony & IVR
WhatsApp, email & social messaging
Workflow automation
Payment links
Booking & appointment scheduling
Customizable dashboards & KPIs
Apps for iOS, Android & macOS
Bigin vs. Freshsales
Features
Bigin Express$7/user/month billed annually
Freshsales Growth$9/user/month billed annually
Bigin Premier$12/user/month billed annually
Freshsales Pro$39/user/month billed annually
Expand AllCollapse All
SALES
Free edition available
forever free plan (single user)
14-day trial only
Full-fledged pipeline management
from Free plan
Contact and lead management
from Free plan
Deal management
from Free plan
Payment collection (payment links)
Stripe, PayPal, Razorpay, Paytm
Via marketplace apps
Via marketplace apps
Quote management
Via Zoho Books / Zoho Invoice integration
50 per month
Via Zoho Books / Zoho Invoice integration
250 per month
COMMUNICATION
Built-in telephony
from Free plan
Alpha - outbound only, mobile app only, US numbers only
Alpha - outbound only, mobile app only, US numbers only
Telephony marketplace
Third-party apps (paid)
Third-party apps (paid)
Built-in IVR system
from Free plan
Meeting integrations (Zoom, Teams, Zoho Meeting)
Zoom, Teams
Zoom, Teams
Email integrations (two-way sync)
Gmail, Outlook (Standard+)
Gmail, Outlook
Email templates
Email insights (opens / clicks)
mass email insights
Mass emails
WhatsApp integration
WhatsApp Business
Third-party apps only (paid)
Third-party apps only (paid)
X integration
AUTOMATION
Workflow automation
30 workflows (from Free plan: 3)
Stage automation
Built-in
Status-based
Built-in
Status-based
Formula fields
Automation across apps (Zapier + Zoho Flow)
from Free plan
Zapier / Make only
Zapier / Make only
STREAMLINING CUSTOMER-FACING OPERATIONS
Pre-built pipeline templates for different operations
from Free plan
board templates
board templates
Case / ticket management through Email-in
Topping (add-on)
Topping (add-on)
Connected records / Connected Pipelines
Manual setup
Manual setup
Built-in dashboards & reports
from Free plan
DATA AND OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT
Versatile no-code form builder
from Free plan
Social media lead ads capture (FB, IG, LinkedIn, TikTok)
Salesforce Pro Suite$100/user/month billed annually
Features
SALES
Full-fledged pipeline management
Contact & Lead Management
Deal management
Payment collection
Quote management
COMMUNICATION
Built-in telephony
Telephony marketplace
Built-in IVR system
Meeting integrations
Email integrations
Email templates
Email insights
WhatsApp integration
X integration
AUTOMATION
Workflow automation
Stage automation
Formula fields
Automation across apps via Zapier and Zoho Flow
STREAMLINING CUSTOMER-FACING OPERATIONS
Built-in pipelines dedicated to different operations
Case and ticket management through Email-in
Connected records (When a record reaches the desired stage in one team pipeline, you can create a record automatically in another team pipeline that captures the next set of business activities.)
Built-in dashboards for detailed insights into your business
Salesforce Pro Suite$100/user/month billed annually
All you need to take your business to the next level
Bigin is the right choice for your small business and is trusted by over 50,000 small businesses globally. We want to help you scale up your business and achieve consistent growth. And in the future, if your business needs more than what Bigin can offer, you can always switch to Zoho CRM or Zoho CRM Plus. We're here to help you at every milestone your business reaches.
You pay for an entire tier to get the one feature you actually came for.
Freshsales Growth costs $9 a user and runs one sales pipeline. Add onboarding, renewals or support alongside sales and you need a second one, and a second one lives on Pro at $39. Nothing sits between the two. That single step also gates Freddy AI, sales sequences, the product catalog, multi-currency and time-based workflows, so a team that wanted one more pipeline ends up buying all of it. Sending a quote is another $19 a user on top of that.
Expert reviews and ratings
Rating Platform
Freshsales
Bigin
4.5/5
4.6/5
4.5/5
4.7/5
8.9/10
8.8/10
3.7/5
4.4/5
4.2/5
4.7/5
4.7/5
4.7/5
*The names and logos for Zoho are trademarks of Zoho Corp. All other trademarks, brand names, or product names belong to their respective holders. Comparison information as of 4/08/2026. Prices mentioned are in USD.
Trusted by 50,000+ small businesses globally
I am super impressed with Bigin. I was looking for a simpler lead management and automation tool and I have finally arrived at the right platform after trying multiple tools in the last few years. It has completely transformed the sales process and I regularly recommend Bigin to my contacts.
Vikas Kakkar,Founder & CEO, HireXP.
I want to sincerely thank the entire Bigin Team for developing this excellent platform for SMBs, who are quite keen on getting rid of Excel datasheets. My primary requirement was exactly the same,and Bigin has offered so much more. This has increased the overall productivity of my sales team, and I have already recommended Bigin to friends in different sectors.
I found Bigin suitable and extremely easy to learn and utilize. I was worried that my assistants will able to learn it quickly, but to my surprise, they became avid users in just two weeks' time. Mobile apps and their connectivity with the server are superb and quick. Overall, I am happy with the product.
Still have more doubts? Here are the answers to some frequently asked questions!
Expand AllCollapse All
Is Freshsales free?
There is a free Freshsales, though its pricing page does not show it. Three users, and it covers contacts, accounts, deals, tasks, and a built-in phone with 24x5 support. What it does not cover is most of a CRM: no visual sales pipeline, no custom fields, no workflows, no email sync, no file storage, and no API, all listed in Freshworks' own documentation on what you lose when you downgrade. Paid plans start at $9. Bigin's free plan supports 1 user and includes a customizable pipeline, a built-in phone with IVR, 3 automations, a web form, a booking page, and developer APIs. Paid Bigin starts at $7.
How much cheaper is Bigin than Freshsales?
At the entry plan, a little: $7 against $9 per user per month, billed annually. The gap opens once you match features rather than price tags. A second sales pipeline costs $39 on Freshsales Pro and $7 on Bigin Express. AI costs $39 on Pro and $12 on Bigin Premier. For a five-person team, that is $420 a year on Express, $540 on Growth, or $720 on Premier with AI included, against $2,340 on Pro. Then add what Freshsales bills separately: branded documents for quoting at $19 per user, the Freddy AI Agent at $49 per 100 sessions, and phone credits for numbers and minutes.
Does Freshsales include AI on its cheapest plan?
No. Freddy AI, covering contact scoring, deal insights, and AI email generation, starts on Pro at $39 per user per month. Growth accounts opened since March 2024 get none of it. The Freddy AI Agent chatbot is a separate meter on every plan at $49 per 100 sessions. Bigin includes its full AI toolkit from Premier at $12: a writing assistant, email reply suggestions, record summaries, cross-sell suggestions, and churn alerts, with 1,000 AI credits refreshed every month and 3,000 on Bigin 360. One thing Freshsales Pro does have that Bigin does not is predictive lead scoring, so if scoring is the reason you are shopping, weigh that against the price.
Can I make calls from Freshsales?
Yes. Freshsales has a built-in phone, and so does Bigin, so the question is what calling costs are after that. Freshsales bills phone numbers and minutes from a prepaid credit balance that auto-recharges when it falls to $5. Growth includes 2,000 free local incoming minutes a month on local numbers in a handful of countries, and Freshworks' documentation notes that recording, voicemail, and transfers carry separate charges. Bigin has a built-in phone with IVR on the free plan and 100+ telephony providers in the marketplace.
How do I migrate from Freshsales to Bigin?
Export your Freshsales data, and Bigin's import tools bring across contacts, companies, deals, and notes. Every paid plan includes a free onboarding session and data-import assistance, so you do not have to work out the field mapping alone. Bigin's single-click migration covers Pipedrive, HubSpot, Insightly, and Zoho CRM today; Freshsales is a file import. And if it does not work out, Bigin has a money-back guarantee: 30 days for monthly plans and 45 days for annual plans.
Will I outgrow Bigin?
Bigin scales from a free single-user plan to Bigin 360 at $18 per user per month, with 15 team pipelines, 1,000,000 records, 100 automations, and 3,000 AI credits per month. If you eventually need more, your data moves to Zoho CRM with one click, so you never migrate platforms twice.
See more
A truly fresh approach to the
small business CRM.
Get started with a free 15-day trial, and discover the best CRM built for small and micro businesses today.
