Freshsales x Brevo: Which CRM excels at WhatsApp integration?

When using WhatsApp to drive your sales efforts, selecting the right CRM can be the key factor that distinguishes a closed deal from a lost opportunity. In the comparison of Freshsales vs Brevo, you’ll find features like instant chat access, seamless message logging, AI-driven follow-ups, and drag-and-drop workflows; however, each platform offers unique advantages in customization, pricing transparency, and pipeline sophistication. Meanwhile, a next-gen contender is quietly transforming the landscape of WhatsApp integration, redefining what seamless connectivity truly means.

Why WhatsApp CRM Integration Matters

Integrating WhatsApp directly with your CRM creates a direct link between conversations and revenue. With automated contact syncing and message logging, you eliminate manual data entry and minimize the risk of lost leads, ensuring that every interaction is documented and actionable.

• Accelerate response times by initiating follow-ups and reminders as soon as a customer engages.
• Enhance engagement with personalized, template-driven outreach that feels uniquely tailored.
• Optimize workflows through a single unified dashboard for chats, contacts, and campaign analytics.

When your team can view every WhatsApp message alongside emails, calls, and deals, they can devote less time searching for context and more time closing deals—transforming casual conversations into reliable conversions.

What is Freshsales?

Freshsales centers AI in your sales strategy, seamlessly capturing leads from websites, emails, and phone calls. With intelligent workflows, it scores and prioritizes prospects, enabling reps to concentrate on the most promising opportunities. Integrated email, phone, and chat tools minimize the need to switch between applications, while behavior-driven segmentation allows for highly personalized outreach. The outcome? Deals progress through your pipeline more swiftly, requiring less manual effort.

Thanks to its WhatsApp Business integration, you can swiftly address customer inquiries and offer 24/7 support from a single workspace, enhancing customer satisfaction and team productivity.

What is Brevo?

Previously known as Sendinblue, Brevo provides a comprehensive growth platform that combines email, SMS, WhatsApp, and live chat, all featuring a free built-in CRM. Its Aura AI assistant generates impactful campaign copy in moments and initiates multichannel automations to nurture leads automatically.

You can segment contacts by behavior or demographics and send highly targeted messages that drive conversions. Affordable and infinitely scalable, Brevo is ideal for teams seeking integrated marketing and sales solutions. By utilizing the WhatsApp Business API, Brevo enables both campaign and transactional messaging, boasting impressive average open rates of 98% and the capability to send personalized bulk or one-to-one messages at scale.

Feature comparison of Freshsales and Brevo

Two-Way Messaging

Freshsales, part of the Freshworks Suite, offers native WhatsApp Business API integration through Freshchat or Freshdesk. Messages manifest as support tickets or conversations within the CRM interface, allowing sales and support agents to respond directly. This feature is perfect for service workflows, though it has some limitations for outbound sales applications.

Brevo facilitates two-way WhatsApp communication through its Conversations app, enabling sales and support teams to send campaigns and messages while receiving replies in a dedicated inbox. Although it isn't fully integrated into the CRM, it effectively supports real-time conversation management.

Template Management

Freshsales lacks built-in WhatsApp template management, requiring users to utilize third-party integrations such as TimelinesAI or Interakt for template creation and management. Consequently, the approval and reuse of templates occur outside the platform.

In contrast, Brevo offers support for WhatsApp Business API template creation and management directly through its dashboard or API. Once approved by Meta, these templates can be employed in campaigns or transactional messages, making them perfect for marketing purposes.

Automated Responses & Chatbots

Freshchat enables the seamless exchange of media, including images, documents, videos, and voice notes via WhatsApp. All exchanged files are automatically archived in the contact or ticket history, ensuring that teams have complete conversation context.

HighLevel boasts robust native automation capabilities, featuring WhatsApp chatbots, appointment scheduling, and intelligent auto-replies. You can initiate workflows based on keywords (like single-word responses), customer actions, or time-sensitive triggers. This makes it an excellent choice for businesses aiming to automate routine sales and support tasks while still preserving a personal connection.

Multimedia Support (Images, Videos, Files)

Freshchat enables users to send and receive various media types including images, documents, videos, and voice notes via WhatsApp. All exchanged files are automatically archived in the contact or ticket history, ensuring teams have complete context for conversations.

Brevo’s WhatsApp integration fully supports multimedia messages like images, videos, and documents. These are easily accessible in the Conversations UI, allowing agents to view all content in a single interface.

Contact & Lead Synchronization

With integrations such as TimelinesAI or Albato, Freshsales can automatically create or update contacts, leads, or deals as soon as WhatsApp conversations begin. While initial manual setup is necessary, the synchronization remains dependable once configured.

Brevo enables the syncing of WhatsApp contacts through API or automation tools, though it’s important to note that contact creation isn't automatic by default and may need to be set up using Make or custom API connections.

Workflow Triggers & Notifications

Freshsales enables trigger-based actions through Freshworks Automations or third-party tools like Zapier and Make. This allows you to send follow-ups, update records, or create tasks based on WhatsApp activity, even though this functionality isn't natively built into Freshsales.

Workflows initiated by WhatsApp interactions can be accessed via API or external applications. For instance, receiving a message can update contact fields or initiate a CRM campaign, but the underlying logic operates outside of Brevo’s core platform.

folk CRM: The Best CRM Connected to WhatsApp

If your sales team uses WhatsApp to engage leads and close deals, folk CRM's WhatsApp integration is a game-changer.

With folk’s WhatsApp CRM, every conversation is automatically synced and logged, eliminating the hassle of manual copy-pasting or lost messages. Enjoy complete visibility into your team’s WhatsApp interactions with leads and customers, ensuring you always understand the context behind every deal. Whether it's a follow-up or a critical decision point, you have the full picture at your fingertips.

However, folk offers more than just WhatsApp.
It seamlessly integrates with Gmail, Outlook, LinkedIn, Google Meet, Instagram, Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), and more—allowing you to manage emails, meetings, and social interactions all from one place. Import contacts from any channel and handle them effortlessly within folk.

What truly sets folk apart is its AI agents, which supercharge your sales process by automating workflows, uncovering deal insights, and enhancing productivity—freeing your team from administrative tasks so they can focus on closing deals.
Are you ready to transform your sales operations and drive results?

Conclusion

In the comparison of Freshsales and Brevo, Freshsales excels with its AI-driven lead scoring and seamless communication tools, while Brevo shines with its multi-channel marketing capabilities and targeted messaging. Both CRMs enhance WhatsApp integration, yet they come with distinct features catering to different business needs. For a comprehensive solution that not only integrates WhatsApp but also automates workflows and consolidates communication across platforms, folk stands out as a superior alternative, driving efficiency and maximizing sales potential.

Start your 14-day free trial or book a demo today.