Freshsales vs Close: Which CRM for agencies wins?

Agencies don’t struggle with “finding tools.” They struggle with keeping pipeline execution consistent while delivery stays on track. When prospect context lives across inboxes, calendars, and spreadsheets, follow-ups slip, handoffs break, and forecasting becomes guesswork. A CRM for agencies has to keep new business moving fast while preserving enough account history to support renewals, upsells, and referrals.

In the world of CRM solutions, two contenders have gained significant traction: Freshsales and Close. Freshsales offers a user-friendly interface with robust automation features, making it ideal for agencies that require a streamlined approach to managing leads and deals. On the other hand, Close is tailored for high-volume sales environments, integrating various communication channels to ensure that every interaction is captured and followed up on efficiently.

The right choice hinges on your agency's specific needs—whether you prioritize automation and simple pipeline management with Freshsales or a more integrated communication-centric approach with Close. Evaluating these platforms will help determine which aligns best with your operational goals and sales strategies.

Why Agencies Need a CRM in 2026?

Agencies don’t lose revenue because of a lack of demand. Revenue leaks when lead context gets scattered across inboxes, calendars, Slack threads, and spreadsheets, and when follow-ups depend on memory instead of a system. A CRM creates a single source of truth for prospects, clients, partners, and renewals, so next steps stay visible and ownership is clear.

✔️ Pipeline visibility and forecasting without spreadsheets

✔️ Centralized prospect and client context across email, calls, and meetings

✔️ Standardized follow-ups, handoffs, and next steps across the team

✔️ Clear ownership on every lead, deal, and account to avoid drops

✔️ Performance tracking by source, service line, and stage conversion

In 2026, agencies run more channels, shorter decision cycles, and more stakeholders per deal, with clients expecting faster response times and tighter coordination. Without a CRM, proposals stall, warm leads go cold, renewals happen late, and referrals are handled inconsistently because the team can’t see the full history and the current plan in one place.

What is Freshsales?

Freshsales is a CRM solution from Freshworks designed to manage leads, deals, and activities while incorporating automation features. It's ideal for agencies seeking standard CRM functionalities, customizable pipelines, and workflow rules for follow-ups and handoffs. The activity timeline ensures that all interactions are linked to the correct records in sales and account management. Reporting tools facilitate pipeline monitoring and performance analysis using logged data, making it a popular choice for agencies looking for a straightforward CRM that still offers automation and reporting capabilities.

What is Close?

Close is a sales CRM focused on outbound execution, integrating calling, email, SMS, and tasks seamlessly into daily workflows. It caters to agencies engaged in high-volume prospecting, appointment setting, or sales development as their primary service. Pipelines and opportunity statuses help track progress while communication history remains accessible on each lead record. With sequences and automation, agencies can establish repeatable outreach and follow-up routines, making it a perfect choice when success hinges on consistent outbound activity and rapid iteration.

Feature comparison of Freshsales and Close

Multi-pipeline and custom stages

Freshsales enables the creation of multiple deal pipelines, each equipped with its own unique set of stages. Administrators can manage these pipelines and stages within the admin settings, allowing for the addition, reordering, and customization to fit various sales processes. This flexibility enables users to categorize agency activities like new business, renewals, or partnerships into separate pipelines, ensuring that stage definitions remain specific to each activity. The outcomes of Won and Lost are set as default for any newly created pipelines.

Similarly, Close allows users to establish multiple pipelines so that different teams or processes can have tailored pipeline configurations. Each pipeline can be named distinctly and equipped with its own set of opportunity statuses, which function as the stage structure. This design facilitates the separation of activities such as new business, renewals, or service delivery tracking into individual pipelines, without the need to share the same statuses across all processes. Users can easily adjust the pipeline structure by modifying the opportunity statuses relevant to each pipeline.

Client and Deal Activity Tracking

Freshsales allows you to log activities such as calls, meetings, notes, emails, and tasks, linking them to contacts, accounts, and deals. The record timelines provide a comprehensive view of past interactions and upcoming actions, ensuring smooth handoffs with context and clear next steps. Additionally, Freshsales enables customization of activity types to align with a team's workflow, and timelines can be filtered to focus on specific activity categories during account reviews.

Close integrates calls, emails, SMS, and tasks directly into the CRM, allowing them to be associated with the appropriate lead and opportunity context. All communication occurs within the platform, and activity histories are easily accessible on records, enabling teams to review interactions and outline next steps effectively. This functionality facilitates the tracking of sales efforts by recording outreach and follow-ups alongside lead and deal information, while meetings and other touchpoints can be managed seamlessly within the same workspace based on configuration.

Automation and Workflows

In Freshsales, you can create reports and dashboards using CRM data like deals, activities, and stage movements to effectively monitor your pipeline's status and performance. The analytics features enable you to track progress through various stages and analyze conversion patterns over time based on recorded data. Additionally, reporting options may include scheduling reports for email delivery, depending on your analytics setup. The metrics available will vary based on how your pipelines, stages, and properties are configured.

In Close, automation encompasses workflows that can activate actions based on events and objects such as leads, contacts, and opportunities. These workflows can be triggered either manually or automatically, with the automation suite including email sequences, task reminders, and customizable workflow logic. Triggers may encompass lead events like new leads, email engagement, or missed calls, depending on your workflow setup. The specific steps and actions will be determined by the workflow configuration within your account.

Reporting and Analytics

In Freshsales, you can create reports and dashboards using CRM data related to deals, activities, and stage transitions to effectively monitor pipeline status and performance. The analytics features enable you to track progression through various stages and analyze conversion trends over time based on the logged data. Additionally, reporting options include scheduling reports for email delivery, contingent on your analytics setup. The metrics available will vary depending on your configuration of pipelines, stages, and properties.

Close offers sales reporting that encompasses dashboards and reports centered on pipeline health, activity tracking, lead conversion, and overall sales performance. You can filter reports by date ranges and other criteria, while dashboards can be customized to visualize specific metrics. Reporting utilizes CRM data as its foundation, meaning that both activity and pipeline reporting rely on logged information and the structure of opportunities. Forecasting and pipeline monitoring are facilitated through the reporting framework outlined in Close’s reporting documentation.

Integrations and Data Hygiene

Freshsales allows you to enhance your CRM experience by adding integrations through the Freshworks Marketplace, connecting external tools seamlessly to your CRM records and workflows. Its duplicate management features assist in identifying and merging duplicate leads or contacts, ensuring that reporting and automation function on consolidated data. The import settings are designed to minimize duplicate creation by matching incoming data with existing records, while enrichment capabilities may vary depending on the edition and configuration you choose.

In Close, integrations can be set up via the API and event-based webhooks, with documentation also suggesting the use of tools like Zapier or Make for connecting external applications using OAuth or API keys. Close's data hygiene features include duplicate detection during new lead creation, options to prevent duplicates when importing, and the capability to merge leads when duplicates are found. Import workflows conduct duplicate checks against both the uploaded file and existing leads, while merge actions consolidate records into a single destination lead. Comprehensive documentation is available in Close's help resources and product update notes.

folk: The Best CRM for Agencies in 2026!

folk is an AI-powered CRM designed to centralize contacts, conversations, and deal context without turning the setup into a lengthy project. It's tailored for agency teams where multiple members engage with the same account throughout prospecting, onboarding, delivery, and renewals. Its records maintain the history of relationships, ensuring that handoffs do not rely on memory or scattered notes.

• Multi-pipeline and custom stages to accommodate various agency workflows
• Contact and deal timelines that consolidate interaction history in one location
• Email and calendar synchronization to link conversations to the appropriate records
• Task management, reminders, and follow-up tracking to ensure standardized next steps
• Contact enrichment to fill in missing company and contact information
• Deduplication tools to merge duplicates and keep the database organized
• Simple pipeline reporting to track stage health and deal progression
• Integrations and automation connectors to minimize manual updates

For agencies, the primary benefit lies in achieving operational clarity across simultaneous relationships. Pipelines can represent various revenue streams such as retainers, projects, partnerships, and referrals, while tasks and reminders ensure consistent follow-ups within the team. Data hygiene features like enrichment and deduplication help eliminate duplicate records and fill in missing fields, making pipeline reporting effective over time.

Conclusion

In summary, Freshsales excels with its user-friendly interface and automation features, making it ideal for straightforward pipeline management. Close shines in high-volume sales environments, seamlessly integrating communication channels for efficient follow-ups. However, for teams prioritizing email integration, automation, and consistent sequencing, folk emerges as the superior choice. Its AI-driven approach centralizes contact history and simplifies task management, ensuring operational clarity and effective follow-up without unnecessary complexity. Experience the difference with folk for agency-focused CRM needs.

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