HubSpot vs Freshsales: 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 this article, we will explore two prominent CRM solutions—HubSpot and Freshsales—that cater specifically to the needs of agencies. HubSpot offers a robust ecosystem that integrates sales, marketing, and service tools under one roof, making it ideal for agencies looking to manage their pipeline tracking and lead capture efficiently. On the other hand, Freshsales provides essential CRM functionalities with easy-to-use automation features, ensuring that agencies can streamline their processes without unnecessary complexity.

The right choice between HubSpot and Freshsales depends on your agency's specific requirements, workflow complexity, and the level of customization you seek in your CRM system.

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 HubSpot?

HubSpot is a comprehensive CRM platform that seamlessly integrates sales, marketing, and service tools within one ecosystem. It's particularly beneficial for agencies seeking to manage pipeline tracking, lead capture, email campaigns, and lifecycle reporting all in one location. Teams can customize pipelines, log activities, and automate follow-up processes through workflows, depending on their selected plan. Additionally, the app marketplace accommodates various agency tools and client-facing systems. Many agencies opt for HubSpot when they require CRM along with complementary go-to-market solutions from a single vendor.

What is Freshsales?

Freshsales is a CRM solution from Freshworks designed to manage leads, deals, and activities with integrated automation features. It's a great fit for agencies that require essential CRM functionalities, customizable pipelines, and workflow rules for effective follow-ups and transitions. Activity timelines ensure that all interactions are linked to the appropriate records within sales and account management. The reporting tools facilitate pipeline tracking and performance analysis based on recorded data. Agencies often choose Freshsales for its straightforward approach while still providing automation and robust reporting capabilities.

Feature comparison of HubSpot and Freshsales

Multi-pipeline and custom stages

HubSpot enables the creation and management of deal pipelines centered around defined stages, which can be adjusted in the pipeline settings to align with how an agency qualifies and closes deals. Different pipelines can be utilized to monitor various processes, such as new business versus renewals or distinct service lines, while ensuring that stages remain separate for each pipeline.

Similarly, Freshsales allows for multiple deal pipelines, each with its own unique set of stages. These pipelines and stages can be managed in the admin settings, where users can add, reorder, and customize stages to suit different sales processes. This setup facilitates the categorization of agency activities, such as new business, renewals, or partnerships, into dedicated pipelines, while maintaining specific stage definitions for each activity. The default outcomes for newly created pipelines are set to Won and Lost.

Client and Deal Activity Tracking

HubSpot captures activities within record timelines, enabling users to log and associate calls, emails, meetings, notes, and tasks with contacts, companies, and deals. This activity data can populate properties like the last activity date based on recorded interactions. Additionally, activity timelines can be filtered, allowing for associations across related records so that a deal and its corresponding contact maintain a shared logged context.

Freshsales also allows users to log activities such as calls, meetings, notes, emails, and tasks, associating them with contacts, accounts, and deals. Its record timelines provide a comprehensive view of past interactions and upcoming actions, ensuring that handoffs include valuable context and next steps. Furthermore, Freshsales offers the flexibility to configure various activity types, including custom ones, to align with a team's workflow. Timelines can be filtered to concentrate on specific activity categories during account reviews.

Automation and Workflows

HubSpot offers comprehensive sales reporting via dashboards, the sales analytics suite, and customizable reporting tools. Reports can be saved to dashboards and shared with users who have appropriate access. With the report builder, you can create custom reports to analyze CRM objects and activities, tailoring filters and dataset selections to meet specific reporting needs.

In Freshsales, you can establish workflow automation using triggers and actions to update records, generate tasks, notify users, or adjust ownership based on changes in fields or deal events. Sales sequences enable automation of outreach and follow-up steps, contingent on the module and plan you’re using. The behavior of automation will depend on how workflows are configured in the admin settings, facilitating the standardization of repetitive tasks linked to pipeline progression and internal handoffs.

Reporting and Analytics

HubSpot offers comprehensive sales reporting through intuitive dashboards, an analytics suite, and customizable reporting tools. You can save reports to dashboards and share them with users who have the appropriate access. With the report builder, you can create custom reports to analyze CRM objects and activities, tailoring filters and data sets to meet your reporting needs.

In Freshsales, you can generate reports and dashboards using CRM data, such as deals, activities, and stage movements, to effectively monitor pipeline status and performance. Its analytics features allow you to track progress through different stages and examine conversion trends over time based on recorded data. Additionally, you can schedule reports for email delivery, depending on your analytics setup. The metrics available will vary based on how your pipelines, stages, and properties are configured.

Integrations and Data Hygiene

HubSpot seamlessly integrates with various external tools through its app marketplace, showcasing a wide range of integrations tailored for sales, marketing, and operational purposes. To ensure data hygiene, HubSpot offers robust data quality tools, including deduplication workflows to identify and manage duplicates, formatting issue detection, and enrichment coverage options based on your plan. These functionalities are housed under Data Management and Data Quality, where teams can assess issues and implement corrections to records and properties.

With Freshsales, you can enhance your CRM by adding integrations via the Freshworks Marketplace, allowing you to connect external tools directly to CRM records and workflows. Its duplicate management features efficiently identify and merge duplicate leads or contacts, ensuring that reporting and automation are based on consolidated records. Additionally, import settings can help mitigate duplicate creation by matching incoming data with existing records, while enrichment capabilities may vary based on the edition and configuration used.

folk: The Best CRM for Agencies in 2026!

folk is an AI-driven CRM tailored to centralize contacts, conversations, and deal contexts without overwhelming teams during setup. It seamlessly accommodates agency teams where multiple individuals engage with the same account throughout prospecting, onboarding, delivery, and renewals. The system maintains a visible record of relationship history, ensuring that handoffs do not rely on memory or scattered notes.

• Multi-pipeline and custom stages tailored to various agency workflows
• Centralized contact and deal timelines to track interaction history
• Email and calendar synchronization to link conversations with the appropriate records
• Task management, reminders, and follow-up tracking to streamline next steps
• Contact enrichment features to fill in missing company and contact information
• Deduplication tools to merge duplicate entries and maintain a clean database
• User-friendly pipeline reporting to assess stage health and deal progression
• Integrations and automation connectors to minimize manual updates

For agencies, the primary advantage lies in achieving operational clarity across multiple relationships. Pipelines can represent different revenue streams such as retainers, projects, partnerships, and referrals, while tasks and reminders ensure consistent follow-ups within the team. Data hygiene capabilities like enrichment and deduplication help eliminate duplicates and incomplete records, ensuring that pipeline reporting remains reliable over time.

Conclusion

In conclusion, while HubSpot excels with its all-in-one ecosystem and extensive integrations suitable for agencies needing comprehensive tools, and Freshsales offers straightforward automation and reporting for simpler workflows, folk stands out as the best choice for teams reliant on email integration, automation, and sequencing. With its focus on relationship history, streamlined task management, and powerful deduplication features, folk ensures operational clarity and consistent follow-ups, making it the ideal CRM for agencies navigating complex client interactions.

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