Hubspot x Freshsales: Which CRM excels at WhatsApp integration?

When WhatsApp powers your sales efforts, selecting the right CRM can be the key differentiator between sealing a deal and losing a lead. With Hubspot vs Freshsales, you’ll find features like instant chat access, seamless message logging, AI-driven follow-ups, and intuitive drag-and-drop workflows. However, each platform has its unique strengths in customization, pricing clarity, and pipeline complexity. Meanwhile, a next-gen contender is subtly changing the game, redefining what effective WhatsApp integration should truly entail.

Why WhatsApp CRM Integration Matters

Integrating WhatsApp directly with your CRM effectively connects conversations to revenue. Automated contact syncing and message logging eliminate the need for manual data entry and prevent lost leads — transforming every interaction into a valuable record.

• Accelerate response times by initiating follow-ups and reminders as soon as a customer engages.
• Enhance engagement through personalized, template-based outreach that resonates as if it were tailored specifically for each recipient.
• Optimize workflows with a comprehensive dashboard that consolidates chats, contacts, and campaign analytics.

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

What is Hubspot?

HubSpot offers a free CRM that consolidates all your contacts, deals, and tasks into a streamlined interface—no credit card needed. Enjoy features like live chat, email tracking, meeting scheduling, and ticketing right from the start. Seamless integrations with Marketing Hub and Service Hub enable effortless automation between teams. Plus, as part of the HubSpot ecosystem, you can easily upgrade to paid plans for more advanced automation or reporting when necessary. With HubSpot's native WhatsApp integration, you can send and receive messages directly within a shared inbox, automate template-based notifications via workflows, and engage in two-way customer conversations at scale.

What is Freshsales?

Freshsales integrates AI into your sales process, automatically capturing leads from websites, emails, and phone calls. Intelligent workflows score and prioritize prospects, allowing your team to concentrate on the most promising opportunities. With built-in email, phone, and chat tools, you can avoid switching between apps, while behavior-based segmentation enables highly personalized outreach. The outcome? Deals progress more swiftly through your pipeline with reduced manual effort.

Thanks to its WhatsApp Business integration, you can provide instant responses to customer inquiries and offer 24/7 support from a single workspace, enhancing both customer satisfaction and team efficiency.

Feature comparison of Hubspot and Freshsales

Two-Way Messaging

HubSpot’s native WhatsApp integration, available with Professional and Enterprise Service Hub plans, seamlessly incorporates two-way messaging into your shared conversations inbox. This allows agents to respond to customer inquiries using text, images, or videos, all within HubSpot. Incoming messages automatically create a new thread linked to the appropriate contact, company, deal, or ticket record. Meanwhile, outbound messages—whether templates or free-form—initiate 24-hour sessions to maintain ongoing conversations. You’ll have complete visibility into session limits and conversation counts, ensuring you stay within your monthly quotas without any unexpected surprises. Additionally, workflows can trigger business-initiated template messages for re-engagement or reminders, while every interaction is logged as a timeline event.

Freshsales, part of the Freshworks Suite, offers native WhatsApp Business API integration through Freshchat or Freshdesk. Messages are converted into support tickets or conversations within the CRM interface, enabling sales and support agents to respond directly. This feature is ideal for service workflows, although it does come with some limitations for outbound sales use.

Template Management

HubSpot’s WhatsApp integration, available on the Professional and Enterprise Service Hub, provides a seamless template manager directly within your CRM. Once you connect your WhatsApp Business account, all approved templates from Meta automatically sync to HubSpot’s CRM under Templates > WhatsApp tab. Here, you can easily filter templates by status (Ready to use, Needs personalization, Rejected), language, and category (promotional, transactional, OTP).

In contrast, Freshsales lacks built-in WhatsApp template management. Users are required to utilize third-party integrations like TimelinesAI or Interakt to create and manage templates, meaning that template approval and reuse occur outside the platform.

Automated Responses & Chatbots

HubSpot’s native WhatsApp integration (available with Service Hub Professional and Enterprise) allows users to send and receive various media attachments—such as images, videos, audio files, stickers, and documents up to 15 MB—directly from the conversations inbox or contact record.

Incoming media messages generate timeline events that display thumbnails and download links, enabling sales and support teams to easily view or forward assets without the need to switch applications.

Freshsales users can leverage Freshchat to set up automated replies and chatbot flows that integrate with WhatsApp. This feature allows the configuration of FAQ bots, routing bots, and autoresponders, making it an excellent choice for basic automation in customer support settings.

Multimedia Support (Images, Videos, Files)

HubSpot’s native WhatsApp integration (available in Service Hub Professional and Enterprise) allows users to send and receive various media attachments—including images, videos, audio, stickers, and documents up to 15 MB—directly from the conversations inbox or contact record.

Incoming media messages create timeline events featuring thumbnails and download links, enabling sales and support teams to easily view or forward assets without needing to switch applications.

Similarly, Freshchat facilitates the sending and receiving of media like images, documents, videos, and voice notes via WhatsApp. All exchanged files are automatically archived in the contact or ticket history, ensuring teams have complete conversation context at their fingertips.

Contact & Lead Synchronization

HubSpot's native WhatsApp integration, available on the Professional and Enterprise Service Hub, seamlessly syncs every new WhatsApp conversation with the corresponding contact record in your CRM, either creating or updating the contact based on their phone number.

Upon connecting your WhatsApp Business account, only new messages will trigger this sync—historical chats will remain in WhatsApp. Each new thread generates a fresh timeline event linked to the relevant contact or associated deal. For channels that necessitate lead capture, such as click-to-WhatsApp ads, you can automate contact creation from form submissions and continue the conversation via WhatsApp, all while keeping everything tracked in HubSpot.

Integrations like TimelinesAI or Albato enable Freshsales to automatically create or update contacts, leads, or deals when WhatsApp conversations begin. While some manual setup is needed, the sync proves to be reliable once configured.

Workflow Triggers & Notifications

HubSpot’s Service Hub integrates with WhatsApp through certified partners, allowing events like new messages, template sends, and delivery failures to be directly incorporated into its workflow engine. This enables you to initiate downstream automations—such as transforming high-priority conversations into deals or support tickets, and sending alerts to your team—ensuring that every interaction on WhatsApp translates into an actionable signal within your CRM.

Freshsales offers trigger-based actions through Freshworks Automations or external platforms like Zapier or Make. While not natively integrated with Freshsales, you can still send follow-ups, update records, or create tasks based on WhatsApp activity.

folk CRM: The Best CRM Connected to WhatsApp

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

With folk’s WhatsApp CRM, every conversation is automatically synchronized and logged into your CRM—eliminating the hassle of manual copy-pasting and preventing lost messages. You gain complete visibility into your team’s WhatsApp interactions with leads and customers, ensuring you always grasp the context behind every deal. Whether it’s a follow-up or a crucial decision point, the entire picture is readily accessible.

However, folk is not limited to 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 platform. Effortlessly import contacts from any channel and manage them smoothly within folk.

What truly distinguishes folk is its AI agents, which enhance your sales process by automating workflows, revealing deal insights, and increasing productivity—liberating your team from administrative tasks so they can concentrate on closing deals.
Are you ready to revolutionize your sales operations and achieve remarkable results?

Conclusion

In the battle of CRMs, HubSpot excels with seamless integrations and extensive automation, while Freshsales leverages AI for lead prioritization and personalized outreach. Both platforms offer unique strengths in messaging and workflow optimization. However, folk emerges as a standout alternative, integrating WhatsApp effortlessly and automating contact syncing and logging. With its AI agents and comprehensive platform compatibility, folk streamlines communication across channels, ensuring your team maximizes productivity and focuses on nurturing valuable customer relationships.

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