Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Freshdesk
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
Freshdesk is a cloud-based customer service software that helps businesses of all sizes to deliver customer support. Freshdesk converts requests coming in via email, web, phone, chat, and social into tickets, and unifies ticket resolution across channels. Additionally, Freshdesk lets the user automate workflows, provide self-service, manage SLAs, and measure metrics, to stay on top of customer support. Freshdesk also offers out-of-the-box features like an AI-powered support chatbot,…
$0
Up to 2 agents
Sprout Social
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
Sprout Social provides social media management, marketing, customer care, data and intelligence, and employee advocacy solutions for brands and agencies, including Ticketmaster, Chipotle, Grubhub, Subaru, and Zendesk. Sprout’s platform is used to simplify social publishing, engagement, reviews, analytics and listening for customers. Sprout also provides customer success and technical support, to deliver consistent value to all users. Any organization, regardless of size or industry, receives…
$249
per month per user
Pricing
FreshdeskSprout Social
Editions & Modules
Free
$0
Up to 2 agents
Growth
$15
per month (billed annually) per agent
Pro
$49
per month (billed annually) per agent
Enterprise
$79
per month (billed annually) per agent
Standard
$199 annual / $249 monthly
per user/per month
Professional
$299 annual / $399 monthly
per user/per month
Advanced
$399 annual / $499 monthly
per user/per month
Free Trial
Free
for 30 days
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
FreshdeskSprout Social
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
FreshdeskSprout Social
Considered Both Products
Freshdesk
Chose Freshdesk
I used real-time support solutions, but our team wasn't equipped to handle those sorts of conversations. Freshdesk helped us to process support requests in a timely manner that didn't overwhelm our team.
Chose Freshdesk
There is no round the clock telephone support available from the Freshdesk support team even with the Forest package while Zendesk provides round the clock support over phone for the enterprise package. Zendesk does not have a live chat feature as a part of the core package and …
Sprout Social

No answer on this topic

Features
FreshdeskSprout Social
Incident and problem management
Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Product A and Product B
Freshdesk
8.6
187 Ratings
5% above category average
Sprout Social
-
Ratings
Organize and prioritize service tickets9.1183 Ratings00 Ratings
Expert directory8.0123 Ratings00 Ratings
Subscription-based notifications8.43 Ratings00 Ratings
ITSM collaboration and documentation7.64 Ratings00 Ratings
Ticket creation and submission9.3183 Ratings00 Ratings
Ticket response9.1183 Ratings00 Ratings
Self Help Community
Comparison of Self Help Community features of Product A and Product B
Freshdesk
8.3
168 Ratings
4% above category average
Sprout Social
-
Ratings
External knowledge base8.5152 Ratings00 Ratings
Internal knowledge base8.2157 Ratings00 Ratings
Multi-Channel Help
Comparison of Multi-Channel Help features of Product A and Product B
Freshdesk
8.7
177 Ratings
9% above category average
Sprout Social
-
Ratings
Customer portal8.7151 Ratings00 Ratings
IVR8.755 Ratings00 Ratings
Social integration8.495 Ratings00 Ratings
Email support9.1176 Ratings00 Ratings
Help Desk CRM integration8.6112 Ratings00 Ratings
Listening/monitoring
Comparison of Listening/monitoring features of Product A and Product B
Freshdesk
-
Ratings
Sprout Social
7.9
87 Ratings
4% above category average
Boolean keyword searches00 Ratings7.665 Ratings
Filtering out noise/spam00 Ratings7.576 Ratings
Sentiment analysis00 Ratings7.656 Ratings
Broad channel coverage00 Ratings8.965 Ratings
Publishing
Comparison of Publishing features of Product A and Product B
Freshdesk
-
Ratings
Sprout Social
8.6
110 Ratings
6% above category average
Content planning and scheduling00 Ratings9.5110 Ratings
Audience targeting00 Ratings7.787 Ratings
Content optimization00 Ratings8.296 Ratings
Workflow management00 Ratings8.896 Ratings
Engagement
Comparison of Engagement features of Product A and Product B
Freshdesk
-
Ratings
Sprout Social
8.1
100 Ratings
1% above category average
Automated routing and prioritization00 Ratings7.962 Ratings
Customer interaction histories00 Ratings8.288 Ratings
Bulk actions00 Ratings8.285 Ratings
Marketing
Comparison of Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Freshdesk
-
Ratings
Sprout Social
7.3
78 Ratings
5% below category average
Lead generation00 Ratings7.357 Ratings
Content marketing00 Ratings8.574 Ratings
Paid media management00 Ratings6.23 Ratings
Campaigns and promotions00 Ratings7.24 Ratings
Channel coverage/integration
Comparison of Channel coverage/integration features of Product A and Product B
Freshdesk
-
Ratings
Sprout Social
8.7
110 Ratings
4% above category average
Twitter00 Ratings9.198 Ratings
Facebook00 Ratings9.2109 Ratings
LinkedIn00 Ratings9.1100 Ratings
Google+00 Ratings8.136 Ratings
Instagram00 Ratings9.099 Ratings
Pinterest00 Ratings8.633 Ratings
YouTube00 Ratings8.01 Ratings
Reporting/analytics
Comparison of Reporting/analytics features of Product A and Product B
Freshdesk
-
Ratings
Sprout Social
8.7
111 Ratings
12% above category average
Campaign success analytics00 Ratings8.8103 Ratings
Real-time tracking00 Ratings8.6100 Ratings
Competitor analysis00 Ratings8.889 Ratings
Account management
Comparison of Account management features of Product A and Product B
Freshdesk
-
Ratings
Sprout Social
8.1
104 Ratings
2% above category average
Role-based user permissions & privileges00 Ratings8.299 Ratings
Mobile access00 Ratings7.992 Ratings
Best Alternatives
FreshdeskSprout Social
Small Businesses
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Score 9.0 out of 10
CoSchedule Marketing Suite
CoSchedule Marketing Suite
Score 9.9 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Score 9.0 out of 10
CoSchedule Marketing Suite
CoSchedule Marketing Suite
Score 9.9 out of 10
Enterprises
SysAid
SysAid
Score 8.9 out of 10
Social Suite by Reputation.com
Social Suite by Reputation.com
Score 9.4 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
FreshdeskSprout Social
Likelihood to Recommend
8.7
(254 ratings)
8.7
(168 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.8
(22 ratings)
9.5
(65 ratings)
Usability
9.8
(42 ratings)
8.7
(95 ratings)
Availability
7.7
(6 ratings)
7.7
(8 ratings)
Performance
8.1
(6 ratings)
8.0
(7 ratings)
Support Rating
9.7
(40 ratings)
5.8
(38 ratings)
In-Person Training
10.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
9.9
(3 ratings)
7.3
(3 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.7
(184 ratings)
10.0
(11 ratings)
Configurability
6.6
(7 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
6.6
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
7.5
(5 ratings)
7.9
(23 ratings)
Product Scalability
5.9
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Professional Services
6.4
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
6.9
(4 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
6.9
(4 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
FreshdeskSprout Social
Likelihood to Recommend
Freshworks Inc
I recommend Freshdesk for people who need to handle a large volume of inquiries through tickets and follow-ups. This platform provides tools that will improve problem-solving efficiency, ensuring customers are satisfied with the speed with which their issues are resolved. Overall, it will optimize customer service support operations and the resolution of their problems.
Read full review
Sprout Social
IMO it's best for an organization that has a lot of different people working on social media. They could be in different departments or just different members of the same team responsible for different types of posts (corporate, e-commerce, branding, etc.). I don't think it's as vital for a one-person team working solely within the Meta platform, for instance, especially if they're less concerned with detailed analytics.
Read full review
Pros
Freshworks Inc
  • The price is great for small startups just large enough to need a support ticketing system.
  • This may seem minor, but many tools don't have this: the ability to link a contact to multiple companies/accounts.
  • Agent collision detection is great for making sure agents don't duplicate each others' work!
Read full review
Sprout Social
  • For each account, customize posts for each platform, and schedule them to go live simultaneously.
  • Employee Advocacy via Sprout Social has integrated AI assistance for captions. Usually I would generate one suggested caption for employees to use/stem from when re-sharing to their socials. But now, EA message ideas display in random orders to better promote the full range of content.
  • Sprout Social has made the option to gamify the sharing concept quite easily with Employee Advocacy. Using the Leaderboard feature, employees can earn points in Employee Advocacy. Customized point values ensure you know how to climb the Leaderboard and start some friendly competition.
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Cons
Freshworks Inc
  • Data Security.
  • SLA Policies where it is not customer / contract driven but agents / groups driven.
  • Audit Trail is not available in Pro version makes the tool adoption difficult from compliance perspective.
  • Chat Bot and Fresh Chat Services has greater potential to explode, but the pricing model tagged to chat bot sessions .are illogical as it limits the ability to use the fresh chat feature
  • Agent Logon Screen use earlier version of Captcha as it is annoying for the agents to login. Very frustrating experience.
Read full review
Sprout Social
  • Social media platforms don't always play nice with Sprout so it will always be a challenge to get all integrations to work properly.
  • Sprout Social is a growing organization and they are acquiring new technologies, which can be good. However, they often spend time in meetings upselling new services. I like to learn about enhancements and opportunities but prefer to focus on my investments first.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Freshworks Inc
We are extremely happy with Freshdesk and can foresee using it for the next year. We might only consider using a different platform if our average daily ticket volume reaches four digits and its AI isn’t enough to handle our needs by then. While we haven’t tested this yet, we have read reviews that it’s AI capabilities are lacking
Read full review
Sprout Social
I like Sprout for our needs and I like that it is easy to use. We want something better than HootSuite but don't need a high-level fancy program. The only think I don't like is customer service (except for chat).
Read full review
Usability
Freshworks Inc
I gave it a rating of 9 out of 10 because they delivered on everything we asked them to do. Easy to setup, easy to deploy to end users, easy to customize, easy to enter tickets and so much more. Our experience with their support is top notch! After opening a ticket for support they call use back within 10 minutes every time!
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Sprout Social
Sprout Social's ease of use and navigation throughout the technology are relatively easy to figure out and teach. We also had a representative thoroughly walk us through the features and functionality to set us up for success in using the platform. I didn’t give it a ten because there were times when the navigation didn’t make sense, but once you figured out the quirks, it didn’t cause any trouble.
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Reliability and Availability
Freshworks Inc
I have encountered a lot of errors in the Freshdesk, however, they tend to resolve it on priority or at least they will share the timeline by when this can be resolved. Most of the time the issue has been from the other partner's end. They take time to resolve their vendor issues and they don't have any timelines in case of developed app errors.
Read full review
Sprout Social
Uptime was OK, but given the fact that we are in Europe, there were some specific problems: They tended to take the system down for maintenance during the night in the US, which was during our workday. This was definitely problematic and hard to explain to our clients.
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Performance
Freshworks Inc
The reports take a lot of time to download if the time period is large. Also, the tickets take their sweet time to open and load. It is not fast as Zendesk. Only 30 tickets are visible in a single go and there isn't any option to select all. If we need to change the pages and dashboards it takes a lot of time to open.
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Sprout Social
It is quick to post, however you have to refresh the page every time you add a new scheduled item.
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Support Rating
Freshworks Inc
The main thing about Freshdesk user service is that once a request has been made for information about a feature of the platform, the support team responds to tickets quickly, within a day of writing and submitting them, with information that is concise enough so that there is no need to ask for help on the same topic again.
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Sprout Social
Sprout Social's customer support is extremely responsive. They're also always looking for suggestions on how they can make the product better and will actually take your ideas to their team to see if they're worth implementing. I've never had an issue that couldn't be resolved by them in a timely manner.
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In-Person Training
Freshworks Inc
In-person training is provided to all the agents and it is very easy to learn the basics of the Freshdesk interface. Solving tickets via dashboards, replying to the guest queries in bulk via Freshdesk. The training which is a bit hard is creating the logic according to the ticket flow and intergeration.
Read full review
Sprout Social
No answers on this topic
Online Training
Freshworks Inc
This tool is no doubt easy to learn but in-person training is a lot better than online training. It takes time to grasp things in the online training, however, in pandemic we have done all the training online. Apart from a bit more time we haven't faced any issues with online training.
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Sprout Social
Their training is good, but the promotion of it is even better. I don't need or have the time for training, but I was always happy to know it was there. They did a great job sending updates out and making me aware when there was a new feature that I may want training for. As for the training I never used it, so I can't comment on that
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Implementation Rating
Freshworks Inc
Our team easily implemented Freshdesk, and as soon as we started, we were pros with it. In a matter of days, we had integrated signatures and canned responses. The biggest problem was the Help Center part, but after some time, that was also integrated. We did not know some features when we started, but that is normal.
Read full review
Sprout Social
Make sure you do it all the way. Do not break it into phases. Pour yourself a coffee, start it in the morning and you'll be done before you finish that coffee.
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Alternatives Considered
Freshworks Inc
Freshdesk has a more modern and intuitive user interface, while Help Scout's interface is simpler and more minimalist.In case of features, Freshdesk offers a wider range of features, includes omnichannel support, AI powered automations, and advanced analytics. Help Scout is more focused on providing a simple and efficient ticketing system.
Read full review
Sprout Social
We are constantly exploring our options and looking for the most cutting-edge products that suit our needs as a business. Sprout ticked the boxes for what we needed when it was time for a change. Both are powerful tools, and you can only see by doing.
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Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Freshworks Inc
I was not very involved with the purchase/contract (my company purchased Fresjdesk before I was brought on), but I will say that pricing per agent made it difficult to grow our support team. Additionally, we were kind of disappointed after our upgrade because it didn't solve our pain points as much as we expected.
Read full review
Sprout Social
No answers on this topic
Scalability
Freshworks Inc
My company had Freshdesk agents from support and success. It's generally difficult to customize permissions for different agent "roles." We were a fully distributed company, so "multiple sites" doesn't apply to us. We found Freshdesk features lacking as we grew our customer base, and adding agents wasn't easy because price steeply increases with number of agents.
Read full review
Sprout Social
No answers on this topic
Professional Services
Freshworks Inc
- good customer support
- personal contact
- usage limited to basic product features, individually designed solutions seem unlikely
Read full review
Sprout Social
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Freshworks Inc
  • Increased response times - Client Success maintains at 98% SLA for resolution
  • Categorization of feedback and issues - custom ticket fields make it easier for us to review why clients contact us on a high level
  • Standardization of internal procedures via templates, canned responses and automations
Read full review
Sprout Social
  • One positive impact has been a huge time saver for our team. Where we once had multiple systems and delays from producing content to approval to publishing, now everything is seamless.
  • Another positive impact is streamlining the onboarding process for new team members. Sprout Social is user-friendly and intuitive, making it easy to study even for someone completely new to social media.
  • One negative impact has been the time it takes to wade through irrelevant social listening posts. The filtering is not effective enough to eliminate the noise.
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ScreenShots

Sprout Social Screenshots

Screenshot of Sprout’s social media publishing tools, used to schedule and post messages to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and LinkedIn simultaneously from a single Compose window.