A deep dive into the Freshdesk Contact Center (2025 review)

Picking a contact center platform is a big deal. Choose well, and your team can handle anything that comes their way. Choose poorly, and you’re stuck with clunky workflows, frustrated agents, and unhappy customers. The Freshdesk Contact Center is a well-known option from Freshworks that promises to bring all your customer conversations into one place.

But what's it actually like to use day-to-day? This isn't just a rehash of their marketing page. We’re going to walk you through its features, AI tools, and the full pricing picture. More importantly, we'll get into the real-world limitations and practical headaches you might run into, so you know exactly what you’re getting into before you sign on the dotted line.

What exactly is the Freshdesk Contact Center?

To start, let's clear up a common point of confusion. When people say "Freshdesk Contact Center," they could be talking about one of two things. It's good to know the difference.

Freshdesk Contact Center (the old Freshcaller)

This is Freshworks' cloud-based phone system. If your team spends most of its day on calls, this is the tool for you. It’s built to manage inbound and outbound calls, set up call queues, create those "press 1 for sales" menus (IVR), and handle everything voice-related. It’s a solid, modern phone solution.

Freshdesk Omnichannel Suite

This is the whole package, the true all-in-one contact center that most teams are looking for these days. It takes all the phone features from the product above and combines them with Freshdesk's ticketing system and its support for a bunch of digital channels. This means your team can manage calls, emails, live chat, social media messages, and even WhatsApp from a single screen.

For the rest of this review, we’re going to focus on the Omnichannel Suite, since that’s the complete solution.

Core features of the Freshdesk Contact Center

Freshdesk packs a lot into its Omnichannel Suite, giving teams a pretty powerful toolkit for managing customer conversations. Let's break down the main parts.

Voice and call management

Since it started as a phone tool, the voice features are strong. You get all the things you'd expect from a modern system. It can intelligently route incoming calls to the right agent or department so customers aren't bounced around. You can also build those multi-level IVR menus to help people find what they need before they even talk to a human.

Every call can be recorded for training and quality checks, and managers can listen in on live calls or even jump in to help an agent who's stuck. You can buy phone numbers in over 90 countries straight from Freshdesk, or if you already have a phone provider you like, you can bring your own. It also supports different ways of routing calls, like sending them to the agent who’s been free the longest or to someone with a specific skill set.

Omnichannel support and ticketing

This is where Freshdesk really pulls everything together. It takes all your conversations, email, chat, Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, and drops them into one shared inbox as tickets. For agents, this is a huge relief. Instead of jumping between ten different apps, they have the entire history of every chat with a customer right in front of them.

A screenshot of the Freshdesk Contact Center multichannel inbox, showing how it unifies customer conversations.

The ticketing system itself is built for teamwork. A neat feature called "collision detection" prevents two agents from accidentally replying to the same ticket at once. For trickier issues, you can use "parent-child ticketing" to split a big problem into smaller tasks, assign them to different people, and keep them all connected to the original customer request.

AI and automation with Freddy AI

Freddy AI is Freshdesk’s built-in artificial intelligence, which is supposed to handle repetitive work and give agents a hand. It’s sprinkled throughout the platform in a few key places:

• Voicebots and Chatbots: You can set these up on your phone lines or website to answer common questions like, "Where's my order?" They can grab some basic info from the customer before handing them off to an agent, which can save some time.

• Assist Bot: This bot works alongside your agents. While they're talking to a customer, it suggests relevant help articles or saved responses to help them answer questions more quickly.

• Auto-Triage: Freddy can also look at new tickets as they come in, figure out what they're about, and then automatically categorize and send them to the right team.

This all sounds good in theory, but Freddy's usefulness really hinges on having perfectly organized knowledge bases and a lot of pre-built rules, which points to some of its bigger issues.

A screenshot of the Freshdesk Contact Center's Freddy AI providing assistance to an agent.

The limitations of the Freshdesk Contact Center

No software is perfect, and the little day-to-day frustrations are often what make or break a tool for your team. Here are some of the main drawbacks to think about before you commit to Freshdesk.

The initial setup is complex

While Freshdesk is powerful, all that power comes with a learning curve. Setting up custom workflows, detailed IVR menus, and specific routing rules is not a simple, one-click process. It usually requires someone on your team to become the dedicated Freshdesk expert, and it can take weeks or even months to get everything dialed in. That’s a lot of time and resources tied up in configuration.

That's a different world from modern AI platforms like eesel AI, which are designed to get you up and running in minutes, not months. With eesel, the setup is entirely self-serve. You can connect your helpdesk, train the AI on your data, and go live without having to sit through a single sales call or mandatory demo.

The AI isn't truly unified or flexible

Freddy AI does its job, but it mostly stays within the Freshdesk playground. It works great when it’s pulling answers from articles in your Freshdesk knowledge base. But what if your company’s real, up-to-date knowledge is scattered across Confluence, Google Docs, or Notion? Getting Freddy to use that information is clunky at best, and often just not possible. And strangely, it has a hard time learning from the most valuable source of information you have: all your past customer conversations.

This is where having a dedicated AI tool really changes the game. eesel AI was built from the ground up to connect all of your knowledge sources instantly. It plugs into the tools you already use and, most importantly, trains on all your historical support tickets from day one. This helps it understand your company's tone, learn your common solutions, and give answers that are far more accurate and relevant.

Rolling out AI can feel like a guessing game

Turning on automation can be a bit scary. How do you know if your new chatbot will actually help customers or just make them angry? With Freshdesk, there isn't a great way to test how Freddy AI will handle real customer questions before you set it live. You just have to build your rules, cross your fingers, and hope for the best.

eesel AI gets rid of that guesswork with its simulation mode. You can test your AI setup on thousands of your own past tickets in a safe, controlled environment. The simulation shows you exactly how the AI would have answered, gives you a solid forecast of your resolution rate, and lets you tweak its performance before it ever talks to a real customer. That means you can roll out automation feeling confident, not just hopeful.

Pricing can be unpredictable

On top of the monthly fee you pay for each agent, all of Freshdesk's plans come with extra charges for phone calls. You always have to pay for outbound calls, and you only get a certain number of free inbound minutes each month. Once you go over that, the meter starts running. This can lead to some surprisingly high bills, especially during busy months, which makes it tough to budget your support costs.

Freshdesk Contact Center pricing breakdown

Any good review has to talk about money. Freshdesk has three main plans for its Omnichannel Suite, and you get a discount if you pay for a full year upfront. Here's how it shakes out.

Plan	Price per Agent/Month (Billed Annually)	Key Features
Growth	$29	Ticketing, Email, Social, Phone, Chat, Knowledge Base, Standard Reporting
Pro	$59	Everything in Growth + Custom Roles, Round-Robin Routing, CSAT Surveys, Advanced Automations
Enterprise	$99	Everything in Pro + Skill-Based Routing, Agent Assist Bot, Email Bot, Auto-Triage

Just a heads-up: These prices aren't the full story. Remember that all plans have those extra pay-per-minute calling fees. Outbound calls start from $0.022/minute, and you only get 2,000 to 5,000 free inbound minutes per month, depending on your plan.

This is a totally different approach from eesel AI's pricing, which is designed to be simple and predictable. eesel's plans are based on features and a set number of AI interactions. There are no surprise per-minute or per-resolution fees, so your bill doesn't shoot up just because your team is doing a good job. It makes budgeting a whole lot easier and lets you grow without worrying about hidden costs.

eesel AI: A smarter AI layer for your Freshdesk Contact Center

So, if you like your Freshdesk setup but are frustrated by the AI limitations, what can you do? You don't have to rip everything out. Think of eesel AI as an intelligent upgrade that works with what you already have. It plugs directly into your helpdesk to solve the main issues we've talked about:

• Go live in minutes: It’s a self-serve platform you can set up yourself, whenever you have time. No waiting around for someone else.

• Unify all your knowledge: It connects to past tickets, Google Docs, Confluence, and over 100 other apps to give your AI a complete picture.

• Total control and confidence: Use the simulation mode and other controls to automate exactly what you want, when you want, without any guesswork.

• Predictable pricing: Straightforward plans with no hidden fees. You always know what you're paying for.

A screenshot showing eesel AI's copilot drafting a reply within the Freshdesk Contact Center interface.

What's the verdict on the Freshdesk Contact Center?

The Freshdesk Contact Center is a capable, all-in-one solution. For teams that want a single platform to manage every support channel and ticket, it's definitely a strong contender. Having everything under one roof can be a huge win for keeping things organized and efficient.

But it's not the right fit for everyone. The tricky setup, inflexible AI, and unpredictable pricing can be deal-breakers. For teams that want to use powerful, tailored, and risk-free AI without getting locked into one system, adding a dedicated AI solution on top is often a much better move.

Ready to see how simple AI can be? You can sign up for a free eesel AI trial and automate your first customer questions in just a few minutes.