Zoho CRM Review, Pricing & Features

What is Zoho CRM?

Zoho CRM is a robust CRM solution with over 150,000 customers. It includes key CRM features like lead capture, contact and deal management, workflow automation, and CRM reporting. We recommend Zoho CRM to those who want an affordable, advanced CRM solution and currently use other Zoho products.

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Table of Contents

Zoho CRM Review Summary

Zoho CRM was founded in 2005 by Sridhar Vembu, Sreenivas Kanumuru, and Tony G. Thomas. Zoho CRM’s goals are to help salespeople reach more prospects, engage them in real-time, and close deals faster. Today, Zoho CRM has over 7,000 employees and is based in Chennai, India.

Zoho CRM helps businesses with their lead conversions, customer engagement, and revenue growth. Its platform offers multiple lead capture methods, tools for contact and deal management, workflow automations, and important insights reporting. Overall, Zoho CRM is best for businesses who want a lower-cost, advanced CRM platform and currently incorporate other Zoho products into their company workflow.

When it comes to pricing, Zoho CRM falls more on the affordable side. It’s most popular plan costs $50 per month and it’s most expensive plan costs $65 per month. Overall, Zoho CRM’s pricing is very fair because it is an advanced platform, but priced similarly to basic CRMs like Copper and Pipedrive.

Overall, Zoho CRM is an affordable, advanced solution that works well for small businesses who have a smaller budget and are looking to scale. We also recommend it especially to those who are currently using other Zoho products.

  • If you want an advanced, all-in-one CRM solution with high-quality marketing tools, then we recommend HubSpot
  • If you need a basic, user-friendly CRM and primarily need a tool for deal management, then we recommend Pipedrive
  • If you want a highly customizable, advanced platform that can also support enterprises, then we recommend Salesforce
  • If you want a basic CRM that integrates tightly with Google Workspace, then we recommend Copper

Zoho CRM Pricing & Cost

Zoho CRM’s pricing ranges from $20 to $65 per month. You can also save up to 34% if you pay for an annual subscription upfront. Zoho CRM also offers a free 15-day trial for each plan.

PlanPricing
Standard$20 per month
Professional$35 per month
Enterprise$50 per month
Ultimate$65 per month
Zoho CRM Pricing

Zoho CRM Features

In our review, we will walk through the features offered by Zoho CRM. We’ll discuss its usability, customer support, and describe the major benefits and drawbacks of Zoho CRM. We’ll also show real images of the software to give you an idea of what it’s like to use the tool.

Lead Capture

A lead is an individual or organization that has an interest in your products or services. Lead capture refers to the process of acquiring a lead’s information, with the ultimate goal of converting them into a paying customer.

Lead Capture Forms

Forms are one of the easiest lead capture methods because they allow the leads to provide their information themselves. Zoho CRM offers an integration with Zoho Forms to automatically capture and create leads.

Zoho CRM Lead Form

The integration between Zoho CRM and Zoho Forms is much more seamless than form integrations in CRM solutions like Copper. This is because you do not need to use a third party application like Zapier. As you can see below, you can easily reference which fields in Zoho CRM reference which fields in Zoho Forms.

Zoho CRM Lead Form

Social Media

Zoho CRM lets you capture leads from Twitter and Facebook with your CRM. This includes capturing leads from tweets, retweets, direct messages, and posts that mention your company. This feature is useful and easy-to-use.

Zoho CRM Lead Social

Live Chat

Zoho CRM offers an integration with its own product, Zoho SalesIQ, which lets you add a live chat widget to your website and mobile app. This feature is incredibly useful – the ability to speak to website visitors in real time gives you a better chance of gaining a lead’s trust and contact information.

Zoho CRM Live Chat

An advantage of this feature is that you can assign leads to sales representatives from within the chat window. Zoho CRM also saves your chat transcripts for future reference.

Email

Zoho CRM offers two ways to automatically capture lead information from emails.

One method is through automations. For example; you can set up an automation where if the subject of an email contains "plumbing", a lead can be created with the information of the email sender.

Zoho CRM Lead Email

Zoho CRM also offers a Chrome extension that can capture lead information from anyone you’ve emailed. Depending on your emails, the extension can capture a sender’s job title, phone number, company, and website.

Contact Management

Capturing a lead’s contact information is crucial in converting them into a paying customer. However, the type of information you can record, and how it’s stored and managed will determine the value you gain from your CRM. This is known as contact management.

Contact Profiles

Zoho CRM creates a profile for every lead you have captured. Generally, the more information you have for a contact, and the more unique a profile, the better the chance you have of converting a lead. Overall, Zoho CRM does an above average job here – it lets you create a more robust profile than other CRMs like Copper and Pipedrive.

Zoho CRM Contact Profile

You can include standard contact information like phone numbers, emails, associated deals and files, and social media profiles. You can also assign unique tags to contacts and input a contact’s sales order, quote, and invoice information. Zoho CRM will also automatically capture a contact’s activity – social media and live chats, for example.

Zoho CRM also lets you customize contact profiles through the addition of different sections and fields. Some of the different fields you can include are checkboxes, image uploads, currencies, dates, and times.

Contact Storage

It’s important that your contacts are easy to access and stored in an organized manner. Contact storage in Zoho CRM is robust, but can be overwhelming for first time CRM users because it is not the easiest to navigate.

Zoho CRM Contact Storage

You can segment your contacts by a wide range of filters based on deals, website activities, and contact information like companies, emails, addresses, and account names. You can even create customized views based on certain criteria like email, contact owner, tags, and contact scores. You can also use Zoho CRM’s search bar to look for a specific contact.

Contact Activity Feed

Every contact in Zoho CRM has a feed that tracks their activity. Contact activity tracking keeps you the most up-to-date on where someone is in the sales process, which helps you take the appropriate steps to make sure they progress through your sales funnel. Tracking also reduces the chance of losing a lead.

Zoho CRM Contact Activity

As shown above, you can track the tasks, meetings and calls that a contact is involved in. You can also create list views based on inactivity. However, a disadvantage of Zoho CRM is that you cannot track email activity like email opens.

Contact Scoring

Contact scoring is when a numerical value is assigned to contacts that summarizes how engaged your contact is with your business. This helps you allocate resources to the most promising contacts, and determine how to best engage each potential customer. Overall, this feature in Zoho CRM is easy-to-use.

Zoho CRM Contact Scoring

You can create scoring criteria for multiple contact elements — including a contact’s name, email, phone number, the first page a contact visited, and account names associated with a contact. You can also set multiple kinds of conditions — including is, isn’t, contains, starts with, and is not empty.

Communication Channels

Maintaining consistent communication with your contacts is imperative in converting them into a paying customer. You can use Zoho CRM to communicate with leads through the following channels:

  • Email
  • Social Media
  • Phone

Email Marketing

Zoho CRM lets you send emails to your contacts from within the CRM. You can also integrate Zoho CRM with Zoho Campaigns, Zoho’s own tool that is specifically designed to send campaigns. Both of these features are intuitive to use and effective.

Zoho CRM email communication

Zoho CRM and Zoho Campaigns lets you send mass emails or send email campaigns to a customized list of contacts. You can also use both to create templates of emails you send frequently.

Zoho CRM campaigns

In both systems, you can easily drag and drop different elements like images, text, widgets, and buttons. Zoho Campaigns also lets you customize the layout and color design of your email templates.

Zoho CRM Email Editor

Zoho CRM also offers email insights, which you can use to better optimize the emails you send. You can view:

  • When an email is opened or clicked
  • Performance analytics for your templates
  • Email analytics

An advantage of Zoho CRM and Zoho Campaigns is that you can include merge fields. Merge fields pull data from anywhere in your CRM or in Zoho Campaigns, including deals and contacts, and insert them into your email body.

Social Media

Zoho CRM lets you connect your Twitter and Facebook accounts. This feature is useful because you can perform Twitter and Facebook actions from within your CRM. Example actions include commenting, liking, retweeting, and direct messaging. This feature is also intuitive to use.

Zoho CRM social media messaging

Another advantage of this integration is that, besides leads, you can also add Twitter or Facebook users as a contact, or account. In many cases, Zoho CRM will automatically import user data from their social media profiles.

Phone

Zoho CRM lets you integrate your phone system with its system. This feature saves you time because it lets you call contacts without having to leave Zoho CRM.

Zoho CRM also logs calls automatically and offers call analytics that help you measure team performance. You can use the built-in charts and reports to visualize your call data, which helps you identify operational improvement opportunities.

Deal Management

Once leads become sales qualified leads, you’ll need a system for managing your deals. Effective deal management will provide the most up-to-date information and allow sales representatives to focus their attention on building strong relationships with potential customers.

Pipelines

With pipelines, you can visually track the progress of prospective customers through each deal stage. Some pipeline tools are not capable of handling a high number of deals – Zoho CRM is more scalable than most and works well for businesses with over 50 simultaneous deals.

Zoho CRM Deals

In Zoho CRM, you can create and customize different pipelines that best align with your business’s sales funnels. You can include as many stages as you want in any order, and even create unique stages. You can also insert a "win probability" percentage for each stage.

Zoho CRM also offers a wide range of filters that you can use to view certain deals. This includes filters based on different fields and actions taken on records. Deals can also be dragged and dropped easily between stages, which makes it easier to update your deal status.

Task Management

In a CRM, tasks are the actions that need to be taken in order to bring a deal to completion. These can be assigned to you or others in your organization. This feature in Zoho CRM is basic, but effective.

Zoho CRM tasks

You can customize tasks with names, due dates, and reminders. You can also add notes, attachments, and links to tasks. You can also include reminders for tasks.

Zoho CRM tasks

Reminders are key for tasks because they reduce the chance of losing a potential deal. In Zoho CRM, you can choose a custom date and set reminders for any day and time. You can also repeat reminders on a daily to yearly basis, or on a custom date. Reminder notifications are sent by email or pop up within the CRM.

Lead Scoring

Lead scoring is the process of assigning a numerical value to a lead. This reflects the likelihood of the lead becoming a paying customer. Lead scoring also lets your sales representatives spend their time on the most lucrative deals.

Zoho CRM’s lead scoring tool is more advanced than equivalent tools found in other solutions like Copper. You can assign points based on lead fields, email insights, campaigns, and Facebook and Twitter actions. For lead fields, you can create conditions that either add or subtract points. For example, you can add 10 points if a lead has a certain owner.

Workflow Automation

Workflow automation is the process of automating common tasks through the use of tools, apps, and technology. Automating your workflow saves time, and reduces the chance for human error. The only workflow automation tool Zoho CRM offers is triggered events.

Triggered Events

Zoho CRM lets you set up rules where events trigger a certain action. For example, when an email contains the subject "truck vendor", you can automatically record the sender as a lead. This feature can be a little overwhelming to use for first time CRM users, but it is effective.

Zoho CRM Email Automation

Zoho CRM lets you create automations for a variety of CRM elements – including leads, contacts, deals, tasks, and Facebook and Twitter actions. You can also set multiple actions for one trigger, which includes field updates, email notifications, task creations, and comments.

Reporting

CRM reporting offers key data that helps individuals and businesses make strategic decisions and tactical changes where necessary. This includes reports with key insights like deals won and lost, pipeline progression, your sales funnel, and sales forecasting.

Zoho CRM Report

Zoho CRM offers reports and analytics for all of these insights and much more – including email, meeting, vendor, and product reports. However, a disadvantage of Zoho CRM’s reporting feature is that it does not offer data visualizations. This is where you would need to use Zoho CRM’s analytics feature.

Zoho CRM analytics

Zoho CRM offers analytics for sales, marketing efforts, leads, deals, and tasks. You can also choose how to visualize your data, either as a column, donut, pie, bar, or funnel chart.

Zoho CRM Integrations

Zoho CRM offers integrations that expand the functionality of your CRM. They also eliminate the need to toggle back and forth between systems. Some of Zoho CRM’s key integrations include:

  • Google Workspace
  • Zapier
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Slack
  • Zoom
  • Intercom
  • Shopify

Mobile

Zoho CRM offers a robust mobile app for both Android and Apple. With a mobile CRM, you have the best chance in ensuring that your customers are getting the best service possible at all times.

Zoho CRM mobile

Zoho CRM’s mobile app lets you view and create a wide variety of CRM modules – including leads, contacts, accounts, deals, tasks, meetings, and calls. Unfortunately though, you cannot view reports or create email campaigns within mobile.

Legal & Security

Having proper security and data protection is critical for your CRM. Data breaches can harshly affect your company’s reputation and be costly to remedy. Zoho CRM offers key security features and compliances to make sure your data is secured and protected.

FeatureOffered by Zoho CRM
SSL CertificateYes
Role Based ViewsYes
Secure StorageYes
International CompliancesYes (GDPR)
HIPAA ComplianceYes
FirewallsYes
Single Sign OnYes

Customer Support

Overall, we found Zoho CRM’s customer support to be above average. This is because Zoho CRM offers a wide variety of customer support channels. We also found Zoho CRM’s live chat feature to be quick and responsive.

Zoho CRM’s help articles have good readability and are not too wordy. We noted that they bold important terms, include graphics with markings like arrows and boxes that reference the specific feature being discussed, and include helpful videos.

Customer Support ChannelsLive chat, [email protected], Support tickets, 1-888-900-9646
Customer Support AvailabilityMonday - Friday, 9 AM to 6 PM
Other Support ResourcesKnowledge Base, FAQs, Webinars, Training Programs
Platform Update NotificationsYes
Application Status PageYes

Zoho CRM vs. Competitors

Compared to its competitors, Zoho CRM is an intuitive, advanced CRM platform. It is the most similar to HubSpot in terms of advancedness. However, Zoho CRM is more affordable than HubSpot.

The top Zoho CRM competitors are:

Is Zoho CRM Right For You?

Overall, Zoho CRM is an affordable, advanced solution that works well for small businesses who have a smaller budget and are looking to scale. We also recommend it especially to those who are currently using other Zoho products.

  • If you want an advanced, all-in-one CRM solution with high-quality marketing tools, then we recommend HubSpot
  • If you need a basic, user-friendly CRM and primarily need a tool for deal management, then we recommend Pipedrive
  • If you want a highly customizable, advanced platform that can also support enterprises, then we recommend Salesforce
  • If you want a basic CRM that integrates tightly with Google Workspace, then we recommend Copper
Amy Yang

Amy Yang is a Junior Research Analyst at SoftwarePundit, where she conducts in-depth analyses on software markets and products. Amy has expertise in content production and managing digital and social platforms. She has a Bachelor of Science in Communication & Media, and a Minor in Web Programming and Applications from NYU. You can connect with Amy on LinkedIn.

Amy is an expert in several software categories including:

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