Zoho vs Salesforce: Which CRM Is Best for Your Business?
Jess served on the founding team of a successful B2B startup and has used a wide range of sales and marketing tools over the course of her 15-year career. She uses her industry knowledge to deliver the best answers to your questions about sales tools and sales management.
This article is part of a larger series on CRM.
Zoho CRM and Salesforce are popular customer relationship management (CRM) software platforms that serve sales teams of all sizes with excellent lead management features. Zoho CRM, however, stands out for its price value, ease of use when operating the features, and low-cost automation capabilities. Salesforce, on the other hand, takes an edge when it comes to customer support, advanced analytics tools, and its intuitive mobile app.
When comparing Zoho vs Salesforce, first evaluate your specific business CRM needs:
- Zoho CRM: Better option for small businesses seeking a low-cost, yet powerful option for managing sales opportunities
- Salesforce: Excellent choice for larger sales teams who want advanced reporting and analytics features
Pro tip: Want to see more software solutions that can help your business grow? Check out our picks for the top CRMs for small business for insightful comparisons on pricing, features, and overall platform usability.
Zoho vs Salesforce at a Glance
 |  | |
|---|---|---|
Starting Price* | Free for up to three users to $14 per user, per month | $25 per user, per month |
Ease of Use | Difficult to navigate interface but great feature usability ratings | Easy to set up but tough to navigate interface |
Expert Score | 4.63 out of 5 | 4.75 out of 5 |
Customer Support | Tier-based live chat, email, and phone support | Tier-based live chat and phone support with some 24/7 options |
Integrations | 200+ third-party and native software options | 2,500+ third-party and native software options |
Mobile Application | Yes, task and record management plus analytics | Yes, most capabilities that the web application have |
Reporting & Analytics | ✔ | ✔ |
Lead & Contact Management | ✔ | ✔ |
System Customization | Highly customizable data fields, modules, reports, and workflows | Highly customizable data fields, modules, reports, and workflows |
*Based on annual billing. Monthly billing is also available at higher prices.
Most Affordable: Zoho CRM
| | |
|---|---|---|
Free Option | Up to three users | ✕ |
Starting Paid Price* | $14 per user, per month | $25 per user, per month |
Enterprise-level Pricing* | $40 (Enterprise) or $52 (Ultimate) per user, per month | $150 (Enterprise) or $300 (Unlimited) per user, per month |
Billing Options | Monthly and annual | Monthly and annual |
Free Trial | 15 days | 30 days |
*Based on annual billing. Monthly billing is also available at a higher price.
Zoho CRM offers a free option for up to three users with limited features for contact, lead, and document management. The paid plan begins at $14 per user, per month and reaches $52 per user, per month to access all the features and modules. Zoho also has its Bigin solution for $7 per user, per month, exclusively giving teams pipeline management capabilities such as deal automation and dashboard views.
Salesforce is a more expensive option that starts at $25 per user, per month for the Essentials plan. There is no free option, and comprehensive features on the Unlimited plan cost $300 per user, per month. Another important thing to consider is that many features usually included in a standard subscription plan require add-ons for Salesforce. Some of these add-ons include:
- CPQ and billing: To send quotes and prices, the cost is $75 per user, per month (included on the Professional plan and above)
- Sales Cloud Einstein for AI analysis: $50 per user, per month (included on Enterprise plan and above)
- Sales engagement: Productivity management for inside sales teams costs $75 per user, per month (included on Enterprise plan and above)
- Sales enablement: On-demand gamification features cost $25 per user, per month
Winner: By a large margin, Zoho CRM is the winning product for affordability. Not only do they offer a free option, but the paid plans are relatively inexpensive, especially compared to Salesforce. Many of the tools are already included and do not require add-on costs.
Most User-friendly: Zoho CRM
| |
|---|---|
Some technical knowledge is needed to set up and navigate, but they have easy-to-use features | Easy setup, but some level of CRM experience is needed to navigate the interface and operate features |
Zoho and Salesforce both have their own relative system usability issues and strengths. While both platforms struggle with interface navigability due to the high quantity of buttons and tabs on each page, Zoho touts its low technical requirements needed to operate the features. Salesforce, on the other hand, tends to be far easier for new users to set up and design their system but it is difficult to use its tools—especially the advanced ones.
Winner: Only by a slight margin, Zoho is the winner of the Zoho CRM vs Salesforce matchup in the usability category. It significantly tops Salesforce in the knowledge needed to use its tools and modules, giving the platform a small edge.
Best Customer Support: Salesforce
| | |
|---|---|---|
Online/Self-help Resources | Documentation, guided tours, videos, webinars, and tutorials | Trailhead resource with webinars, tutorials, guides, and certification classes |
Phone Support | Tier-based support times but not on Free plan | Tier-based support times including some 24/7 options |
Live Chat Support | Tier-based support times but not on Free plan | Tier-based support times including some 24/7 options |
Email Support | On all plans | N/A |
Both CRM systems have an incredible arsenal of online resources such as tutorials, documentation, and self-help guides. Each also uses a tier-based system where customer support options are dictated by the package you select. Zoho CRM has live chat, email, and phone support ranging from standard business hours, 24/5, and 24/7, depending on your tier. Salesforce only has live chat and phone support, but offers them 24/7 on most plans.
Winner: Salesforce edges out Zoho slightly for two main reasons. One is that the online resources are straightforward to use, and it has programs for users to be certified in CRM and sales-related subjects. The other reason is the availability of 24/7 support. Compared to Zoho, Salesforce provides 24/7 live chat and phone support on more subscription plans.
Specialized Features: Tie
| |
|---|---|
Low-priced workflow automaton | Advanced Einstein AI analytics features |
Both CRMs have advanced features such as workflow automation, artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities, and predictive analytics such as sales forecasting. Where each product stands out based on sophistication, usability, and price, however, is a different story.
Zoho CRM has workflow automation capabilities available on the free plan—something not common for CRMs to offer for free. With this feature, teams can put certain processes on autopilot, such as creating a task after an event, emailing a new customer after they’ve become a closed deal, or entering contact data for a new lead generated by a web form. Zoho’s Zia AI tool even offers insights on more things you can automate.
Salesforce’s specialty feature is the Einstein AI tool, which is far superior to Zoho’s. This advanced assistant helps users auto-capture data based on communications, recommend contacts in their network, and score leads and opportunities to help you prioritize. There are also high levels of predictive sales forecasting and analytics capabilities that provide insights based on millions of data points to find trends and gaps to close more sales.
Winner: Both have great features they can say are unique and valuable depending on the user’s preferences and goals. Therefore, this category for Zoho CRM vs Salesforce results in a tie.
Best Integration Features: Salesforce
| |
|---|---|
200+ third-party and native software options | 2,500+ third-party and native software options |
Zoho CRM and Salesforce both integrate with popular software products such as Trello, Slack, and Facebook. Each also offers plenty of native software integration options for project management, finance, and human resource management that can connect with the CRM system.
The big difference in integration capabilities isn’t for general use and popular third-party software—it’s the industry-specific ones. Salesforce, because of its popularity, has worked its way into numerous industries, such as healthcare, mortgage sales, and IT management, because it can integrate with platforms used in those businesses—giving it thousands of integration capabilities.
For instance, Jungo, a popular loan origination system (LOS) used in the mortgage industry, allows data needed for loan underwriting to be synced with Salesforce. This makes the sales process much easier as loan officers can take the information they acquired and stored in their CRM and then undergo the mortgage origination process automatically.
Winner: Relatively speaking, Zoho CRM has many integration options for third-party and native products. However, because of Salesforce’s ability to expand past general-use applications and into industry-specific ones, it wins this category.
Best Mobile Application: Salesforce
| |
|---|---|
Yes, task and record management plus analytics | Yes, offers most capabilities the web application has |
A mobile application allows teams to use their CRM to manage leads, communicate with contacts, and track opportunities on the go. Both options provide a mobile application but differ in their respective capabilities. Zoho CRM is limited to mostly task and record (lead, contact, deal) viewing and management. There’s also mobile analytics functionality for viewing the current status of the sales pipeline and funnel.
Alternatively, Salesforce lets you search and view all types of deals and lead records, message teammates, pull up reports and dashboards, manage tasks, and organize customer cases. Users can also edit documents, spreadsheets, and presentations from the app and fully customize their entire mobile system with layouts, design, and custom application modules.
Winner: Because of the highly advanced functionality that Salesforce’s mobile application provides relative to Zoho, it takes the prize for the mobile feature category.
Best Reporting & Analytics Tools: Salesforce
| | |
|---|---|---|
Reporting Capabilities | KPIs, funnels, targets, cohorts, and activity | All data points within the CRM system |
Customization | Custom reports and dashboards | Custom reports and dashboards with advanced filtering, bucketing, and history tracking |
Predictions & Forecasting | Custom prediction builder feature | Customizable, collaborative, and mobile forecasting with territory dividing |
Scheduled Reporting | ✔ | ✔ |
AI Insights | (Zia) Workflow, assignment, automation, and reminder suggestions | (Einstein) Deal and lead scoring, predictive forecasting, and trend insights |
CRM reporting features allow managers to track sales activity such as calls placed, emails sent, or proposals generated while also helping monitor sales production in revenue or deals closed. Analytics tools that are built in or derived through AI provide insights into trends, predictions, and suggestions—making them critical for key decisions.
Zoho and Salesforce, compared to other CRMs, offer elaborate and customizable solutions for tracking performance and seeking opportunities. Head to head, both allow users to make tailorable predictions, report on essential key performance indicators (KPIs) and activity, and create reports and dashboards for their liking. The main difference in this feature is sophistication.
Even though each CRM uses AI for many analysis aspects, the Einstein tool for Salesforce, as we’ve discussed, can do more than Zoho’s Zia. Salesforce also has a wider reporting range that allows any combination of data points in the system to be congregated and analyzed for trends or predictions. Zoho is mainly limited to certain KPI and funnel measurements, some of which aren’t available until you subscribe to the Enterprise plan.
Winner: Because of Salesforce’s wider range of reporting capabilities and advancements of its Einstein AI tool, it beats Zoho CRM in the reporting and analysis feature category.
Best Lead & Contact Management Features: Tie
| | |
|---|---|---|
Record Organization | Identifiable and contact information, activity, communications, links, and documents | Identifiable and contact information, activity, communications, links, and documents |
Data Deduplication | Duplicate data detection | Duplicate data blocking |
Data Enrichment | Web pages plus Twitter and Facebook profiles | Requires third-party integration |
List View | ✔ | ✔ |
One-page View | ✔ | ✔ |
Record Tagging | ✔ | ✔ |
Both systems serve their primary purpose and let teams store and track contact and lead information. This includes their identifiable information such as name or address and contact data like phone number and email address. These modules will also manage supportive data such as previous activity, communication logs, web links, and relevant documents for that record.
Zoho and Salesforce allow users to view records in a list format searchable and filterable, as well as a single-page view that shows all data fields on one page. Each system can also detect potentially duplicate records, though Salesforce will block you from entering a duplicate while Zoho detects and assists in deduplicating it.
Data enrichment, which automatically keeps information up to date using web sources and social media profiles, is available for both CRMs. Zoho has a built-in tool for this feature, while Salesforce requires a third-party integration.
Winner: Both platforms offer contact and lead tracking on the list or one-page views as well as deduplication, enrichment, and tagging. Because neither separates themselves from the other for this feature, the result is a tie.
What Users Are Saying About Zoho & Salesforce
For the most part, users of Zoho CRM and Salesforce are happy with their investment with a few common issues lingering for each platform. Per review scores from popular software evaluation websites, here’s how each CRM was rated:
Zoho CRM
- G2: 4.0 out of 5 based on 2,116 reviews
- Capterra: 4.3 out of 5 based on 5,621 reviews
- GetApp: 4.4 out of 5 based on 49 reviews
Salesforce
- G2: 4.2 out of 5 based on 12,616 reviews
- Capterra: 4.4 out of 5 based on 17,055 reviews
- GetApp: 4.4 out of 5 based on 17,000 reviews
For Zoho CRM, the main issues reported are poor customer support and a negative user experience when operating the features, while the lead and pipeline management features are positively endorsed.
Salesforce users mostly dislike the user interface design and have trouble with the automation tools. Regarding the pros, users report loving the innovative features of Salesforce and the plethora of integration options available.
Best Alternatives to Zoho & Salesforce
While the matchup of Zoho vs Salesforce is certainly close, there could be a particular feature or product aspect missing that necessitates looking at other options. Here are some of the best alternatives to Zoho CRM and Salesforce:
 |  |  | |
|---|---|---|---|
Best For | Robust marketing automation capabilities | Built-in project management modules | Deal and pipeline management features |
Starting Price* | Free to $30 per month | Free to $49 per month (up to five users) | $14.90 per user, per month |
*Based on annual billing. Monthly pricing is also available at higher rates.
How We Evaluated Zoho vs Salesforce
To compare Zoho CRM and Salesforce, we looked at critical product attributes small businesses consider when comparing CRM software. In an apples-to-apples comparison, we evaluated pricing, features, usability, customer support, and our expert score, which gauges what real users are saying about the products.
25%
Pricing
25%
General Features
20%
Ease of Use
15%
Help & Support
15%
Expert Score
25% of Overall Score
Pricing considered free plan availability and various scalable pricing options that a user could purchase affordably. We also looked at availability for a subscriber to either pay monthly or save by paying annually.
25% of Overall Score
We looked at overall features we feel are necessities, such as CRM integration options, customization, automation capabilities, and a mobile app. We also evaluated modular features found within Zoho and Salesforce’s system, such as contact and lead management, reporting and analytics tools, and pipeline management.
20% of Overall Score
The CRM solutions were also evaluated on platform usability. This was analyzed in terms of the expertise required to set up an account, the ease of integrating with native or third-party apps, and the skill needed to use CRM features. We also reviewed the overall intuitiveness of navigating the system’s interface.
15% of Overall Score
Extensive support and customer service help prevent poor user experiences and outcomes users may encounter while using any of these CRM systems. Help and support were evaluated in terms of customer service hours and the availability of support via phone, live chat, and email. We also looked at online resources for users to review, like tutorials, forums, or training modules.
15% of Overall Score
In addition to firsthand experience with these software systems, we evaluated what users say about each product. These criteria consider how customers feel, based on their reviews, to gain insight into platform popularity, ease of use, and overall value for the price point.
*Percentages of overall score
Bottom Line
Zoho CRM and Salesforce offer excellent features that help businesses organize, track, and close sales deals. While both are solid options for small and growing teams, the distinguishing attributes of each product make them better suited for certain businesses. Small firms looking for a low-cost and easier-to-use option will gravitate more toward Zoho, while larger teams seeking advanced features will likely prefer Salesforce.
