Investing in a unified platform—where all your software applications are connected via a shared system—can simplify data management, prevent silos, streamline communication, and reduce operating costs.
Google and Microsoft are the big names when it comes to unified platforms, but there's another player in the game: Zoho. Zoho has approximately one zillion apps that cover you across your organization, and here, I'll walk you through everything on offer.
What is Zoho?
Zoho is a cloud-based software suite like Microsoft Office or Google Workspace. It offers business and productivity tools that run the gamut from sales and marketing to finance and legal to IT and analytics. With more than 70 apps on offer, Zoho has been likened to a Swiss army knife due to its wide range of uses.
While some people dock it for its less-than-modern look, it has something for everyone—and that alone is enough of a reason to consider it.
Is Zoho free?
There is a free forever edition of Zoho CRM for up to three users, and many other Zoho apps offer fully free versions too. But even on its paid plans, Zoho is an affordable alternative among its competitors, making it a great option for small and medium-sized businesses. Its most popular product, Zoho CRM Plus, costs $20/user/month.
Each app in Zoho's suite is priced separately, but you can get many of its apps in pre-packaged and discounted bundles that include tools relevant to a specific role or department.
CRM Plus: $69/user/month
Finance Plus: $249/organization/month
People Plus: $10/user/month
Workplace: $4/user/month
Marketing Plus: $30/month for 1 user (additional users cost $12/user/month)
IT management: Prices differ based on infrastructure and users
There's also an option to get all of Zoho's most popular bundles together in one package, called Zoho One, for $45/user (more on that in a bit).
What are Zoho's apps?
I had a chance to chat with the Zoho team, and they told me the company funnels 50-60% of its revenue into research and development. That's how Zoho can introduce up to three new products every year to complement existing apps.
The list of Zoho apps is so extensive, it might be quicker for me to tell you which tools Zoho doesn't offer. (Personal emoji generator?) To be totally honest, it's possible I missed one because there are so many, but here's a rundown of Zoho's current offerings, as of this writing.
Category | Description | |
|---|---|---|
CRM | Sales | Manage your sales process and client communications, including leads, contacts, accounts, and deals. |
Bigin | Sales | A simplified CRM for small businesses, covering basic CRM functionalities, like task automation and email notifications. |
Bookings | Sales | An online scheduler app to create calendars for client appointments, with sync features for other calendars like Google and Microsoft Outlook. |
SalesIQ | Sales | An app to add chat functionality to websites, track visitor information, and create chatbots for visitor engagement. |
RoutelQ | Sales | A mapping solution to help you enhance your CRM by visualizing leads, deals, contacts, and accounts, so you can plan your sales route. |
Thrive | Sales | A platform to build and run affiliate/loyalty programs. |
Voice | Sales | A business phone system to help customer-facing teams communicate and engage with customers. |
Marketing Automation | Marketing | A platform to manage marketing activities across multiple channels like websites, social media, and email marketing campaigns. |
Campaigns | Marketing | An app for creating and managing email marketing campaigns and segmenting contacts for targeted emails. |
Social | Marketing | Manage all social media activities in one place, including scheduling, monitoring, and analyzing the performance of posts. |
Forms | Marketing | A form builder app to create and share forms for data collection, with advanced features like workflow automation. |
Survey | Marketing | Create and send surveys to collect and analyze feedback from contacts. |
Sites | Marketing | An easy-to-use website builder with integration features for Google Analytics, social media platforms, and other Zoho apps. |
PageSense | Marketing | An optimization platform to track user behavior on websites, conduct A/B testing, and optimize websites for better conversion. |
Backstage | Marketing | An event management app to plan, run, and analyze in-person, virtual, and hybrid events. |
Commerce | Marketing | An eCommerce platform to create online stores, sell products, and manage your business, with integrations for other Zoho apps like CRM and Campaigns. |
Webinar | Marketing | Powerful webinar software for hosting interactive, large-scale conferences with tools for analytics and lead generation. |
LandingPage | Marketing | Software to help you create, monitor, and analyze high-converting landing pages for marketing campaigns. |
Sign | Marketing | A secure digital signature solution for signing and tracking documents. |
Desk | Service | Empower your agents to deliver delightful customer experiences, stay organized, and become productive with advanced tools and AI assistance. |
Assist | Service | A remote support solution for enterprise businesses that need remote access to deliver customer support experiences. |
Lens | Service | Provide interactive remote assistance with augmented reality, focused on supporting equipment issues. |
Field Service Management (FSM) | Service | Software to manage and streamline operations for field service businesses. |
Books | Finance | A robust accounting software to manage your entire financial operations, stay compliant, and grow your project. |
Invoice | Finance | A free invoicing tool to help small businesses collect payments. |
Expense | Finance | An expense tool within Zoho Books to automate, streamline, and control business expenditures. |
Inventory | Finance | Inventory management software to streamline data capturing, order fulfillment, tracking, and reporting. |
Billing | Finance | Software to help subscription businesses manage subscriptions, collect revenue, and recover failed payments. |
Checkout | Finance | Create branded payment pages and securely collect credit card payments. |
Contracts | Legal | Comprehensive contract lifecycle management software to improve your legal operations and stay agile. |
Workerly | HR | An end-to-end solution for temporary staffing agencies. |
BackToWork | HR | Workplace readiness software that enables organizations to care for employees and ensure their wellness. |
Shifts | HR | An app for employee scheduling and time tracking to enable you to oversee employee activity. |
People | HR | Simplified HR solution to manage your workforce, access employee data, and make your people happy. |
Recruit | HR | Find, evaluate, and hire the right people for every position with powerful applicant tracking software and a CRM combination. |
Email & collaboration | Set up and manage company email, calendar, and contacts, with integrations for several Zoho apps. | |
Meeting | Email & collaboration | Easy-to-use web conferencing platform for online meetings. |
Writer | Email & collaboration | Powerful word processor to create documents, write, and collaborate with others. |
Sheet | Email & collaboration | Create spreadsheets, and organize, visualize, and share data in real time. |
Show | Email & collaboration | A free presentation app for designing, sharing, and delivering outstanding presentations. |
Notebook | Email & collaboration | A note-taking app that syncs to the cloud and across all your devices. |
Cliq | Email & collaboration | A chat app for teams to share messages, files, and audio/video calls, with integrations for other Zoho apps like CRM or Projects. |
Connect | Email & collaboration | A private social network for companies to share information, create groups and forums, and organize company events. |
TeamInbox | Email & collaboration | A shared inbox to centralize all business communications and collaborate. |
WorkDrive | Email & collaboration | An online file management app for teams to collaborate, manage, and track files. |
Office Suite | Email & collaboration | A robust suite of business and productivity tools that enhance collaborative work and play well with Microsoft, Google, WordPress, and more. |
Office Integrator | Email & collaboration | Cloud-based solution to enable you integrate document editors into your own app. |
ZeptoMail | Email & collaboration | A quick and secure transactional email delivery service. |
Calendar | Email & collaboration | Online calendar app to schedule appointments, manage events, and collaborate with teammates. |
Learn | Email & collaboration | Software to help you build training programs and knowledge bases for employees and customers. |
ToDo | Email & collaboration | A simple task management tool to organize, delegate, and track tasks among employees |
Campfire | Email & collaboration | A platform for creators to connect, engage, and build online communities. |
Analytics | BI & analytics | Data analytics software to analyze, uncover hidden insights, create data visualizations and reports. |
Embedded BI | BI & analytics | Business intelligence software to enable businesses to integrate advanced analytics and reporting into their own apps. |
DataPrep | BI & analytics | Software to help users prepare data for further analysis or visualization in BI tools. |
ResearchStudio | BI & analytics | A platform to enable researchers to run collaborative, qualitative research. |
Creator | Security and IT management | A low-code app development platform for building custom web and mobile apps. |
Directory | Security and IT management | Access management software for organizations to authenticate and manage user access across applications and services. |
Vault | Security and IT management | Password management solution to securely store, manage, and share sensitive credentials. |
Catalyst | Security and IT management | Serverless computing platform for developers to build, test, deploy, and scale applications in the cloud. |
ToolKit | Security and IT management | Free tool for admin-related lookups like domain checks, registry, email, and more. |
Site24x7 | Security and IT management | Comprehensive monitoring tool for websites, servers, networks, applications, and end-users. |
ServiceDesk Plus | Security and IT management | An IT service management tool to help businesses manage their IT support operations. |
MDM | Security and IT management | A mobile device management app to enable businesses to manage and secure the organization's devices. |
Patch Manager Plus | Security and IT management | A patch management tool to enable businesses to automate the management and deployment of software patches across their network. |
Identity Management | Security and IT management | Manage user identities, access controls, and authentication across various applications and services within an organization. |
Log360 Cloud | Security and IT management | Collect, store, and manage logs in the cloud, stay compliant, and detect threats. |
Projects | Project management | A project management app to plan projects, track work, and collaborate. |
Sprints | Project management | A project management tool focusing on the Agile methodology and primarily used for software development. |
Bug Tracker | Project management | An effective system for tracking and resolving bugs, so you can deliver excellent software on schedule. |
Flow | Developer platforms | A workflow automation tool to enable you to connect your apps and automate data transfer. |
Qntrl | Developer platforms | All-in-one workflow orchestration software to visualize, control, and automate business processes. |
Apptics | Developer platforms | A mobile app analytics solution for real-time insights into user behavior, engagement, and app usage. |
The best part is that many of these apps natively connect to the others. This seamless unification helps automate processes, eliminate redundancy, and improve collaboration.
What is Zoho One?
At the heart of Zoho's ecosystem is Zoho One, the all-in-one package that gives you access to the enterprise level of Zoho's most popular apps. With a single subscription, you can access more than 45 apps to run marketing, sales, finance, HR, and operations.
Of course, you don't get everything with Zoho One—for example, Zoho One doesn't include the Ultimate Edition of the CRM or ServiceDesk Plus, Site24x7, or MDM. So if picking and choosing your apps is important, you can get them on an à la carte basis or with one of the bundles I mentioned earlier.
Connect Zoho to other apps with Zapier
While Zoho is a unified business platform, it's likely you'll find yourself using other niche apps as well. If that's the case, you can connect most Zoho tools to other apps in your business using Zapier. With Zoho's Zapier integrations, you can automate your workflows, so you can focus more on the mission of your business.
Here are a few workflows you can set up to connect Zoho to other apps you use, or you can build your own automation with no code.
Create contacts on Zoho CRM from new leads from Facebook Lead Ads
Add new Zoho Forms submissions to Google Sheets as rows
Create Zoho Invoice estimates from new or updated Airtable records
Add/update contacts in Zoho Campaigns for new form submissions in Squarespace
Send a direct message on Slack about new Zoho Desk tickets
Zapier is a no-code automation tool that lets you connect your apps into automated workflows, so that every person and every business can move forward at growth speed. Learn more about how it works.
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