- Best for free marketing and sales tools: HubSpot
- Best for project management: Monday CRM
- Best for niche industries: Pipedrive
- Best for an AI assistant: Freshsales
- Best for no-code integrations: Insightly
Zoho CRM is a top customer relationship management (CRM) software that has a mix of advanced features at competitive prices. It’s a collaborative marketing CRM solution with strong omnichannel communication and AI tools that can level up any team’s lead nurturing campaigns and deal management.
While Zoho CRM is a well-rounded solution, it’s useful to see how it compares to its top alternatives before committing to a contract.
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Zoho CRM alternatives: Comparison table
To best understand Zoho CRM’s top alternatives, it’s important to see how they rank against Zoho’s top features.
Since Zoho CRM is known for its marketing and communication automations, integrations, and AI functionality, I compare those for each competitor, plus pricing information based on annual billing.
| Star rating | Marketing automations | Integrations | AI-powered tools | Free-for-life version | Starting price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zoho CRM | 4.3/5 | Advanced | 900+ | Yes | Yes | $14 per user, per month |
| HubSpot | 4/5 | Advanced | 1,500+ | Yes | Yes | $15 per seat, per month |
| monday CRM | 3.5/5 | Limited | 200+ | Yes | Limited | $12 per user, per month |
| Pipedrive | 4.4/5 | Medium | 350+ | Limited | No | $14 per user, per month |
| Freshsales | 4.4/5 | Medium | 750+ | Yes | Yes | $9 per user, per month |
| Insightly | 4.3/5 | Medium | 2,000+ | Limited | Yes | $29 per user, per month |
HubSpot: Best for free marketing and sales tools
HubSpot has a feature-rich free marketing and sales tier in their suite of products that users can start with and then pay as they grow. Free marketing tools include email marketing, web forms, live chat, ad management, and mobile optimization. Free sales tools include contact management, deal pipelines, quotes, live chat, and meeting scheduling.
If your business needs more features like sales automations or social media integration, you’re able to upgrade to a premium tier.
Pricing
- Free CRM: Free for up to five users with contact management, quotes, live chat, and more.
- Sales Hub Starter: $15 per seat per month billed annually, or $20 when billed monthly.
- Sales Hub Professional: $90 per seat per month billed annually, or $100 when billed monthly, plus a one-time $1,500 onboarding fee.
- Sales Hub Enterprise: $150 per seat per month, with an annual commitment and one-time $3,500 onboarding fee.
Features
- Sales reporting: Track progress with dozens of pre-built reports or customize your own to report on revenue and target attainment.
- Call tracking: Make calls directly from the CRM with the option to record and automatically log information and follow-up notes.
- Forecasting: View comprehensive reports of pipelines and monitor individual or team progress.
HubSpot pros and cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Provides a free product demo. | Doesn’t offer live support for free users. |
| Offers 24/7 customer support. | Premium plans and add-ons can be costly for small businesses. |
| Users report easy data import/export. | Users report bugs with email and content templates. |
Why I chose HubSpot
HubSpot is industry-leading CRM software known for its free and premium tools and scalability. As a top free CRM, the basic sales tools can be wonderful for a startup or small business. The premium tiers can be costly and are more appropriate for a large company or enterprise.
HubSpot also offers a wealth of resources on top of 24/7 customer support, including knowledge shares, webinars, community forums, and more.
If you want to consider another Zoho CRM alternative that also has scalability, AI tools, and marketing features, I recommend Freshsales.
For more information, head over to our HubSpot review.
Monday CRM: Best for project management
Monday CRM is a powerful CRM with well-rounded project management tools that support real-time data and update displays, third-party integrations, lead management, and efficient workflow automations.
Beyond just project management tools, monday CRM also provides features like mass emailing and templates, leaderboards, and the addition of lead capture forms. All of these tools help businesses with sales prospecting, lead or customer behavior tracking, and even competitor tracking.
Pricing
- Free CRM: Basic CRM offerings only available for students and nonprofit organizations after submitting an application.
- Basic CRM: $12 per user per month when billed annually, or $15 when billed monthly.
- Standard CRM: $17 per user per month when billed annually, or $20 when billed monthly.
- Pro CRM: $28 per user per month when billed annually, or $33 when billed monthly.
- Enterprise CRM: Contact monday.com for a quote. This level of support offers lead scoring, team goals, and advanced analytics.
Features
- Data imports: Bring over all existing data, including leads, contacts, and account information, from an Excel document or API directly into a monday.com board.
- Lead capture: Add a form to your website or landing page that captures lead contact information to funnel into a dashboard.
- Activity tracking: Manage sales processes and touchpoints through the monday CRM mobile app for selling on the go.
Monday CRM pros and cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| 14-day free trial. | Lead scoring feature is only available in highest-paid tier. |
| Offers unlimited contacts. | HIPAA compliance is also only available in highest-paid tier. |
| Has free iOS and Android mobile apps. | Users report complex configurations and customizations. |
Why I chose monday CRM
Monday CRM is a fully customizable sales platform that allows users to integrate tools and create workflows with no coding needed. Monday CRM is currently in beta for monday AI that can help with automated task generation, email composition, content generation, and even pipeline formula building. It also provides specialized market functionality to industries like manufacturing, healthcare services, and consumer goods.
For an alternative to monday CRM that also has a range of industry specializations, AI tools, and pricing, I recommend looking into Pipedrive.
To learn more about this provider, read my monday CRM review.
Pipedrive: Best for niche industries
Pipedrive can be used by startups, small to midsize companies, and enterprises, plus its solution is adaptable to a variety of industries. It provides unique guides to their features and functions and explains how to implement them in accordance with your industry. Some niche industry specializations include call centers, hospitality, healthcare, higher education, government, nonprofits, insurance, travel, architecture, and many more.
Pricing
- Essential: $14 per user per month, billed annually, or $24 per user when billed monthly.
- Advanced: $34 per user per month, billed annually, or $44 per user when billed monthly.
- Professional: $49 per user per month, billed annually, or $64 per user when billed monthly.
- Power: $64 per user per month, billed annually, or $79 per user when billed monthly.
- Enterprise: $99 per user per month, billed annually, or $129 per user when billed monthly.
Features
- Drag-and-drop pipeline: Tailor, automate, and edit pipelines and get deal updates right from the dashboard.
- Recurring revenue: Track all customer subscriptions, great for industries with repeat customers.
- Invoice and billing: Create, send, and track invoices to an invoicing app directly from Pipedrive.
Pipedrive pros and cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| 14-day free trial. | Doesn’t have a free-for-life tier. |
| Offers 24/7 customer support. | Capped lead segmentation tools. |
| Auto-tracks calls and emails. | Users report limited reporting configurations. |
Why I chose Pipedrive
Pipedrive is a sales-forward CRM platform that offers custom pipeline management tools, activity tracking, and automations. With its communication tracking feature, users can view all customer engagement history in one dashboard with additional filters and searches. Pipedrive is also a great CRM for small businesses, especially for managing finances and general cash flow.
Pipedrive is one of the only providers I’ve included on this alternative list that doesn’t offer a free version of their platform for users. If you want a comparable solution to Zoho CRM that has a robust free tool, I recommend HubSpot.
Head over to this Pipedrive review for more details.
Freshsales: Best for an AI assistant
Freshsales has an always-available AI assistant named Freddy AI. Freddy can help users find potential customers through lead generation campaigns, create personalized emails, and provide insight reports to help close deals faster.
For example, businesses can deploy high-converting sales campaigns quickly with AI-generated content and then use Freddy’s insights to prioritize opportunities and boost win rates.
Pricing
- Free CRM: Free for up to three users and offers email templates, a sales dashboard, and more.
- Growth: $9 per user per month, billed annually, or $11 per user when billed monthly.
- Pro: $39 per user per month, billed annually, or $47 per user when billed monthly.
- Enterprise: $59 per user per month, billed annually, or $71 per user when billed monthly.
Features
- AI-powered lead scoring: View AI-generated contact scores based on detailed data points, behavioral patterns, and purchase history.
- Chat campaigns: Deliver personalized messages through trigger-based campaigns that can generate and qualify leads for you.
- Auto-profile enrichment: Receive accurate and auto-filled data attached to lead profiles that is pulled from social media or publicly available information.
Freshsales pros and cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| 21-day free trial. | Limited available integrations with Google suite. |
| Robust mobile app with built-in chat, phone, and SMS features. | Doesn’t offer workflows in the free version. |
| Users report the deal module is easy to navigate. | Users report subpar tech support and customer support. |
Why I chose Freshsales
Freshsales is top-scoring CRM software because of its AI tools and competitive pricing. Users of Freshsales can manage customer interactions throughout their sales process. This includes lead generation campaigns, lead nurturing automations, deal management, and ongoing support. It is also a scalable tool that can support an organization of any size, especially an enterprise.
Since both Zoho CRM and Freshsales offer robust marketing tools and capabilities, if you’re looking for a tool strictly for a sales team, I recommend Pipedrive.
Want to know more? Read our detailed Freshsales review.
Insightly: Best for no-code integrations
Insightly’s powerful integrations allow businesses to connect any application with AppConnect, a native no-code integration engine. AppConnect is an intuitive tool to build integrations and workflows of any complexity level without having to write code. With it, users are able to connect hundreds of apps, map fields, transform and manipulate data, perform calculations, then deploy, schedule, and trigger integrations in moments. Additionally, users can build their own integrations with a powerful workflow builder.
Pricing
- Free CRM: Free for up to two users and 2,500 records.
- Plus: $29 per user per month, billed annually.
- Professional: $49 per user per month, billed annually.
- Enterprise: $99 per user per month, billed annually.
- Insightly All-in-One Plus: $349 per month, billed annually. 2 users are included, with additional users at $29 per user per month.
- Insightly All-in-One Professional: $899 per month, billed annually. 5 users are included, with additional users at $49 per user per month.
- Insightly All-in-One Enterprise: $2,599 per month, billed annually. 10 users are included, with additional users at $99 per user per month.
Features
- AppConnect: Search, filter, and select from hundreds of sales, marketing, and support tools that can be easily integrated into the Insightly CRM software.
- Lead distribution: Pass qualified leads to the appropriate sales rep or team for intentional follow-up and lead nurturing.
- Customize pipeline stages: Tailor sales pipeline stages to make your business unique sales workflow with clear and customizable visualizations.
Insightly pros and cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| 14-day free trial. | Custom apps and field-based permissions are only available for the Enterprise tier. |
| Offers guided support during onboarding. | The Plus tier only supports 10 GB of file storage. |
| Users report easy and intuitive data entry. | Users report limited task delegation capabilities. |
Why I chose Insightly
Since Insightly is modern, cloud-based CRM software, it’s an intuitive tool with a lot of customization possibilities. Businesses can build and convert custom pipelines with detailed lead management, track opportunities, and increase individual or team productivity with automations. With Insightly, users can scale the platform up as the business grows.
If you’re looking for a Zoho CRM alternative that specifically has an in-depth AI-powered assistant, I recommend considering Freshsales.
Check out this Insightly review to learn more.
Do you need an alternative to Zoho CRM?
If you’re a current user of Zoho CRM or new to CRM software in general, there are a few reasons why you might want to consider an alternative to Zoho CRM. I suggest looking into Zoho CRM’s top competitors if there is a specific feature, price, integration capability, or onboarding process you are prioritizing.
Review methodology
I reviewed and scored each alternative to Zoho CRM against our in-house rubric. This rubric is outlined with criteria and subcategories of standard CRM features and offerings. Using that rubric, I identified an ideal use case for each provider that summarizes the product’s best offerings.
Here’s a breakdown of the scoring criteria for Zoho CRM top alternatives:
- Cost: Weighted 25% of the total score.
- Core features: Weighted 25% of the total score.
- Customizations: Weighted 15% of the total score.
- Integrations: Weighted 15% of the total score.
- Ease of use: Weighted 10% of the total score.
- Customer support: Weighted 10% of the total score.
Frequently asked questions (FAQ)
What are the disadvantages of Zoho?
Zoho CRM continues to be a high-ranking CRM provider for me. That’s due to its advanced technical features, customizations, and integrations. Still, there are some drawbacks of the software to consider. For example, there is no social integration in the free version, customer support is only offered during typical business hours, and some users report difficulties with the UX/UI of the platform.
Which CRM is better than Zoho?
The answer to this depends greatly on your specific needs. If you want a more sales-centric or service-focused CRM tool, one with a different pricing structure, or an easier-to-implement solution, HubSpot, Freshsales, or Pipedrive might be a better CRM tool than Zoho.
I do recommend following general CRM best practices to ensure you’re implementing the software correctly and efficiently for your business to see all the benefits a CRM can bring.
