Looking for HubSpot CRM alternatives?
If you're deciding between Zoho and HubSpot CRM, the first point to consider is what a CRM really is. All the top analysts, including Gartner and Forrester, state that CRM software encompasses functionalities across sales, marketing, service, and digital commerce.
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If you're deciding between Zoho and HubSpot CRM, the first point to consider is what a CRM really is. All the top analysts, including Gartner and Forrester, state that CRM software encompasses functionalities across sales, marketing, service, and digital commerce.
sign up nowZoho CRM is more of a complete package than HubSpot CRM.
With flexible sales automation, varied customization options, and powerful analytics and intelligence, Zoho has everything you need to take your business to the next level. HubSpot CRM, by contrast, only offers core customer relationship related features, and cannot be considered a full-fledged CRM.
Is HubSpot CRM really free?
Yes, HubSpot CRM is free, and it does allow you to manage unlimited contacts. However, without some solid marketing and selling features, you will struggle to get enough leads and customers to take advantage of that. HubSpot Sales Hub, the paid edition of HubSpot CRM, is a more equivalent offering to Zoho CRM, but still has a more limited feature set. Let's explore the differences.
HubSpot vs Zoho CRM: A comparison
HubSpot CRM has everything a basic CRM needs: Contact, company, and deal management, tasks, email integrations, website visitor tracking, and live chat. That's certainly attractive if you have a large sales team, since it's free for unlimited users.
However, as your business grows, you'll find yourself requiring certain essential features like workflows and automation, custom reports, and forecasting. The basic Starter edition of HubSpot Sales Hub starts at $50 for two users when billed monthly: the cost of a Zoho Enterprise license. It isn't just about the price, either; Zoho is a better overall solution on several fronts, as we can see below:
Sales force automation
A crucial requirement for any CRM is that it makes your sales reps' lives easier. An easy-to-use interface and automation of routine tasks helps them focus better and improve their productivity. Both Zoho and HubSpot provide basic modules for sales reps to manage their contacts, accounts, deals, and sales activities. Zoho offers a much wider range of features to work with CRM records and automate complex tasks.
HubSpot overview
- Sales structure customization: Advanced sales force automation features include options to set up multiple pipelines, use multiple currencies, and automatically score leads based on the actions they take.
- Workflow availability: HubSpot offers workflows with a range of automation options. However, they are only available in the Professional edition and above, and the limits aren't great, especially if you use them across multiple hubs. Additional workflow packs are available for an extra charge.
- Limited notification options: HubSpot's default notifications cover the essentials like record activity, website visits, and form submissions. They don't cover social activity. You can set up notifications for certain HubSpot events via workflows but not for custom third-party events.
The Zoho advantage
- More automation avenues: With Zoho, you have access to workflows right from the free edition. In addition to workflows, you can also build and execute macros for repetitive tasks you often perform, or write and schedule your own custom functions.
- Better data entry: Parse emails and automate record creation from forms or build intuitive data wizards to simplify complex data entry processes.
- In-depth sales forecasting: You can set up forecasts for various quantities and base them on either role or territory hierarchies.
Process and customer journey management
Everything in your organization follows a process—whether it's how to handle a new lead, close a deal, or escalate a customer issue. Standardization is the key to efficiency in getting things done. Your CRM should help you build and enforce all your processes. You should be able to build in rules to automate certain processes or ensure employees do the right thing at the right time. Zoho allows you to standardize numerous aspects of your processes, as well as add a personal touch to your customers' journeys. HubSpot also provides a set of process management features, but they are narrower in scope. For example, Zoho allows you to build and enforce various kinds of processes, but HubSpot limits this capability to your sales pipeline stages and only allows you to automate certain actions and tasks at each stage.
HubSpot overview
- Only quote-based approval: Record approval can only be set up for quotes, and doesn't come with a lot of options.
- No escalation rules: Ticket/case escalation is not available for Sales Hub users.
- No custom validation logic: Some basic validation rules are built in, but you cannot create custom validation rules to meet your business needs.
The Zoho advantage
- Process blueprints: Build standard processes, guide your CRM users through them, and ensure the right steps are taken at the right time.
- Journey orchestration: Personalize customers' journeys as they interact with your business at multiple touchpoints.
- Multiple page layouts: Incorporate multiple sales processes within a single CRM, with distinct records, views, workflows, and analytics.
Customization
Building standard processes into your CRM is great, but being able to set it up as per your custom business requirements takes it to the next level. Every business has a unique way of operating and their CRM needs to reflect that. Whether it is the way the product looks or the types of modules and fields available, the CRM should fit the organization's structure and not the other way around. Zoho provides immense flexibility in how you structure your CRM. HubSpot does provide some options for customization, but most are only available for the higher paid editions.
HubSpot overview
- Interface customization: You can choose what reports go into your main dashboard and reorder how fields are viewed within a record. You can't change the way tabs look or group or reorganize them.
- Limited custom components: An Enterprise license allows you to create custom modules, but the limit is pretty low and applies across hubs.
The Zoho advantage
- Custom record views: Customize the complete look and feel of your records, promote CRM usage, and boost productivity.
- Custom functionality Build custom functions with ease and add custom buttons or links to your CRM as needed.
- Sandbox for testing: Make changes to your CRM with no risk by testing them in a sandbox environment before deployment.
Analytics
Where your sales are, numbers and measurement can't be far behind. Understanding how your business is performing and where improvements can be made are key inputs any CRM should give you. While both Zoho and HubSpot offer a wide range of standard reports, the complexity of analytics offered by Zoho keeps it a step ahead.
HubSpot overview
- Custom reports: HubSpot allows you to create custom reports based on your sales data. They are only available in the Professional edition and above and the limits apply across hubs.
- Scheduled reports: You can schedule report dashboards to be sent via email at regular intervals. Specific reports cannot be scheduled.
- No analytics on mobile: Accessing reports on-the-go is essential for any salesperson, and this is not possible with HubSpot's basic mobile app.
The Zoho advantage
- Wide range of report types: Custom reports are accessible to all paid edition users, and offer a wide range of options. From bar and pie charts to complex quadrant and cohort analyses, there is no question Zoho CRM cannot answer about your sales data.
- Intelligent anomaly detection: Detect deviations from expected sales trends and take corrective action to get your sales back on track.
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence transforms your CRM from a mass of data to a gold mine of insights and predictions. An AI can perform deep analyses on the data in your CRM, learn from it, spot anomalies and trends, and even give you predictions and suggestions of how to improve your business. Zia, Zoho's sophisticated AI assistant, has a range of features to help you understand your customers and their preferences better. HubSpot provides a handful of AI features, but they are not as sophisticated.
HubSpot overview
- Basic AI features: HubSpot's AI features include text recognition from scanned business cards and data deduplication after accounting for typos and/or abbreviations.
- Company insights: HubSpot pulls in additional information about companies you add to your account from various sources.
- Call transcriptions: Enterprise users get access to automatic call recording and transcriptions.
The Zoho advantage
- Voice assistant: Give voice commands to the AI assistant and get answers to questions without hunting through your CRM.
- Predictions: Get predictions about your sales forecast, lead scores, cross-sell and upsell recommendations, workflows you can set up, and much more. You can also create prediction models for custom values in your CRM.
- Image scanning: Keep image spam in check with intelligent analysis of photos uploaded to your CRM.
- AI for emails: Enrich contact information based on email signatures, create tasks and activities based on email content, and more.
Marketing automation
Zoho offers software solutions specifically dedicated to marketing automation, but that doesn't stop us from including marketing features built into Zoho CRM as well. HubSpot keeps its sales and marketing hubs separate. While we agree that HubSpot Marketing Hub's feature set is much broader, Zoho CRM still has its fair share of features to amp up your lead generation and nurturing—including some which Marketing Hub, doesn't offer. If you are already using Marketing Hub and are now looking for a CRM, you can easily import your leads right into Zoho with our free HubSpot extension.
HubSpot overview
- Marketing Hub features: Marketing Hub allows you to manage various aspects of your inbound marketing program, including website A/B testing, social profile management, ad management, and more.
- Marketing vs. non-marketing contacts: Marketing Hub is priced based on marketing contact tiers. You are likely to have hundreds or thousands of non-marketing contacts in your CRM database as well. This may cause difficulty in bringing your CRM and marketing data together.
The Zoho advantage
- RFM segmentation: Segmenting customers based on their purchase patterns can inform your marketing campaigns in great detail, identify loyal buyers and occasional purchasers, and target meaningful messages to them.
- Social media lead enrichment: Capture lead information from contacts' social media profiles.
- Marketing attribution: Connect your sales and marketing so you can attribute revenue to your various marketing campaigns and touchpoints.
Collaboration
Whether working on a deal or handling a customer issue, everything in your organization is a team effort. If communication among team members is slow or delayed, it can impact your revenue or affect your customers' perception of your brand. A CRM should facilitate meaningful interactions between its users, and aid the progress of any collaborative effort. Both Zoho and HubSpot allow users to tag team members in records and notes and coordinate calendar appointments. Zoho also provides exclusive team collaboration feeds. Another aspect of collaboration is the ability to connect with third-party stakeholders and allow them to access and modify the information that is relevant to them. This helps the data in your CRM stay up-to-date and relevant.
HubSpot overview
- Calendar integration: While HubSpot doesn't come with a built-in calendar, the Meetings tool allows users to integrate their GSuite or O365 calendars. Calendar booking in the free edition is restricted to a single non-customizable link.
- Team communication: Team members can tag each other in record notes and comments or conduct private contextual conversations within their shared team inbox.
The Zoho advantage
- Portals: Create portals to collaborate with your contacts, partners, or vendors. Extend access to specific records and allow external stakeholders to create, view, and update the records that are relevant to them, and even add notes and attachments.
- CalDAV sync: In addition to using the built-in calendar to track all your appointments and tasks, you can also sync your calendar with any iOS device.
- Feeds: Zoho CRM feeds are built exclusively for team collaboration. Post updates, tag team members or send them direct messages, follow records of interest, create groups for specific collaborations, and more.
Inventory management
For organizations which deal with a wide variety of product lines, it can be complicated to track and manage deals for each product line. Building your product inventory into your CRM provides a standardized, efficient way to build quotes and create deals. This also helps you create better reports and analytics to analyze how your business is performing on a more granular level. HubSpot and Zoho both provide features to build a product library, customize prices for individual deals, and build sales quotes.
HubSpot overview
- Products and quotes: HubSpot allows you to store information about your products in a product library and associate them with deals. You can choose from a set of templates to build quotes, which can be shared via a separate URL.
The Zoho advantage
- Vendors, orders, and invoices: In addition to quotes and products, you can also convert your quotes into invoices or sales orders, as well as maintain a database of your vendors and purchase orders.
- Discount options: You have more flexibility in applying discounts to individual deals, as you can use both absolute and differential discount models.
Mobile
What use is a vast customer database if you can't access it at anytime, from anywhere? When it comes to CRM data, you need to be able to access, edit, or add new information at a moment's notice. This is especially true for sales reps, who are typically on the move, interact with scores of customers on a daily basis, and need to stay on top of their calendars. While HubSpot's mobile app gives you access to all your important CRM records, Zoho goes a step ahead and incorporates AI and analytics in to the mobile experience.
HubSpot overview
- Access records and tasks: Work with contact, company, and deal records, and manage and schedule tasks.
- Conversations: Chat with prospects and customers and respond to their questions or concerns.
- Activity feed: Stay informed of the latest activity related to your emails, website visits, documents, and more.
The Zoho advantage
- Voice notes: Record voice notes and attach them to your records or call logs when you don't have the time to write lengthy notes.
- Locate prospects: View nearby prospects and map the most efficient routes to reach their location, maximising sales efficiency.
- AI assistant: Zia, Zoho's AI assistant, can help by pulling relevant data or updating information within seconds.
- Analytics app: The Zoho CRM Analytics app gives you access to all your important metrics and dashboards on the go. You can even drill down into your reports to access the exact information you need.
Compare pricing
Price/user/month (Billed annually)- Standard
- Professional
- Enterprise
- $ 12
- $ 20
- $ 35
- $ 14
- $ 23
- $ 40
- $45 (Includes 2 users.Additional cost per seat is $23)
- $450 (Includes 5 users. Additional cost per seat is $90)
- $1200 (Includes 10 users. Additional cost per seat is $120)
- $ 21
- $ 350
- $ 850
- 47 %
- 78 %
- 71 %
- $ 17
- $ 335
- $ 800
- 38 %
- 74 %
- 67 %
Standard
Professional
Enterprise
Standard
Professional
Enterprise
*The prices shown on this page are in USD. The prices shown for HubSpot are valid in the US region. The names and logos for Zoho are trademarks of Zoho Corp. All other trademarks, brand names, or product names belong to their respective holders. Comparison information as of 5th April, 2021.