Zoho vs Salesforce: Which CRM Software Is Best?

We'll be pitting Salesforce vs Zoho head to head throughout this article. But, to ensure you don't miss out on the best price possible, check our comparison table of the Best CRM Software Deals, below.

Both have their merits, but according to our research, Salesforce is the better than Zoho because of its industry-leading features and notable scalability. Zoho, however, still has an ace up its sleeve – compellingly affordable plans for smaller businesses.

If your business is deciding on which CRM platform to use, you'll definitely have come across Salesforce. As the market leader, and a company with healthy marketing and PR teams behind it, Salesforce is one of the first destinations when researching a CRM.

Zoho is an admittedly popular competitor though, well known for its Google Docs competitor: Zoho Docs. It offers a comparably robust package at a more reasonable price point, but you'll definitely miss out on some of the more advanced customizability found with Salesforce.

Honestly, both providers have their pros and cons, so let's take a closer look at both platforms below, and don't forget you can compare Salesforce, Zoho, and other CRM platforms with our helpful comparison tool to get the right price for your business.

In this Guide:

Of course, these aren't the only CRM tools to consider. Check out some of these further alternatives, below. Or, scroll on to learn more about Salesforce and Zoho.

Both Zoho and Salesforce are capable services that have a lot to offer – however, the question really isn't which of these companies is the best choice, but whether either of them is the right fit for you. A good way to discover a CRM that can be customized for your needs is to use our handy CRM Quotes Tool to receive tailor-made, zero-obligation CRM cost quotes, which take into account your company's individual needs and scale.

Basic Layout

When you first sign in to Zoho and Salesforce, you are greeted with a dashboard containing large rectangular tiles that display key information such as current quarterly performance, open tasks, and deals closing this month. What you see on either CRM's dashboard is customizable to a certain degree, although the “quarterly performance” tile is specific to Salesforce's default view.

Both CRMs use navigation menu tabs at the top of the screen and basic headings such as Leads, Contacts, Accounts, Deals/Opportunities, Documents/Files, Reports/Dashboard, and so on. Both also have a social networking style section where team members can share information in the form of posts.

Integrations

Contacts is a key section for any CRM, and both Salesforce and Zoho cover the basics here. Zoho, however, has some nice integrations that are available by default – the key one being if a sales person adds their Twitter or Facebook account, and then adds the corresponding social account for their contacts, they can view their contacts' social activity within Zoho's CRM. This is a great feature if you run a business where most of your interactions happen on social media.

Salesforce can do something similar with a lot of powerful tools for social media monitoring, but it requires Marketing Cloud, which is a service beyond Sales Cloud, Salesforce's basic CRM. Plus, with Salesforce and Microsoft teaming up, you can seamlessly add functionality to the platform through Microsoft Teams.'

Additionally, Salesforce has announced a few great add-ons that could really bolster your online offering. For one, Salesforce Anywhere is the company's answer to the pandemic, offering a team collaboration platform that allows for real-time messaging and document sharing for remote workers. It has also announced that its new analytics platform is called Tableau, and offers aa 360-degree view of customer interactions to give you all the information you need.

Ease of Use

Looking at both services from an ease of use perspective, there's no question that Zoho wins this face-off.

Salesforce has a ton of features and options to tweak. The basic categories are easy enough to understand, but there are many ways to customize the service and many extra features to explore – not to mention a thriving third-party app marketplace.

Zoho is more straightforward, with a cleaner look and about the same number of menu tabs as Salesforce. Zoho's third-party integrations aren't as deep as Salesforce, but if you're looking for simplicity, then that may be less of an issue unless there's a particular third-party tool you absolutely must use.

Artificial Intelligence and Automation

If you're interested in harnessing computing power with your CRM to help provide insights into your business, improved workflows, and other suggestions, both services offer this kind of powerful feature in the upper pricing tiers. Zoho's is called Zia AI, and you can use it as a chatbot to surface key data on demand, including record data, dashboards, and reports. Zia can also predict the probability of success for leads and deals based on historic performance.

Salesforce, meanwhile, has Einstein AI, which can also surface predictions and recommendations based on the data saved in the CRM. Like Zia, Einstein has predictive capabilities to examine the likelihood of successfully converting leads and opportunities, as well as forecasting sales data.

Both Salesforce and Zoho offer their AI features with their higher-priced Enterprise tiers, though Zoho does offer Zia's automation intelligence features starting with its Standard package.