Zoho alternatives & competitors – 15 tools your team will love

Introduction

Looking for Zoho alternatives?

Zoho is a popular project management and CRM software that needs no introduction. Be it multi-channel communication, taking care of multiple tasks, CRM insights – Zoho offers a host of features that can easily cater to the needs of large as well as small enterprises.

Oftentimes, people look for different things such as flexibility, usability, and third-party integrations while looking for a wholesome tool for their business.

Zoho Limitations

Some parameters that make you look for Zoho-similar software are: 

1. Complicated user interface

Despite Zoho CRM’s robust functionalities and feature set, its clunky user interface has a high learning curve. Its user interface cannot afford faster navigation due to its multi-step approach to performing a single task. 

2. Overwhelming feature suit

Zoho undoubtedly promotes all-in-one functionality with its extensive office suite, but with the added complexities that it comes with, it doesn’t suffice. Startups and small businesses seeking a straightforward approach to their problems may not like its complexity.  

3. Basic customization

Most of Zoho’s core modules are customizable. But can you access them in its starting pricing tiers and free tier plan? No. You may need to upgrade to a high-pricing plan to access comprehensive customization. 

4. Steep pricing

First thing, Zoho’s per-user pricing is a burden. Second thing, all of its advanced features are limited to high pricing tiers. This means that if you are a team with limited resources, Zoho will fall short in its capabilities. The third thing that irks users is that if you choose to enhance functionality, you must pay additional costs for tool integration.

5. Poor customer support

Zoho does not promote a customer-focused culture. That is reflected in the services provided in its Classic and Premium customer support services. In Classic support, you get 8-hour office hours of support five days a week at no cost. However, in the Premium one, you get 24/5 assistance at 20% of your subscription fee.

List of Zoho alternatives and competitors

If you think that Zoho isn’t meeting your expectations, here are some Zoho alternatives that are worth considering.

1. ProofHub

Similar to Zoho, ProofHub is an all-in-one project management and collaboration tool making it one of the best alternatives to Zoho. Not just limited to project management, teams related to development, marketing, and other professions are also using it to strengthen their business.

Features:

• Workflows and Kanban boards simplify task and project management.
• Brings clarity to the feedback-sharing process with online proofing.
• Get clear project insights with dynamic reports.
• Plan projects, and manage resources efficiently with Gantt charts.
• The interface is available in more than half a dozen languages including English, French, German, Portuguese, Spanish, and Polish.

Pricing:

ProofHub offers a 14-day free trial, and two flat pricing plans to choose from:

• Essential: $45/month billed annually (for unlimited users up to 40 projects).
• Ultimate Control: $89/month billed annually (for unlimited users, projects, and features).

2. Scoro

Scoro is a great Zoho alternative as it provides a comprehensive list of features one needs to run a business efficiently. From projects to team collaboration, invoicing to reporting, time tracking to budgeting, it’s a single place for everything you need to know.

Features:

• Plan and track work with unlimited projects.
• Manage your project portfolio by configurable statuses (e.g. in progress, completed) and tags (e.g. type, department, market, etc).
• Manage quotes, contacts, and invoices seamlessly.
• Real-time overview and automated reports.
• Schedule meetings in a shared team calendar, and link all events to projects for a complete overview.
• Get a visual overview of your sales funnel and define closing probability rates for each stage in your pipeline.

Pricing:

Scoro offers four plans:

• Essential: $26 per user per month (billed annually).
• Standard: $37 per user per month (billed annually).
• Pro: $63 per user per month (billed annually).
• Ultimate: Custom pricing (billed annually).

3. LeadSquared

LeadSquared CRM is the best Zoho alternative designed for high-velocity sales. It is a comprehensive sales execution platform that supports digital onboarding and marketing + call center + operations + field force automation.

Features:

• Mobile CRM that allows salespeople to manage their tasks, appointments, document upload, lead transfer, and more on the go. Managers can track their team members’ every move.
• Efficient lead management and sales automation.
• No-code sales process builder. Users can sketch the best possible sales workflows for different products and teams.
• Out-of-box integration with lead capture channels, like Google Ad, Facebook, 100s of lead capture sites, cloud calling, ads, Zapier, and many more third-party tools. Also has open APIs and supports a developer platform for custom integrations.
• 100+ ready-to-use reports and customizable dashboards.

Pricing:

Starts from $25/month

4. ActiveCollab

ActiveCollab is a powerful yet simple Zoho alternative that acts as a one-stop solution for all your business needs. The most interesting thing about this Zoho substitute is that it runs in the cloud like most browser apps today, but you can also install it on your own server. It makes task management and team collaboration a breeze for users.

Features:

• Each project has task lists and everything else that goes with it – from files and discussions to time records and expenses.
• Organize tasks into lists and filter them by people, labels, or due dates.
• Start discussions and mention people to get instant answers.
• Set hourly rates for job types and add time records as you work on a project.

Pricing:

ActiveCollab offers four plans:

• Plus: $3.17 per user per month (billed annually).
• Pro: $8 per user per month (billed annually).
• Pro+Get paid: $11.75 per user per month (billed annually).

5. Basecamp

Basecamp is one of the first project management solutions that allows you to collaborate from anywhere in the world. Its recent version i.e. Basecamp 3 has introduced features that simplify modern work providing an edge over other Zoho alternatives in the market. Moreover, it works well with remote or geographically dispersed teams as well.

Features:

• Manage tasks, discussions, schedules, files, and more in one place.
• Chat about projects in Campfire public chat and Pings for private chat.
• Separate dashboard for clients.
• Turn off notifications with the Work Can Wait feature.

Pricing:

Offers a 30-day free trial and two pricing plans.

• Basecamp: $15/user per month (billed annually)
• Basecamp Pro Unlimited: $299/month (billed annually)

If Basecamp doesn’t come out to be your cup of the team, you can pick any best Basecamp alternative.

6. Bitrix24

Bitrix24 provides a complete suite of social collaboration, management, and communication tools to its users. It offers tools for task management, document sharing, and time tracking integrated into a social interface for maximum efficiency of communications and work. You can schedule events, attach files, and receive immediate feedback from your colleagues – all done inside your personalized Activity Stream.

Features:

• It also provides real-time updates, smart following, notification settings, and company-wide announcements.
• Employee workload management and customer relationship management.
• Also offers a self-hosted option.
• Gantt charts and workflows.

Pricing:

• Free plans with limited features for unlimited users
• Basic: $49 for up to 5 users per month /year
• Standard: $99 for up to 50 users per month /year
• Professional: $199 100 Users Per Month
• Enterprise: $399 for up to 250 users per month /year

7. Insightly

Insightly comes across as the perfect alternative to Zoho if you’re looking for a CRM to grow your business faster than ever. Its wide range of features has helped businesses and teams to build strong customer relationships over time and exceed expectations every time. As its user, you get the flexibility to implement and change the tool as per your needs. Probably, which is why over 25,000 companies from various industries are using it.

Features:

• Create a templated set of tasks and events for repeatable processes.
• Create and track milestones in projects or assign tasks and events to milestones.
• Automate your project processes and keep things moving.
• Files from Dropbox, Box, Google Drive, and Microsoft OneDrive are saved automatically.

Pricing:

• Plus: $29 per user per month
• Professional: $49 per user per month
• Enterprise:$99 per user per month
• All-in-One plan: Starting at $349 per month 

8. Planview AdaptiveWork

As a Zoho replacement, Planview AdaptiveWork (formerly Clarizen) lets you manage work, automate processes, and collaborate across the enterprise—all from a single, intuitive solution. Build with the sole purpose of helping your business move forward, it is definitely worth a try.

Features:

• Centralize and share resources, develop strategies, and align communications.
• Create automated and repeatable processes, alerts, and workflows.
• Share immediate project data, tracking progress.
• Empower users with a flexible, intuitive interface that fits their way of working.

Pricing:

Pricing details are not mentioned transparently on their website. You can contact their sales team for detailed pricing and quotation. 

9. Easy Projects

Replace the mess of spreadsheets, emails, and whiteboards with a simple workspace for everyone to collaborate together. Easy Project is an effective collaborative platform to plan and manage projects, resources, timelines, and budgets. It can easily be used by small and large enterprises of project management, IT support, product development, marketing, creative professionals, and more.

Features:

• Real-time information on performance, progress, resources,, timeline, and budgets.
• Leverage project templates and automatic notifications, utilize various integrations and automate project requests.
• Track personal assignments, deadlines, and work progress with easy-to-use status reports.

Pricing:

• Essentials: $5.90 per user per month
• Business: $11.90 per user per month
• Platform:$23.90 per user per month
• Enterprise: Custom pricing.

10. Celoxis

Celoxis is one of the top-ranked tools of 2018 designed for teams to plan, track, and collaborate online. It is a complete project management solution that takes care of project requests profits and everything in between. Tesla, KPMG, Adobe, and Whirlpool are some popular clients of Celoxis.

Features:

• Build project plans that adapt to real-world conditions.
• Easily reallocate resources to maintain optimal workloads.
• Track budgets, costs, and profits in real time.
• Share files, exchange comments and discuss online with your team and your clients.

Pricing:

Team member: $15 per user per month
Manager plan: $25 per user per month

11. Composity

Manage your entire business with Composity’s solutions – online ERP, CRM, eCommerce, and Point of Sale (POS) software. This business management software, designed for SMEs is definitely going to take your business management to another level.

Features:

• Simple, intuitive interface and powerful features.
• Smooth and trouble-free implementation methodology.
• Work in a language of your choice.

Pricing:

• Start: $30 per month for up to 3 users (Billed Annually)
• Lite: $60 per month for up to 7 users (Billed Annually)
• Growth: $90 per month for up to 15 users (Billed Annually)
• Professional: $180 per month for up to 30 users (Billed Annually)
• Business: $360 per month for up to 50 users (Billed Annually)
• Enterprise: Custom Pricing

12. Pipedrive

Pipedrive is an effective Zoho alternative as it is one of the top-rated sales CRM and pipeline software systems. Your emails, calls, and progress are tracked automatically. It clears the way, so you can focus on doing what you do best.

Features:

• Single, streamlined view of your sales process.
• See what needs to be done next.
• Email tracking and templates.

Pricing:

• Start: $12 per seat per month (Billed Annually)
• Lite: $24 per seat per month (Billed Annually)
• Growth: $49 per seat per month (Billed Annually)
• Professional: $59 per seat per month (Billed Annually)
• Business: $79 per seat per month (Billed Annually)

13. Copper

Formerly known as ProsperWorks, Copper is a new kind of productivity CRM designed to do all your work so you can focus on building long-lasting business relationships.

Features:

• No manual data entry is needed.
• Brings all your relationship makers together around leads, accounts, and deals in one place.
• Effortlessly work deals and relationships with the full picture and context.

Pricing:

• Basic: $23 per user per month (Billed Annually)
• Professional: $59 per user per month (Billed Annually)
• Business: $99 per user per month (Billed Annually)

14. EngageBay

EngageBay is an all-in-one CRM and project management software that comes with a free-forever plan for up to 15 users. 

It is a relatively new software product but it has found a high uptake among small businesses, startups, and agencies. 

The platform can be used for email marketing, sales and deals management with visual pipelines, contact management, customer relationship management with advanced automation and tracking tools, and even live chat and SMS support.

Features:

• Automation tools make workflows simple and easy to design and execute.
• Streamline your marketing, sales, and customer service tasks, data, and revenue modules.
• Real-time data analysis and visual reports for deep insights on each project, client, and task.
• Improve your planning and execution of project tasks with automated task assignments, automated client value scoring, and email reminders.
• The user interface is easy and intuitive for beginners to understand.

Pricing: 

EngageBay offers four plans:

• Free plans: For up to 250 contacts
• Basic: $13.79 per user per month (billed annually).
• Growth: $59.79 per user per month (billed annually).
• Pro: $110.39 per user per month (billed annually).

15. LiquidPlanner

What makes LiquidPlanner a perfect alternative to Zoho is its priority-based scheduling. In this project management software, projects are considered living constructs that evolve with time. When things change, smart project schedules automatically predict reliable finish dates. Popular names like of CISCO, Daimler, and Thermo Fisher Scientific use this Zoho alternative to plan and execute work.

Features:

• Instantly see the impact of resource availability and shifting priorities to your bottom line
• Built-in collaboration along with Drag-and-Drop Prioritization
• Dynamic Project Analytics & Reporting and Time Tracking
• Document storage and access controls
• iOS & Android Apps

Pricing:

• Basic: $15 per user per month (billed annually).
• Growth: $28 per user per month (billed annually).
• Pro: $42 per user per month (billed annually).

What factors should you consider when exploring Zoho alternatives? 

If you feel you have outgrown the Zoho platform’s capabilities, consider these factors before finding out the tools better than Zoho for your unique business needs: 

1. Intuitive user interface

An ideal tool should be easy to adapt to. Look for software like Zoho but with enhanced usability. It shouldn’t seem daunting to your team members. It must be intuitive to navigate and seamless to onboard.

2. Comprehensive feature suit

After identifying the functionalities crucial to your business process, choose the tool that adds comprehensive depth to business intelligence. It should be able to eliminate all the gaps that Zoho lacks. The tool should include all the necessary features, unlike Zoho, which charges you extra for every added functionality. 

3. High customization options

Look for a Zoho application replacement with customization options, such as custom workflows, custom reports, etc., to tailor to your specific requirements. Also, it shouldn’t be rigid in adaptability, as every team has different workflows and operations to manage. 

4. Scalable pricing

Make a list of the competitors of Zoho with scalable product cost. These are the solutions that grow with your team size and needs and allow for potential future upgrades. Be wary of any additional or hidden costs that you may have to pay to fulfill your requirements.

5. Customer support

A replacement software should offer robust customer support over multiple channels such as phone, email, live chat, and knowledge base. You shouldn’t have to wait to get assistance instead, the team should be quick to respond. 

How to choose the best Zoho alternative?

With so many tools available in the market, choosing the suitable one for your needs can be daunting. Here are some factors you should consider when selecting an alternative to Zoho. 

1. Features and functionality 

To begin with, map out the functionalities and features you need in a tool to meet your requirements. Look for core features such as reporting, workflow automation, and more, and then test their practical usefulness. 

2. Ease of use

A tool’s efficiency greatly lies in its user-friendliness. Look for its interface, aesthetics, navigation, and intuitiveness to understand its ease of adoption. If you have to invest your time figuring out how to use it, you better not add it to your list. 

3. User reviews

Analyzing customer reviews, ratings, and feedback is crucial to reflecting on real-life perspectives and assessing a product’s credibility. You can gather all these insights from review websites like G2, Capterra, Getapp, etc., to find out potential problems and satisfactory traits.

4. Budget 

Before committing to any tool, assess if the tool fits in for your budget. Do not opt for software that adds unreasonable costs with every new feature addition. Also, it should not strain the finances of every new user brought on board.  

5. Value for money 

While you may feel tempted to go for popular options, evaluate if the tool provides value for money. Compare the quality, features, and performances of all the tools shortlisted. 

Conclusion 

While Zoho CRM boasts a feature-rich platform, it fails to accommodate businesses without adding to their budget. Also, its complexity feels heavy on many businesses’ workflows.

Finding the closest fit to your needs out of all the Zoho competitors might feel daunting. However, I suggest taking free trials and picking the one with features tailored to eliminate your problems. After all, the ultimate choice boils down to which apps like Zoho align best with your goals and needs.

We hope that you find the above list of Zoho alternatives helpful. If you think that we’ve missed out on an important Zoho alternative, leave your comments below to let us know about it.

FAQs