Close vs. Zoho
Have you ever seen a comparison page where the “challenger” comes out better than the company writing the comparison?
Exactly. Neither have we. So when we set about comparing our CRM to others we wanted to take a different approach.
Cost and capability
The comparison we’ve put together is based on whether it’s possible (and how much it costs) to do in Zoho what you can do in Close.
We're biased, not ignorant
For some of you, Zoho will be the better option. What we’re trying to demonstrate is when Close is a better fit than our competitor.
A quick summary
Zoho and Close are often put head-to-head solely because of pricing similarities, but the two products are designed to service drastically different types of businesses. Zoho is a much more complex family of apps that allows for additional power and features, but will require paid consulting and dedicated team members to manage the CRM itself. Close is much more powerful in calling features and outreach, and a sales leader can implement it quickly and easily for a much faster velocity to product use.
Zoho requires users to have third-party apps for calling, but also offers Zoho One—a hub of business apps your W-2 employees can access for an additional fee. Additionally, Zoho requires add-on costs for necessities like training, implementation, and customer success. Zoho also scores lower than Close on sites like G2 for ease of use, ease of setup, quality of support, and product direction.
It’s important to note that this comparison guide is for Zoho—not Zoho Bigin (which is a newer, separate product).
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| Target sales team size | <100 | 100+ |
| Pricing | All-inclusive Pricing publicly available |
Sales call required Complex pricing with hidden costs |
| Budget | Best value | Affordable |
| Customer success | Dedicated success team | Pay extra |
| Calling | Global calling built-in | Calling via third-party app |
| Email automation | Built-in | Built-in |
| Training & implementation | $0 customized onboarding | Add-on purchase required |
| GetApp "ease of use" rating | 4.7 / 5 | 4.3 / 5 |
| Admin or developer needed? | No | Yes |
I used Zoho at my previous startup, I didn’t like it. I love Close CRM—it’s super lightweight, easy to use, and a great first CRM. No Salesforce engineer required. Check out their blog & Steli’s podcast for great insight, too.
Close ideal customer checklist
The rest of this page will help you understand why we think Close is a better alternative to Zoho both in terms of value and pricing.
What can you not do in Zoho?
Zoho is a solid CRM option, but it requires heavier customization up-front and has a more complex user interface. On many review sites, Zoho users note slow customer support. If you’re a smaller team with a sales team who isn’t development-minded (or if you’re without a CRM admin), Zoho can be an overwhelming platform to use. You’ll also need to purchase and manage a separate VoIP system to integrate with Zoho.
There are also some key sales functions that, even with a third-party app, you just cannot perform using Zoho (such as call coaching). With Close, they’re all built-in.
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| Built-in email automation tools |
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| Built-in calling |
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| Built-in call coaching |
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| Predictive Dialer |
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| Power Dialer |
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| Built-in SMS |
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| Dedicated Customer Success team |
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| Automatic import of email conversations |
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When should you choose Zoho, and when Close
See what third-party reviewers have to say about Close vs. other CRMs:
4.7/5
4.6/5
4.7/5
4.7/5
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