Zoho vs HubSpot CRM Comparison 2023: Which Is Better?

HubSpot and Zoho CRM are both appealing customer relationship management (CRM) solutions with a generous set of features and excellent reputations in the industry.

In this side-by-side Zoho vs HubSpot comparison, we'll compare the two software solutions in terms of pricing, ease of use, and customer support. We'll also look at how they stack up against each other regarding features like email marketing, contact management, and reporting.

If you're a newbie to the world of CRMs, it can be challenging to know which of the two is a better fit for your business.

What is the difference between Zoho and HubSpot?

The main difference between HubSpot and Zoho is that Zoho caters to SMBs, while HubSpot is a good fit for companies of all sizes. The free Hubspot CRM is a top choice for those with basic needs, while its Sales Hub with premium plans meets more advanced needs.

Zoho is way more budget-friendly than HubSpot. Its paid plans range from $18 to $55 per user per month, while HubSpot’s Sales Hub paid plans range between $45 and $1,200 per month. 

However, HubSpot’s Sales Hub has more advanced features that justify its high price tag. You can read our HubSpot CRM review to learn more about this CRM platform.

HubSpot also requires a one-year commitment. You can choose to pay monthly, but you’ll have to sign a one-year subscription agreement. With Zoho CRM, you can cancel anytime.

The free HubSpot CRM includes features like email marketing in its offering, while Zoho’s free users don’t have access to this functionality. You can check out our Zoho Projects review for a thorough overview of its features.

Zoho vs Hubspot comparison chart

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Zoho CRM vs Hubspot CRM pricing

At the time of this review, Zoho has four pricing plans, ranging from $18 to $55 per user per month. 

Here's a quick breakdown of the monthly plans:

• Standard: $18/month/user

• Professional: $30/month/user

• Enterprise: $45/month/user

• Ultimate: $55/month/user

The cheapest paid plan has everything from the free plan, plus features like sales forecasting, charts and KPIs, custom dashboards, marketing campaigns, email integration allowing for mass emails and inbox insights, and more. 

The Professional plan opens the door to features like unlimited custom reports, unlimited custom dashboards, Zoho CRM for Google Ads, webhooks, and inventory management. The Enterprise plan gives you access to predictive analytics and artificial intelligence (ZIA), which is like the software's version of Siri. 

HubSpot breaks down its paid plans according to different hubs (like HubSpot marketing). Here's a quick overview of all the plans: 

• Marketing Hub with three paid plans, ranging from $45-$3,200 per month

• Sales Hub with three paid plans, ranging from $45-$1,200 per month

• Service Hub with three paid plans, ranging from $45-$1,200 per month

• CMS Hub with three paid plans, ranging from $23-$1,200 per month

• Operations Hub with three paid plans, ranging from $45-$2,000 per month

• Starter CRM Suite

You can combine elements of each Hub with the CRM Suite bundle upgrade, starting at $45/month, billed annually. 

Which is best for you?

Zoho wins this round as its paid plans are more affordable. Although HubSpot’s Starter plans might be enough for small businesses, if you need access to more advanced features, you’ll need to subscribe to the Professional plan and higher. Professional plans start at $400/month, depending on the Hub. 
 

Hubspot vs Zoho CRM free versions

The good news is that both HubSpot and Zoho CRM have a free plan. Let’s discuss those freemium versions in more detail below. 

The Zoho free plan is excellent for smaller businesses with no more than three people. You'll get all the essential features any robust CRM system should have, like contact and lead management, workflow rules, standard reports, web forms, direct messages, 1GB of file storage, and more. 

HubSpot has a free CRM software for unlimited users that comes pre-packed with all the basic features. If your needs are more humble and you’re a smaller business, this can be everything you need to manage your leads and customers. 

The free CRM software has much to offer. You get Contact management, Contact website activity, Companies, Deals, and Tasks & activities. 

Plus: 

• Marketing tools:  forms, email marketing, ad management, landing pages, and shared inbox. 

• Sales tools: live chat for sales reps, basic bots, email scheduling, and team email. 

• CMS tools: drag-and-drop editor, Mobile optimization, Blog, Website pages.

• Operations tools: data sync, historical sync, default field mappings, app Marketplace integrations. 

If you need more advanced CRM functionality, you’ll need to subscribe to the HubSpot Sales Hub. 

Which is best for you?

Although both platforms have a free plan, HubSpot’s free CRM software is just better. Zoho’s free plan is limited to only three users, while HubSpot’s freemium version supports unlimited users. 

You can even upgrade some users to a paid version of Sales Hub or Service Hub. Even if you upgrade, you’ll only be required to pay for the users who need access to paid features — and your other free users will still remain free. 
 

Customer support

HubSpot's customer support is based on which paid plan you are subscribed to. For example, the free CRM software gives you access to community support and the knowledge base, while the Starter package gets you email and live chat support. You'll also get phone support if you subscribe to a Professional plan. 

Zoho's customer support is more limited. There's no phone support available, even to users of the highest-paid plan. You can contact customer support during business hours via chat and email.

Which is best for you?

Although you need to subscribe to the more premium HubSpot plans for the best support, HubSpot’s customer service is still pretty decent. We’ll yield this round to HubSpot, as Zoho’s customer support is limited to ticketing. 
 

Knowledgebase & learning

HubSpot offers a variety of learning materials for users to help themselves. The knowledge base contains hundreds of help articles that are easily searchable. Additionally, there’s a HubSpot community where customers can communicate with other users and exchange tips. The HubSpot Academy has many video tutorials on hold.

Zoho also has a generous knowledge base that contains all kinds of learning materials. There's an active online community, as well as free ebooks, tutorials, and how-to videos. 

Which is best for you?

Both HubSpot and Zoho have decent knowledge bases and learning materials. After careful consideration, we’re announcing this category a tie.
 

Zoho or HubSpot for ease of use?

To cater to all users, both tech-savvy and non-tech-savvy, HubSpot features well-designed, intuitive dashboards. Even if you're new to CRMs, you can quickly learn the platform just by using it. Most HubSpot users onboard the system within a day or two. 

This makes HubSpot an attractive choice for first-time users. The key navigation buttons from where you can access your leads' information are easily visible. Even if you have difficulty finding your way around, there's an abundance of online resources that teach you the platform's core features and the best ways to use them.

Zoho also has intuitive navigation features. However, the user interface feels slightly more outdated than HubSpot's. As you subscribe to a higher-paid plan, managing the software might become more complex.

Which is best for you?

HubSpot has a slight lead in this category as it looks and feels cleaner. You can jump right in and start using the software as soon as you create an account. 
 

Product limitations

Although HubSpot comes with many benefits, the system has its downsides. For one, companies with large sales teams might find the CRM not to be advanced enough for their needs. It doesn't scale to larger enterprise companies with more extensive needs. 

What's more, some users complain that HubSpot lacks customization options, which can be a major disadvantage for niche businesses, considering they need to do plenty of customization. 

Although HubSpot has a free CRM platform, it lacks some critical features like marketing automation and lead management that many businesses require. You'll have to upgrade to the Sales Hub, which can be too expensive for smaller businesses.

Zoho CRM has similar limitations as HubSpot. Although the software offers plenty of features, the depth of its functionality proves limited as your needs increase. In other words, it can become too cumbersome if you're a larger enterprise with demanding automation needs. 

Like many CRM platforms, Zoho requires a lot of customization to get started, and this is where the company's limited customer support can become a problem.

Which is best for you?

This round is a tie as both platforms have their limitations. 

Hubspot vs Zoho features & functionality

Now that we've compared HubSpot vs Zoho in terms of pricing, free plans, customer service, and ease of use, it's time to see how they stack up against each other in features and functionality.
 

Contact and lead management    

Both HubSpot and Zoho CRM have good contact and lead management features for collecting and organizing contact and lead information and critical sales data, such as call logs, contact notes, and sales signals. If you subscribe to a paid plan, you'll be able to use the lead scoring functionality to help prioritize your leads. 

With HubSpot, you can store up to one million contacts and company records. You can enter contacts manually, or HubSpot can retrieve this information from your email inbox or form submissions. Contact profiles contain detailed information about a person and show you the entire history of your relationship with that contact. 

HubSpot will also automatically create a company record every time you add a contact from a new company by pulling information from its proprietary business database. Additionally, you can email and call contacts directly from within the software without jumping to another platform. 

Zoho lets you store up to 100,000 contacts, regardless of which plan you're subscribed to. Like HubSpot, Zoho also has an account management feature for storing data about the companies you work with. 

Contact profiles contain your entire history with a contact so that you can easily refer back to the interaction history to gain clarity. Another feature called social listening allows you to see any messages contacts send you via social media. 

Which is best for you?

Both platforms offer great capabilities for contact management. Zoho might be slightly in the lead in terms of lead generation and management. For example, the Zoho CRM lets you assign leads to salespeople based on various criteria, create your scoring rules, and convert leads to deals. 
 

Sales forecasting

Sales forecasting is an excellent feature for predicting how many sales your company will make within a certain time period. HubSpot offers default and custom forecasting and reporting features only to users of the Professional and Enterprise plans. If you're subscribed to a free edition or the lower tier, you won't have access to these features. 

Zoho offers sales forecasting to users of all paid plans but not of the freemium version. Additionally, the two highest-priced plans have access to the Zia prediction builder and artificial intelligence tools. The Zia prediction builder lets you estimate the likelihood of winning or losing a deal, the likelihood of a user buying a product, and more.

Which is best for you?

We'll yield this round to Zoho as its Zia prediction builder, and AI tools are one of the most advanced features for sales forecasting. 
 

Email marketing

HubSpot offers many email marketing features, even with its freemium version. For instance, you'll get the option to send bulk emails that are tested and optimized for different devices and inboxes. You can create your own customized emails using the simple drag-and-drop editor and personalization tokens.

The free plan also includes 1:1 email, team email, email scheduling, email reply tracking, and five email templates. If you subscribe to the Sales Hub, you'll get access to 5,000 email templates. 

There's a daily send limit to one-on-one emails you send from a connected inbox. The email send limits vary depending on your email provider.

For example, with Gmail Free, you can send up to 350 emails per day, while office 365 lets you send up to 1,000 emails per day. If you connect a hosted inbox to your HubSpot conversations box, you can send up to 500 emails per day if you're using the freemium version and up to 5,000 emails if you're on a paid plan. 

Zoho CRM also has a good deal of email marketing features. Users of the free plan get features like 10 email templates, email opt-out, and email authentication. You can connect the software with platforms like Mailchimp and Zoho Campaigns only if you're subscribed to a paid plan. Zoho Campaigns is a platform that allows you to create, send, and track your email campaigns. By integrating it with Zoho CRM, you can easily create a mailing list containing all the leads or contacts you want to send campaigns to.

Which is best for you?

HubSpot wins this round as it has better features. Even with the freemium version, you get access to a good deal of useful features like email scheduling and email reply tracking.
 

Reporting

With a free HubSpot account, you can have up to 3 dashboards, each with 10 reports per dashboard. Custom reporting is only available with the higher tiers. If you've subscribed to the Professional plan, you can create up to 100 custom reports. 

With Zoho's free plan, you have access to standard reports. To create custom reports, you'll have to subscribe to a paid plan. For example, the Standard plan lets you create up to 100 custom reports per month. The three highest-tier plans offer unlimited reports. All paid plans allow you to schedule reports so they're ready when you want them.

Which is best for you? 

We’ll call this round a tie as both platforms offer some reporting features for users of the free plans and provide more advanced reporting options for the higher-tier plans. 
 

Integrations

You can find hundreds of integrations with third-party apps in the HubSpot App Marketplace. The most popular integrations include Gmail, WordPress, Mailchimp, and Google Workspace (formerly G Suite). You can also connect the software with tools like Stripe, Slack, Salesforce, and Facebook Messenger. Some apps are built exclusively for HubSpot, like a special timeline visualizer or a business news alerts tool.

Zoho integrates with a lot of third-party tools, ranging from online meetings apps like Zoom and GoToMeeting to customer service platforms like Zendesk and Zoho Desk. Other big names include Google, Quickbooks, Microsoft Outlook, Zapier, Trello, Paypal, Google Analytics, and more. The software integrates well with Zoho's other platforms, like Zoho Meeting and Zoho Cliq, which is a great feat if you're a customer using some of their other apps.

Which is best for you? 

Although both platforms come with an equally great number of integration options, we’ll give this round to HubSpot as we are fans of its App Marketplace.  

A note on Zoho Hubspot integration

You can easily integrate Zoho CRM with HubSpot CRM and vice versa. By syncing the two apps together, you'll be able to move data seamlessly from one platform to the other in real-time. The HubSpot Zoho integration lets you sync deals, leads, contacts, and accounts between HubSpot and Zoho CRM. When records are created or updated in either app, that information will be automatically shared with the other one. Additionally, you can set up a one- or two-way sync, which means you can either sync data from only one app to the other or back and forth between both apps.
 

Mobile versions

Even users of the free HubSpot CRM can download the mobile apps, free of charge. The apps for Android and iOS are also accessible for subscribers to all plans of the Sales Hub. With the mobile apps, you can access your customer contact records on the go, create tasks, reminders, and update customer detail, view your most important tasks for the day, and more.

Zoho CRM also has mobile apps for Android and iOS that lets you manage work from any location. With the mobile apps, you can keep in touch with leads on the move, access and log important prospect information, keep track of all customer communication, and more. 

Which is best for you?

It’s a tie. Both mobile apps get the job done.

Which is better, HubSpot or Zoho? Final points

After writing this comprehensive comparison post, we can safely conclude that both HubSpot and Zoho are great choices for companies on the lookout for a high-quality SaaS CRM solution. They both have essential CRM tools like email marketing, contact and lead management, sales forecasting, built-in marketing and sales automation, and reporting. 

At the end of the day, the best choice depends on your specific business needs. 

If you need a more budget-friendly solution that comes with all the essential features and is flexible enough to be used in any industry, Zoho is your best choice. We believe Zoho CRM is the best CRM overall for small to mid-sized businesses (SMBs).

There are times when HubSpot is the better choice. If you’re looking for a capable free solution for more basic CRM activities, the free HubSpot CRM seems to be the best fit. The more expensive plans of the Sales Hub can be a good option for enterprises with big-enough budgets. 

If you’re still on two minds, read this roundup of the best CRM software—it covers the right software solutions for any size and type of company.

FAQs

Does HubSpot work with Zoho?

Yes, thankfully you can easily integrate Hubspot with Zoho. The Hubspot-Zoho integration allows you to sync deals, leads, contacts, and accounts between HubSpot and Zoho CRM. When records are created or updated in either app, that information will automatically be shared with the other one. 

Is HubSpot better than Zoho?

It’s down to specific needs. Zoho is better if you’re a SMB that needs a budget-friendly CRM with flexibility. Hubspot has a free CRM that’s good if your needs are more basic. Hubspot’s paid plans are best suited for growing companies and enterprises with advanced needs and larger budgets.