It can sometimes be hard to choose the right CRM platform for your small business. They both have a very similar fee structure and they offer some core functions in similar ways. I’ve used both Zoho CRM and Hubspot for my client work and have also tested them on personal projects. In this Zoho CRM vs Hubspot review, I’ll give you the insight you need to make an informed decision about which is better for your small business.
Table Of Contents
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- Integrations & Extras
- Support
- Price
- Feature Comparison Table – Zoho Vs HubSpot
- Zoho Vs HubSpot – Which Is Better?
CRM
Pipeline Management
The Zoho pipeline management interface allows you to track numerous data in one place. It allows you to create notes, comments, customize fields, and even view past activities. Additionally, Zoho allows for customer account management whilst providing end-to-end pipeline tracking.
HubSpot is backed with several templates such as lead generation, sales management, and sales opportunity review. Alternatively, you can choose to build the templates from scratch. Additionally, to view your data, you can choose to filter based on the information you need as well as set up who can access what data.
Deal Management
Zoho is built with three different views which include Kanban, Canvas, and Tubular – unlike HubSpot’s dual viewing design. However, when it comes to deal management, HubSpot offers a better design. With the integrative sales and marketing tools, it offers a more detailed and sustainable deal management system. Zoho also offers a deal management system but, it is not as extensive.
Activities
Zoho’s activities section is uniquely designed to allow you to filter by activity types – be it calls or scheduled meetings. This makes it easy to navigate the tool and access what you need with ease. HubSpot on the other end allows you to easily track your activities but, it doesn’t offer an extensive filter feature like Zoho.
Contact management
Zoho allows you to create contacts and leads – separately them through a score that the leads have to meet to be contacts. The tool even allows a more detailed tracking for individual contacts. HubSpot on the other end is designed with a more basic data type contact management which also makes it easy to track and store contact data.
CRM winner
Whilst HubSpot offers useful CRM features, in this comparison, Zoho emerges as a winner with more extensive and in-depth CRM features.
Platform
In addition to their CRM features, both Zoho and HubSpot boast a selection of automation, tracking, reporting, and lead scoring tools as well.
Automation
Using Zoho’s marketing automation, you can send out more defined email campaigns at the right time whilst also enjoying other features such as deals with support tickets or even automatically send out tasks to other team members. HubSpot on the other end focuses its automation on marketing, sales, and services – creating automatic workflows to ensure the customer is engaged and taken care of at all times.
Lead Scoring
What sets Zoho apart from HubSpot is its social media integration which allows for social media lead generation and scoring. Nonetheless, HubSpot still offers adequate lead scoring features in its marketing and sales tools.
Tracking
Zoho tracks website visitors as well as social media. Additionally, Zoho offers advanced sales forecasting and tracking features. HubSpot tracking code allows you to track each HubSpot account whilst also allowing you to track site traffic. Amongst the included parts of your site are the blog posts, landing pages, and web pages.
Reporting
Zoho also offers adequate reporting – with fully customizable forecasts reports and mini reporting on the dashboard. HubSpot offers reasonable reporting. However, if you want to enjoy more custom reports with qualitative data, you will have to invest upgrade to HubSpot’s Professional plan which goes as high as $200 to 500 per month.
Platform Winner
Whilst HubSpot beats Zoho in automation, Zoho counters its efforts in detailed tracking, reporting, and lead generation to make it the winner.
Email Marketing Features
HubSpot and Zoho offer email marketing features that are complemented by their automation features.
Spam & Deliverability
Zoho has an average deliverability rate of up to 90%. The platform can maintain a high deliverability rate by employing a series of security functions. These include offering domain authentication tools such as SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. The tool is designed to authenticate all email sending domains by default.
Other tools include domain format recommendations as well as domain blacklist check ups using tools such as SenderScore and SenderBase. Furthermore, Zoho Mail settings allow you to set up user Spam functions to ensure your emails don’t end up as spam. HubSpot on the other end has powerful spam testing settings to prevent your campaigns from ending up in spam folders – unless the recipient has extremely strict spam filters set up.
With high deliverability rates, HubSpot enjoys a dedicated team that works around the clock to maintain the rates and screen all of the billion plus emails sent daily. The tool also offers authentication options and guides on how to improve your content to prevent your campaigns from ending up as spam.
Deliverability Winner
With high deliverability and anti-spam rates, HubSpot takes the lead.
Integrations & Extras
Zoho offers generous native integrations with big names – however, its most prized integrations are that with social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. However, it doesn’t cover as many apps as those covered by HubSpot.
Similarly, HubSpot offers a generous integration with popular and less popular apps – including Gmail Outlook, WordPress, Zapier, Facebook, and MailChimp. In the platform’s free plan, you will enjoy up to 40 native integrations whilst the paid plans offer more – up to 200 apps.
Integrations Winner
In terms of native integrations, whilst Zoho offers advanced social media integrations with apps such as Facebook and Twitter, HubSpot still emerges as the winner with up to 200+ native integrations.
Support
Zoho offers a wide range of customer support options. If you opt for the free plan, you will have access to the knowledge base, community forums, email support, and customer portal which hold extensive knowledge on their own. If you want one on one support, you can opt for the live chat or toll-free support which is available weekdays for 8 hours.
Alternatively, you can go for the paid customer support which offers two plans. The Premium plan costs 20% of your license fee whilst the Enterprise plan costs 25% of your license fee. In addition to what is offered in the Classic free plan, the Premium plan extends the live chat and toll-free support hours to 24 hours during weekdays – with a maximum response time of 3 hours and has additional support such as remote assistance, product onboarding, and configuration assistance.
The Enterprise plan covers all the Premium features however, it offers 24/7 live chat and toll-free support – with a maximum response time of 1 hour. Additionally, the Enterprise support plan comes with a dedicated technical account manager and Quarterly Reports.
HubSpot users on the other end have access to the knowledge-rich HubSpot community. Alternatively, the tool also offers support through courses, guides, articles, and eBooks. The paid plans offer in-app live chat support and email support. However, to phone support, you will have to upgrade to the premium plan.
Support Winner
Zoho takes the lead with its extensive support resources even with its free plan.
Price
Zoho offers a free plan for up to 3 users beyond that it is paid for. The paid plans also offer a 15-day free trial to help you figure out whether they work for you or not. There are four different plans – i.e., Standard, Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate – depending on the features you want. The Standard plan costs $12 per user per month whilst the Professional costs $20, the Enterprise plan costs $35, and the Ultimate plan costs $45 per person per month.
HubSpot offers a free plan for up to 3 users. In addition to the free plan, you can choose between its starter, Professional, and Enterprise plans. However, the payment doesn’t cover all the bundles. So, for example, if you choose the Marketing Hub options and pay for the Starter plan, it only covers marketing features – meaning that you have to separately pay for the CRM & Sales Hub, Customer Service Hub, and CMS hub.
For the Starter plan, the minimum costs are $45 per month for 1,000 contacts. The premium plan costs a minimum of $800 per month for 2,000 contacts whilst the Enterprise plan costs a minimum of $3,200 per month for 10, 000 contacts. The rates are the same across all hubs. However, the platform offers a discounted package known as the Starter Growth suite for small businesses.
For a 12 month commitment, the plan costs $50 per month however, if you choose to pay monthly, you will pay $150 per month. This plan covers all the suites including Marketing, CRM & Sales Hub, Customer Service Hub, and CMS hub
ZohoHubSpotPlansPricing/USD per month UsersPlansUsers/ContactsPricing/USD per monthFree$04.5Free3/<1000$0Standard$124.7Starter2/1,000$45Professional$204.8Professional5/2,000$800Enterprise$354.6Enterprise10/10,000$3,200Ultimate$454.5
Price Winner
With significantly lower prices, Zoho takes the lead.
Feature Comparison Table – Zoho Vs HubSpot
As evident to the Zoho vs HubSpot comparing above, each tool holds its distinctive build and functions even though both are CRM platforms. When it comes to sales and marketing, HubSpot has proven to offer stringer features.
Zoho on the other end covers both features, however, its strongest suits are on the back end – covering detailed accounting, tracking, and leads generation. The feature comparison table below offers a brief outlook of the key features that each tool offers and how they compare to each other.
ZohoHubSpotOverall Ease of Use 4.54.7CRM Features 4.74.6Platform4.84.7Email Marketing Features 4.64.8Integrations & Extras 4.54.7Support4.94.7Price4.84.54.694.67
Zoho Vs HubSpot – Which Is Better?
Our Pick
ActiveCampaign is one of the best if not the best option on the market right now. Even if it’s not specialized in eCommerce, it will do a fantastic job thanks to its countless templates of automation. Its integrated CRM and great email marketing performance.
ActiveCampaign is our recommended platform.
Try it for free and you won’t be disappointed.
Overall, Zoho and HubSpot both prove to be quite powerful CRM platforms with powerful features. What makes Zoho unique is that it integrates all your business processes – including the back end such as accounting and invoicing. HubSpot on the other end is limited to the sales, marketing, and customer support suites, although, it does a perfect job in these areas.
HubSpot even offers dedicated CRM& Sales, Marketing, Service, and CM hubs. Whilst HubSpot is better when it comes to ease of use, deliverability, and spam testing, as well as integrations, Zoho is powerful in areas such as CRM features, deal management, lead scoring, and customer support. Furthermore, Zoho is ideal for smaller businesses that want to take advantage f the advanced CRM features it offers thanks to the extremely low prices.