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Salesforce Essentials vs Zoho CRM comparison

Salesforce and Zoho are both solutions in the CRM category. Salesforce is ranked #15 with an average rating of 8.0, while Zoho is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.0. Salesforce holds a 0.4% mindshare in CRM, compared to Zoho’s 3.0% mindshare. Additionally, 92% of Salesforce users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 88% of Zoho users who would recommend it.
Salesforce Essentials
Read 14 Salesforce Essentials reviews
  • 170 Views
  • 68 Comparison Views
92% willing to recommend
Zoho CRM
Read 53 Zoho CRM reviews
  • 1,877 Views
  • 883 Comparison Views
88% willing to recommend
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 19, 2024

Zoho CRM and Salesforce Essentials are major contenders in the CRM market. Zoho CRM has the upper hand with its strong customization and affordability, making it ideal for startups and small businesses, while Salesforce Essentials excels in AI capabilities for sophisticated customer management.

Features: Zoho CRM offers extensive customization options, API access, and seamless integration with Google Apps, which benefits pipeline management and reporting. Salesforce Essentials provides advanced AI features and a comprehensive Sales and Service Cloud, enhancing customer interactions with efficient automation tools.

Room for Improvement: Zoho CRM could improve its email templates, social integrations, and mobile usability, along with enhancing scalability and third-party integrations. Salesforce Essentials needs better analytics, pricing flexibility, and support for mixed languages. Its interface complexity and lack of intuitive automation are also areas for enhancement.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Zoho CRM supports both public and private cloud deployments, offering flexibility, while Salesforce Essentials primarily uses public clouds. Zoho's customer service receives mixed reviews, contrasting with Salesforce's criticized high response times despite generally effective support.

Pricing and ROI: Zoho CRM is cost-effective with competitive pricing and diverse plans, showing strong ROI through productivity gains. In contrast, Salesforce Essentials is more expensive, with higher pricing and added professional service costs, yet it provides solid ROI by reducing manpower needs.

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To learn more, read our detailed Salesforce Essentials vs. Zoho CRM Report (Updated: June 2025).
Buyer's Guide
Salesforce Essentials vs. Zoho CRM
June 2025
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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
7.9
Salesforce Essentials offers an efficient, user-friendly platform that accelerates sales, aids teams, and automates processes for quick returns.
Sentiment score
7.5
Automation increased productivity and sales by streamlining processes and reducing manual tasks, enhancing efficiency and organizational value.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
8.0
Salesforce Essentials is praised for fast, efficient support and reliable service uptime, enhancing user satisfaction and operational stability.
Sentiment score
6.7
Customer service is helpful but varies in responsiveness, with support hours dependent on the service plan.
Their service and uptime is phenomenal.
Salesforce Essentials has excellent customer service.
For more quotes and insights, download the Salesforce Essentials report
Sometimes, they don't understand what my actual needs are.
For more quotes and insights, download the Zoho CRM report
AA
GS
Romani Labib - PeerSpot reviewer
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
Salesforce Essentials is highly scalable, supporting enterprise-level needs with flexibility, although some report connectivity and enhancement dependency issues.
Sentiment score
7.9
Zoho CRM is scalable, suitable for SMEs, integrates well, but faces challenges at the enterprise level.
It is one of the most scalable systems available.
For more quotes and insights, download the Salesforce Essentials report
No quotes available
For more quotes and insights, download the Zoho CRM report
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.1
Salesforce Essentials offers stable performance, smooth SAP integration, minor bugs, and reliable uptime, ensuring minimal operational disruptions for users.
Sentiment score
7.8
Zoho CRM is praised for stability and reliability, despite initial issues; EU servers are recommended for better performance.
Salesforce Essentials has proven stable, with no downtime that affects my work.
For more quotes and insights, download the Salesforce Essentials report
No quotes available
For more quotes and insights, download the Zoho CRM report
 

Room For Improvement

Salesforce Essentials needs better integration, intuitive UI, competitive pricing, simplified automation, enhanced connectivity, and improved language support.
Enhancing Zoho CRM requires better integration, automation, customization, user interface, customer service, analytics, and support for offline operations.
Instead of requiring users to think about system navigation and clicking procedures, they can simply follow a workflow that guides them through the process.
There are other competitors, like Zoho CRM, that offer similar features at a lower cost.
For more quotes and insights, download the Salesforce Essentials report
Some organizations may prefer not to have their data on the internet since Zoho CRM runs as a cloud service.
For more quotes and insights, download the Zoho CRM report
AA
GS
Romani Labib - PeerSpot reviewer
 

Setup Cost

Salesforce Essentials is costly, but offers value through flexibility and add-ons, despite complex payment options and operational expenses.
Zoho CRM provides competitive enterprise pricing, starting at $35 per user, offering affordable and feature-rich plans compared to competitors.
The cost of running Salesforce Essentials is significant.
The costs associated with Salesforce Essentials are substantial, which is a drawback compared to competitors who offer similar services for less.
For more quotes and insights, download the Salesforce Essentials report
I rate the pricing as a five out of ten, as it offers good value for money.
For more quotes and insights, download the Zoho CRM report
AA
GS
SS
 

Valuable Features

Salesforce Essentials offers cloud deployment, customization, AI, and mobile support, benefiting process optimization and data integration despite high costs.
Zoho CRM offers customization, integration, analytics, mobile flexibility, and scalability, ideal for startups and SMEs.
It is very customizable to specific needs.
Salesforce Essentials is excellent because it is one of the most flexible CRMs available.
For more quotes and insights, download the Salesforce Essentials report
Specifically, the leads and deals modules, as well as integrations, are very effective.
You can customize everything—what you sell, be it products, services, or projects.
For more quotes and insights, download the Zoho CRM report
AA
GS
SS
Romani Labib - PeerSpot reviewer
 

Categories and Ranking

Salesforce Essentials
Ranking in CRM
15th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Zoho CRM
Ranking in CRM
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
53
Ranking in other categories
Opportunity Management (5th), Sales Force Automation (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the CRM category, the mindshare of Salesforce Essentials is 0.4%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zoho CRM is 3.0%, down from 4.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
CRM
 

Featured Reviews

Srini-Dhanaraj - PeerSpot reviewer
Manages service requests and dispatches engineers to resolve issues
I work from home for a heater manufacturing company. They wanted to move away from their current SAP CRM system to Salesforce. There is a fulfillment process, which involves taking an order, delivering it, and providing service. Salesforce is used to manage the order-taking process. Once an order is taken, the backend system, SAP ERP, handles product manufacturing, delivery, and installation. After installation, the Service Cloud in Salesforce takes over for ongoing service management. Once your order is confirmed, integration with the SAP ERP backend will be seamless. The system takes the sales order from Salesforce and starts processing it for procurement, starting with creating a production order, manufacturing, and then delivery. Once the product is delivered, this information is passed back to Salesforce Service Cloud. In the Service Cloud, a service engineer receives a notification indicating that a product needs to be delivered to a specific location for installation. The engineer then inspects and installs the product at the designated site. SAP ERP manages the product manufacturing and delivery processes. After the product is delivered to the customer, Salesforce Service Cloud takes over. It manages service requests and dispatches engineers to resolve issues reported by customers. Service Cloud captures the information and creates an incident record when a customer reports a product fault. Engineers receive this information and promptly visit the client site to fix the issue. The solution is easy to implement. Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.
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AmerKhan - PeerSpot reviewer
Diverse integrations assist in seamlessly aligning marketing efforts with sales tracking
Zoho CRM is flexible due to its integrations, like with Zoho Campaign, helping integrate marketing efforts with CRM processes. It offers a no-cost entry with the ability for three users to use it at no charge, which is beneficial for startups to explore the platform without financial strain. This enables me to start using the platform, handle opportunities, and get a feel before committing financially.
Read full review
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Educational Organization
49%
Computer Software Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
5%
Manufacturing Company
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Salesforce Essentials?
Salesforce provides the best they have with the current version. Most of the features we need are already there, and it's very easy to use.
See all answers
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Salesforce Essentials?
Salesforce Essentials is very expensive, but it delivers exceptional value. It is a good platform to have if you can afford it because it has numerous add-ons and modules. Anything that Salesforce ...
See all answers
What needs improvement with Salesforce Essentials?
We use a limited number of automated workflows in Salesforce Essentials. The workflows we implement are designed to make sales teams' lives easier when executing certain tasks. Instead of requiring...
See all answers
What do you like most about Zoho CRM?
Zoho CRM integrates easily with customer service workflows.
See all answers
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zoho CRM?
I rate the pricing as a five out of ten, as it offers good value for money.
See all answers
What needs improvement with Zoho CRM?
The analytics and AI suggestion features need improvement.
See all answers
 

Comparisons

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide
Salesforce Essentials
June 2025
Salesforce Essentials reportDownload Salesforce Essentials product report
Buyer's Guide
Zoho CRM
June 2025
Zoho CRM reportDownload Zoho CRM product report
 

Overview

Salesforce Essentials is a cloud-based CRM tool for businesses seeking flexible, scalable, and customizable solutions to enhance sales and customer support processes.

Designed for seamless integration across multiple channels, Salesforce Essentials includes Sales and Service Cloud to simplify sales tasks and customer management. It enhances finance, credit, and quality processes with user-friendly AI capabilities and predictive analytics. Despite its strengths, there is room for improvement in SAP integration, interface simplicity, and report generation. Cost-effectiveness and support for diverse languages are also potential upgrade areas. Businesses use this CRM solution for lead management, opportunity tracking, and automating sales workflows, transitioning from paper-based methods to digital efficiency.

What are the essential features of Salesforce Essentials?
  • Scalability and Flexibility: Accommodates growth and customization needs.
  • Multiple Channel Integration: Enhances finance and quality processes.
  • User-Friendly: Easy navigation with AI capabilities.
  • Cloud Deployment: Includes Sales and Service Cloud features.
  • Predictive Analytics: Improves productivity and tracking.
  • Mobile App Support: Facilitates on-the-go access and management.
What benefits or ROI can users expect from Salesforce Essentials?
  • Improved Productivity: Automation features save time and streamline tasks.
  • Enhanced Customer Management: Centralizes interaction and data handling.
  • Ease of Transition: From manual to automated workflows.
  • Performance Monitoring: Standardizes processes for better oversight.

In the retail industry, businesses employ Salesforce Essentials for customer data management and transparency in order processing. Healthcare providers use it for patient engagement and streamlined communication. Financial services utilize it for billing management and compliance, harnessing automation tools for efficient data handling.

Salesforce

Zoho CRM empowers organizations with a complete customer relationship lifecycle management solution for managing organization-wide Sales, Marketing, Customer Support & Service and Inventory Management.

Zoho
 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
JetHub, Anderson Sales Advantage, ActionCoach, Milagro Advisory Group, TECO Pneumatic, Proteomics Consult
Buyer's Guide
Salesforce Essentials vs. Zoho CRM
June 2025
Free Report: Salesforce Essentials vs. Zoho CRM
Find out what your peers are saying about Salesforce Essentials vs. Zoho CRM and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
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