Zoho CRM vs Salesforce: which one to choose for your team in 2025?
Zoho CRM vs Salesforce: the duel of the B2B CRM titans continues to rattle sales managers!
On the one hand, there's Salesforce, the Californian behemoth, king of large companies, packed with features, automation and... complexity. On the other, Zoho CRM, a more agile, more affordable challenger that appeals to SMEs and sales teams looking for simplicity and efficiency.
So which one is right for you in 2025? Spoiler: it depends. But we're here to help you make up your mind, with real-world use cases, thoughtful comparison tables and, above all, a real-world analysis.
On the menu: features, pricing, getting started, integrations and usage scenarios. In short, everything we wanted to read before choosing our CRM.
What is Zoho CRM?
Overview of Zoho CRM
Zoho CRM is a bit of a CRM chameleon: adaptable, cost-effective, and designed to appeal to both agile SMEs and ambitious ETIs. Its promise? To provide a complete, customisable and accessible CRM, without requiring an army of consultants to set it up.
From customer tracking to sales automation and analytics, Zoho CRM ticks all the essential boxes, while remaining more intuitive (and less intimidating) than some of its historic competitors.
As far as customers are concerned, we find a wide range: Amazon India, Ducati, Bose, Hotstar... but also thousands of VSEs and SMEs around the world. Zoho CRM is particularly popular with :
- Sales teams who want to move fast (without drowning in technicalities),
- Managers who want to keep control of their data,
- And organisations that want to scale without blowing their budget.
In short, Zoho CRM is for people who want to do more, without getting bogged down.
Key features of Zoho CRM
What we love about Zoho CRM is that it's a modular toolbox, capable of adapting to the realities of each company's business. You don't have to be a multinational to take advantage of its superpowers.
Here are the key features that make it indispensable:
- Visual sales pipeline management, with an easy-to-use kanban system.
- Automation of sales tasks (emails, lead assignment, reminders) to save time on a daily basis.
- Intelligent lead scoring, based on customised rules or via Zia, our in-house AI.
- Advanced analysis and reporting tools, with dynamic dashboards and customisable reports.
- Integrated customer portal for B2B collaboration.
- Robust mobile applications, with geolocation of sales reps and offline access.
- Native integrations with the Zoho ecosystem (Books, Campaigns, Desk, etc.) and third-party tools (Google Workspace, Slack, Zapier, etc.).
Each brick can be activated or ignored according to your needs. It's a seamless, made-to-measure solution, designed for those who want to avoid gas factories.
Zoho CRM
Advantages and disadvantages of Zoho CRM
Zoho CRM plays the no-frills efficiency card, and we like it. Accessible, customisable and modular, it's an ideal ally for growing businesses. But like any good tool, it has its limits.
✅ Advantages
Before we talk about its shortcomings, let's give Zoho its due. Here's what users appreciate most in the field:
- Value for money that's hard to beat: for a fraction of the price of Salesforce, Zoho CRM offers a robust suite that covers most business needs, even advanced ones.
- A clear, customisable interface, even for non-specialists: views, fields and automations are easy to configure without the need for a developer.
- Highly flexible configuration: teams can adapt business processes without being constrained by a rigid architecture. Ideal for fast-moving SMEs.
- Powerful automation at the click of a button: emails, notifications, scoring, tasks... you can automate without coding, so you can focus your energy on selling, not on data entry.
- An ultra-connected Zoho ecosystem: by opting for Zoho CRM, you can connect natively to the other apps in the suite (Books, Campaigns, Desk, etc.), making workflows much smoother.
- Customer support judged to be responsive and competent: particularly on paid packages, feedback is generally positive about support.
❌ Drawbacks
But not everything is rosy either. Here are the main limitations identified by users, particularly on Capterra and G2:
- A sometimes abrupt rise to proficiency, especially when you activate several modules from the start. The interface is simple, but the Zoho ecosystem can quickly become dense.
- More limited advanced functionality than the market leaders. For example, the AI tools, complex forecasting and deep conditional automation are still below Salesforce.
- A mobile version that is still in need of improvement, with some slowness reported on certain key actions (particularly in offline zones).
- Less suited to very large companies, which need ultra-personalised, multi-entity or highly advanced cross-departmental processes.
What is Salesforce?
Overview of Salesforce
Salesforce is a bit like the Marvel of CRM: a sprawling, rich and powerful universe, but sometimes difficult to understand without a guide. It is designed for large companies with complex needs, a solid infrastructure and XXL ambitions.
The world leader in CRM for over a decade, Salesforce offers much more than a simple sales tool. It is a complete customer management platform, integrating sales, marketing, customer service, analytics, AI, automation... and even business application development via Salesforce Platform.
Its customers? L'Oréal, Air France, Amazon Web Services, Allianz, Coca-Cola... In short, some very big names. But there are also small and medium-sized businesses and scale-ups ready to invest to structure their large-scale growth.
Salesforce is particularly recommended for :
- Organisations with several sales teams, markets or regions to manage.
- Organisations that need a high level of customisation.
- Companies that want to centralise all their tools on a single platform.
Key features of Salesforce
Salesforce is not just a CRM, it's a galaxy in itself. Ultra-modular, scalable and powered by artificial intelligence, it enables you to manage the entire customer cycle, from initial contact to long-term customer loyalty.
Here's an overview of the key features that make Salesforce the benchmark for large organisations:
- Sales Cloud: complete management of leads, opportunities, accounts and contacts, with real-time tracking, sales forecasts and advanced scoring.
- Service Cloud: omnichannel customer support platform, with knowledge base, live chat, bots and intelligent routing of requests.
- Marketing Cloud: creation of ultra-personalised multi-channel campaigns, marketing automation, behavioural tracking and predictive scoring.
- Einstein AI: artificial intelligence made in Salesforce, integrated into all the building blocks (recommendations, forecasts, automatic responses, etc.).
- Powerful dashboards and analytics, with the ability to create highly granular bespoke reports.
- AppExchange: business application marketplace (free or paying), for adding functionality or connecting third-party tools.
- Salesforce Platform: a low-code/no-code development environment for creating your own CRM-integrated business applications.
Salesforce is the enterprise-ready Swiss Army knife of CRM: each brick can work on its own, but it's when you put them together that their true power is unleashed.
Salesforce Sales Cloud
Advantages and disadvantages of Salesforce
Salesforce impresses with its functional depth and its ability to adapt to almost any business context. But this level of ambition comes at a price - in time, budget and complexity.
✅ Benefits
Let's start with what makes it the favourite of major accounts and demanding sales departments:
- Unrivalled functional coverage: Salesforce manages the entire customer lifecycle - sales, service, marketing, loyalty - with a depth rarely equalled.
- An extreme level of customisation, at every level: objects, workflows, rules, views, fields, automations... everything can be modified.
- Well-integrated native artificial intelligence (Einstein ), capable of providing sales predictions, lead recommendations and intelligent automation.
- A gigantic application ecosystem with AppExchange, so you can add business modules, third-party integrations or extensions without coding.
- Perfect scalability for large organisations: multi-team, multi-language, multi-process... Salesforce can handle it all.
- Technical support and a highly structured partner network, with certified integrators all over the world.
❌ Drawbacks
But all this power has a downside: Salesforce is not a plug-and-play solution, especially for structures with limited resources.
- A very high overall cost, both on licences, add-on modules and integration. For SMEs, this is often a major obstacle.
- Complex parameterisation, often requiring the services of certified consultants or integrators (and this comes at a price).
- A dense and sometimes unintuitive interface, especially for non-tech profiles or newcomers. Onboarding can take a long time.
- A modular logic that can lose the user: with dozens of different products (Sales Cloud, Marketing Cloud, etc.), you often have to juggle between several interfaces.
- Some modules are slow to evolve, especially the older ones, which have not all benefited from the latest UX/UI improvements.
Zoho CRM vs Salesforce: compare features
Zoho CRM or Salesforce? Both excel in sales management, but their approaches, targets and functional depth vary widely. Here's a quick comparison before going into detail:
| Functionality | Zoho CRM | Salesforce |
| Lead management | Simple and effective | Ultra-customisable |
| Automated | No-code, accessible | Very powerful but complex |
| Artificial intelligence | Zia (integrated AI, limited) | Einstein (very advanced) |
| Customisation | High but guided | Unlimited (with dev or integrator) |
| Reporting & analytics | Solid, visual | Very advanced, multidimensional |
Focus 1: Lead and pipeline management
Zoho CRM offers intuitive lead management with a Kanban view, customisable fields and a fluid sales process. The tool is designed to centralise interactions, track conversions and prioritise prospects using lead scores.
Salesforce, on the other hand, takes this logic much further: very fine segmentation, complex qualification rules, conditional automation by profile, right through to the creation of customised business processes.
👉 To remember
Zoho is perfect for sales teams who want to get to the point quickly. Salesforce is designed to structure highly complex pipelines, with several levels of validation, teams or markets.
Focus 2: Sales automation
Zoho CRM lets you automate without coding: with just a few clicks, you can trigger an email, create a task or assign a lead according to simple rules.
Salesforce offers a much more powerful automation system (via Flow Builder), capable of managing complex, multi-stage scenarios, but which requires a real learning curve.
👉 To remember
Zoho gives power to operational teams. Salesforce gives the keys to systems architects.
Focus 3: Artificial intelligence
Zoho Zia, the embedded AI in Zoho CRM, offers recommendations for email sending times, predictive scoring and alerts on hot opportunities. It's practical, but not revolutionary.
Salesforce Einstein, on the other hand, is integrated into all the modules. It can forecast sales, recommend actions, analyse customer behaviour and even feed support bots.
👉 To remember
Zia is the intelligent sales assistant. Einstein is the data-driven strategist for large teams.
Focus 4: Customisation and flexibility
Zoho CRM offers good customisation, with customisable fields, modules, layouts and rules. But there are limits to what you can do without getting into APIs or advanced integrations.
Salesforce goes much further: everything is customisable, even business objects. With the Salesforce platform, you can literally build a bespoke business app.
👉 To remember
Zoho allows you to fine-tune without getting lost. Salesforce is customisation without a net.
Focus 5: Reporting and dashboards
Zoho CRM offers easy-to-configure dynamic reports, with a library of ready-to-use dashboards and the ability to create custom reports.
Salesforce excels here: its analytics engine is formidable, capable of cross-referencing several sources, creating conditional reports, and even powering predictions using Einstein.
👉 To remember
Zoho provides effortless visibility. Salesforce is the tool for demanding analysts and decision-makers.
Zoho CRM vs Salesforce: compare prices
Choosing between Zoho CRM and Salesforce also means choosing between two pricing models.
Zoho is clear, progressive and suitable for small organisations. Salesforce, on the other hand, offers a more complex pricing structure, designed for businesses with a capital E.
| Plan | Zoho CRM (per user/month) | Zoho CRM key features | Salesforce (Sales Cloud) (per user/month) | Key Salesforce features |
| Free trial | 15 days | Access to all features, including Zia AI | 30 days | Access to Sales Cloud, dummy data, limited AI |
| Standard | 20 € | Simple pipeline, basic automation, scoring, standard reporting | 25 (Essentials) | Contact and opportunity management, mobile, integrated email, but no advanced modules |
| Professional | 35 € | Customised automation, workflows, third-party integrations | 80 (Professional) | Validation rules, forecasts, dashboards, integration of external tools |
| Enterprise | 50 € | Custom modules, multi-step automation, hierarchical roles | 165 (Enterprise) | Complex workflows, basic Einstein AI, full API access |
| Ultimate / Unlimited | 65 € | Extended Zia AI, advanced support, sandbox, enhanced storage | 330 (Unlimited) | 24/7 support, advanced Einstein AI, unlimited dev environment, integration coaching |
| Einstein 1 (CRM + AI) | ❌ | - | From €500 | Complete CRM + AI + Data Cloud + Slack + Tableau suite. |
👉 To remember
- Zoho CRM also offers Zoho One, from €45/month, which includes more than 40 business apps, including CRM, billing, marketing, support, etc.
- Salesforce often charges for modules separately (Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, etc.), which can quickly push up the final bill.
Zoho CRM vs Salesforce: which interface is more intuitive?
A CRM's interface can make or break teams. Too complex, and it slows adoption. Too basic, and it limits efficiency. Here, Zoho CRM focuses on immediate simplicity, while Salesforce favours power, sometimes to the detriment of clarity.
We compared the two on 4 key UX criteria.
| UX criteria | Zoho CRM | Salesforce |
| Getting started | Quick, guided onboarding | Long, requires training |
| General ergonomics | Clean, modular interface | Dense interface with numerous menus |
| UI customisation | Good: page layout, fields, views | Very advanced: components, objects, apps |
| Mobile experience | Solid but sometimes slow | Powerful, well thought-out |
Fast analysis
Zoho CRM has a clear, modern interface that can be used directly by non-technical staff. The side menu is simple, the drag-and-drop pipelines are easy to read, and the views are easy to modify.
Salesforce, on the other hand, offers a more technical, dense interface, with numerous options and functional layers. It is designed for large teams with complex needs, but often requires support to be used properly.
👉 To remember
Zoho CRM is easier to get to grips with and is better suited to teams who want to move fast. Salesforce takes time to reveal its full value, but offers unrivalled depth once mastered.
Zoho CRM vs Salesforce: compare integrations
A good CRM is also one that integrates perfectly with your stack: marketing tools, customer support, billing, e-commerce, etc.
On this front, Salesforce dominates thanks to its massive ecosystem, while Zoho CRM makes up for this with its native connectivity with the Zoho suite and the most popular tools.
Here's our assessment:
| Criteria | Zoho CRM | Salesforce |
| Number of native integrations | ★★★★☆ (300+ apps) | ★★★★★ (5000+ via AppExchange) |
| Ease of connection | ★★★★☆ | ★★★☆☆ |
| Automation with Zapier/Make | ★★★★☆ | ★★★★☆ |
| Depth of integration | ★★★☆☆ | ★★★★★ |
Zoho CRM: useful, simple, productivity-oriented integrations
Zoho CRM offers over 300 ready-to-use integrations, covering the great classics:
- Email & collaboration: Gmail, Outlook, Microsoft 365, Google Workspace
- Marketing & automation: Mailchimp, ActiveCampaign, WhatsApp, Zoho Campaigns
- Sales & prospecting: LinkedIn Sales Navigator, Zoom, Slack
- Customer support: Zoho Desk, Zendesk, TeamSupport
- Payment & billing: Stripe, Zoho Books, QuickBooks
- Automation: Zapier, Make, webhooks
The Zoho ecosystem (more than 40 in-house apps) is a huge advantage: all applications share a common base, with native synchronisation and no fiddling.
Integrations are easy to activate, directly from the Zoho CRM interface. And for specific needs, you can use connectors like Zapier or Make to automate without coding.
Limitations: some third-party integrations are not as deep as with Salesforce (e.g. advanced marketing automation or complex ERP connectors), and niche B2B tools are not always available.
Salesforce: the most extensive ecosystem... but sometimes complex
Salesforce, via the AppExchange, offers more than 5,000 compatible applications, going far beyond the traditional ones.
These include :
- ERP: SAP, Oracle NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics
- Marketing automation: HubSpot, Marketo, Pardot, ActiveCampaign
- Customer service: Zendesk, Genesys, Intercom
- E-commerce: Shopify, Magento, BigCommerce
- Data & analytics: Tableau, Power BI, Segment
- Dev & back-office: Jira, GitHub, Slack, DocuSign, Snowflake
The advantage? These integrations can be deeply configured: advanced field mapping, bi-directional synchronisation, conditional logic, nested automation, etc.
But beware: this richness comes at a technical and financial cost. Integrating Salesforce with a business tool often requires the intervention of an administrator or a certified partner. And each addition may involve licence or implementation fees.
👉 To remember
- Zoho CRM offers simple, practical and effective integrations for 90% of common applications. The Zoho ecosystem is a real bonus for companies that want to centralise without complicating matters.
- Salesforce offers almost unlimited integration possibilities, with unrivalled depth. But this requires time, expertise and often a good budget.
When should you choose Zoho CRM or Salesforce?
Still not sure? To get a clearer picture, let's forget about the technical specs for a minute and ask ourselves the real question: which CRM is best suited to your day-to-day business?
If you're an SME or a scale-up looking for agility... Zoho CRM is probably your best ally.
It's the logical choice if :
- You have a small sales team (fewer than 50 users),
- You're looking for a solution that's quick to implement, with no need for consultants or lengthy training sessions,
- You want to centralise customer management with a simple, visual tool that's capable of evolving,
- You already use Zoho tools (Books, Desk, Campaigns...) or you want an all-in-one suite,
- You have a tight budget but don't want to sacrifice performance.
If you're a large company or a multi-team group... Salesforce becomes hard to avoid.
It's the right choice if:
- You have several teams or divisions to manage (sales, support, marketing),
- Your business processes are complex and require extensive customisation,
- You're looking for a single platform to connect all your business tools (ERP, marketing automation, analytics, etc.),
- You have stringent requirements in terms of governance, security and compliance,
- You're ready to invest in a scalable solution with professional support.
In short: Salesforce is the platform for structuring and industrialising your customer management on a massive scale. But you need time, resources... and a real deployment strategy.
Things to remember about the Zoho CRM vs Salesforce battle
Zoho CRM and Salesforce are not exactly playing in the same league.
But that's precisely what makes the match interesting: one focuses on simplicity and agility, the other on power and scalability.
We're not talking about a good or bad tool here, but a strategic choice based on your context, your organisation and your priorities.
Here's a table to help you decide, based on your real needs:
| Your needs | We recommend... | Why do we recommend it? |
| Get started quickly with a complete CRM | Zoho CRM | Quick installation, intuitive interface, affordable price |
| Support growth in SMEs | Zoho CRM | Flexibility, automation, customisation without complexity |
| Structure a complex sales process | Salesforce | Advanced workflows, hierarchical roles, advanced customisation |
| Manage multiple teams or regions | Salesforce | Scalability, multi-organisation, fine segmentation |
| Connect CRM to ERP or data tools | Salesforce | Extensive ecosystem, deep integrations, AppExchange |
| Budget < €60 / user / month | Zoho CRM | Transparent pricing, no hidden costs |
| Internalise administration without a technical expert | Zoho CRM | Ease of use, no-code automation |
| Build a customised customer platform | Salesforce | Salesforce Platform, low-code/no-code development |
👉 Verdict
- Are you an SME, start-up or scale-up in growth mode? Zoho CRM offers you an efficient, scalable and cost-effective CRM solution.
- Are you a large company with several teams, demanding processes and a need for governance? Salesforce remains the benchmark platform.
FAQ on Zoho CRM vs Salesforce
Which CRM is easier to learn?
Zoho CRM. It's designed to be up and running quickly, even without an IT team. Its interface is intuitive, and onboarding is guided. Salesforce often requires training or support to be fully mastered.
Which CRM is best suited to small businesses?
Zoho CRM again. Its pricing model is affordable, its features are modular, and it's perfectly suited to small businesses that want to structure their sales without making their day-to-day work more complex.
Is Salesforce too big for SMEs?
Not necessarily... but often, yes. Salesforce deploys its full power in complex environments. For an SME with simple to medium-sized needs, Zoho CRM is generally better suited (and less expensive to maintain).
Which offers the best value for money?
Zoho CRM, without a doubt. It offers a complete CRM from €20/month, with automation, scoring, reporting and even basic AI. Salesforce becomes cost-effective if you make full use of its capabilities... but the entry ticket is much higher.
Which CRM offers the most customisation?
Salesforce, by far. You can modify almost any object, process, view, rule... or even create your own business applications with Salesforce Platform. Zoho offers good customisation, but in a more guided way.
Which CRM integrates best with other tools?
Salesforce, thanks to its AppExchange and powerful APIs. It is designed to interact with ERP systems, BI tools, e-commerce platforms, etc. Zoho CRM is still powerful, especially in the Zoho ecosystem, but is more limited in terms of depth.
Do the two CRMs offer integrated AI?
Yes. Zoho offers Zia, which helps with scoring, forecasting and business analysis. Salesforce offers Einstein, which is much more advanced, capable of providing predictive insights, recommendations and intelligent automation on a large scale.
Can I test Zoho CRM or Salesforce for free?
Yes, Zoho CRM offers a 15-day free trial of all its features. Salesforce offers a 30-day trial on Sales Cloud with fictitious data to simulate real use.
Article translated from French