Close vs. Zoho

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.

t’s important to note that this comparison guide is for Zoho—not Zoho Bigin (which is a newer, separate product).

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.