Is Zoho Free? Which Zoho Apps Have Free Plans (and when you'll outgrow them)

You hit 5,000 records. Every logged call, task and meeting counts towards the cap alongside contacts and deals, so an active team can reach it sooner than expected. The Standard subscription lifts the limit to 100,000.

You need to capture your own data. Free has no custom fields or custom modules, so you're limited to Zoho's standard fields. For most businesses, this is the first real friction point, well before the user cap.

You want CRM connected to Zoho Books. The Zoho Finance integration (Books, Invoice, Expense, Inventory and Billing) starts at the Professional edition, not Standard.

You need more of the basics. A fourth user, custom reports and dashboards, multiple pipelines, more than one web form, multi-currency and sales forecasting all start at Standard.

You hit 500 records. Activities and notes count alongside contacts and deals, so 500 goes quickly for anyone logging calls and follow-ups. Express lifts the limit to 50,000.

You want to add a colleague. Free is strictly one user. Paid plans are priced per user, with no cap on team size.

You want your inbox and accounting connected. Email integration (Gmail, Outlook and Zoho Mail), WhatsApp Business, Google and Microsoft calendar and contact sync, Zoho Books, Zoho Invoice and QuickBooks integrations, and payment links all start at Express. That's a notably lower entry point for accounting integration than Zoho CRM, which needs its Professional edition to connect to Zoho Books.

You need more of everything. If you need to run separate pipelines for sales, onboarding and projects, need custom fields to capture specific data, or need more automation, it might be time to upgrade to a paid plan.

Revenue passes A$50,000 a year. This is the hard limit, and it arrives quickly for any business that's growing.

You're tired of importing bank statements. Automatic bank and credit card feeds start at Standard. On free, you import statements and reconcile manually.

Someone else needs access. Free is one user plus your accountant. Standard includes 3 users, with predefined user roles and transaction locking so you can control who changes what.

You need to track what you owe, not just what you're owed. Bills, vendor credits, purchase orders and sales orders all start at Professional, along with project time tracking and billing, multi-currency contacts, stock tracking and workflow automation.

You need a fourth agent. Free is capped at 3 users. Zoho Desk's entry paid plan, Express, allows 5, and Standard and above are unlimited.

You want tickets to route themselves. Free has no workflow rules or assignment rules. Express adds basic workflows and assignment rules, and Standard adds SLAs, time-based rules and more automation.

You need to capture your own data. Free has no custom fields or custom views. Express adds 10 custom fields per module.

You want Desk connected to your other apps. The Zoho CRM, Bigin and Zoho Books integrations start at Standard, so a free Desk account can't show sales or billing context alongside tickets.

You need a fourth project. This is the most common trigger. Premium, Zoho Projects' entry paid plan, removes the project cap and lifts storage to 100 GB.

You need to track time or bill for it. Timesheets, time log approvals and project budgets all start at Premium.

You want Projects connected to your finance apps. The Zoho Books, Zoho Invoice, Zoho Expense and Zoho Analytics integrations start at Premium, and the Zoho Desk integration at Enterprise.

You repeat the same kinds of projects. Your own project templates, recurring tasks, task durations and custom views start at Premium.

You need to capture your own data. Custom fields on tasks, projects and milestones start at Enterprise, along with custom roles and the critical path.

You need a fourth form or more submissions. Basic, Zoho Forms' entry paid plan, gives you unlimited forms and 10,000 submissions a month, with more storage.

You want forms that look like your brand. Custom themes, a custom domain in form links, a welcome page and redirection all start at Basic.

You need smarter forms. Advanced conditional rules, respondent edits after submission, translation, OTP verification and double opt-in start at Basic.

Someone else needs access. Free and Basic are both single-user. Collaborators, permissions, multi-level approvals and task assignment start at Standard, which includes 10 users.

You want to connect your business apps. This is the big one. Free has no business app connectors, so it can't sync directly with Zoho CRM, Zoho Books, Zoho Desk, Xero or Shopify. Basic, Zoho Analytics' entry paid plan, lets you connect any 2 apps and adds their ready-made reports and dashboards. Standard opens up 50+ connectors.

Your data passes 10,000 rows. Rows are counted across every table, so real business data passes this quickly. Basic lifts the limit to 500,000 rows and Standard to 1 million.

You want reports delivered automatically. Scheduled email reports start at Basic, and data alerts at Standard.

You want to ask questions in plain English. Ask Zia's conversational analytics starts at Standard, with automated insights at Premium.

Your list or send volume grows. Once you pass 2,000 contacts or want to send more than three campaigns a month, you'll need Standard. Paid plans are priced by contact count and include unlimited emails.

You want to schedule campaigns. Scheduling campaigns to send later starts at Standard.

You want automated journeys. Automated workflows, such as welcome series and follow-ups triggered by a form submission or list signup, start at Standard. Abandoned cart and purchase follow-up workflows start at Professional.

You want to target and test. Segmentation, A/B testing and file attachments start at Standard. Advanced segmentation, contact scoring, dynamic content and send-time optimisation start at Professional. 

Meetings run long or need recording. Free meetings end at 60 minutes and can't be recorded. Standard extends meetings to 24 hours and adds call recording.

You want Cliq branded and managed properly. A custom domain, logo and custom email start at Standard. User roles, channel permissions, teams and Zoho Projects task integration start at Professional, which has a 10-user minimum.

Your chat history matters. Free search only reaches your most recent 10,000 messages. Standard makes every message searchable.

You need to share passwords with your team. This is the key limit. Free Vault is a personal password manager, and secure sharing, one-time sharing with outside parties and inviting users all start at Standard.

You need admin control. User provisioning and roles, password expiry alerts, IP restrictions, cloud backup, user activity reports and Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 integration start at Standard.

You want shared folders and breach alerts. User groups, shared folders, breached password alerts and emergency break-glass access start at Professional, which has a 5-user minimum.

What is Zoho One? A Beginner's Guide (2026)

Zoho One Pricing: Which Licensing Model Actually Costs You Less?