BEFORE YOU SUBSCRIBE TO ZOHO CRM: BEWARE OF ZOHO CORP'S UNETHICAL UPGRADE PRACTICES

BEFORE YOU SUBSCRIBE TO ZOHO CRM: BEWARE OF ZOHO CORP'S UNETHICAL UPGRADE PRACTICES

I am the Principal Advisor for a Business Consulting firm that specializes in helping start-up and small businesses achieve better returns through business process automation.  During these past 7 years, my associates and I have always recommended Zoho CRM to HUNDREDS of business and have worked on customizing at least 15 Zoho CRM packages for our clients.  We also have been using Zoho CRM ourselves since 2007, so we are expertly proficient with Zoho CRM and are VERY familiar with the life cycle development of the software as it's been changed over the years.

When Zoho first launched in 2005, it touted itself as the "free" full featured CRM and included most of the core CRM functionality available at the time in it's free offering.  Zoho touted it's CRM package as the free alternative to Salesforce.com, and literally boasted about how inexpensive (FREE) and complete the Zoho CRM was.

However over the past 5 years (particularly when Zoho changed it's name to Zoho CORP in 2009), we've watched Zoho parse out core system functionalities into differing "Levels" of subscriptions in their attempt to create a compelling upgrade path that would lead to revenue.  Since all of the major changes to their pricing and subscription model had been announced and documented appropriately in the past, we were never HAPPY about being pigeon-holed into subscription "upgrades" (who would be?), but every business needs to work towards profitability and with changes being communicated appropriately, we've always said "Fair Enough"... Until Today.

We had a recent start-up company join us as a client, and like many others, they had a need for a CRM.  After checking the latest ZOHO CRM release notes, sales documents, and basic help pages online, we didn't notice anything that would change our standard recommendation.  The client accepted our proposal and commissioned us to launch and customize the ZOHO CRM package for them, like we have done for tens of other companies in the past.

We exercised the Zoho CRM 15 day Trial period for the client (which now is set to the "Professional" level apparently and began importing data for the client.  We also began setting up custom fields for the client as needed.  Today, as the trial period had expired, we advised this same client to pick up 2 user licenses at the "Standard" level prepaid for $288/year.  The client notified us that the licenses were purchased and we were clear to wrap up their customization.  We fired up the ZOHO CRM interface this morning to finish the final custom field setup, and to our horror, we encountered an unexpected system alert when trying to create a custom field saying "Sorry, you cannot create more custom fields in your edition".  


Now, usually when this happens, it's because ZOHO Corp had once again systematically reconfigured their subscription level offerings to compel people to convert to a higher paid subscription levels, and after a little digging, we would find the supporting documentation affirming their nickle-and dime tactics.  However this time, there was NO documentation of any limitations on the number of Custom Fields you can have at ANY level.  In fact, quite the contrary. 

As you can see in the following screenshot taken from the PDF download located at Here: Compare Zoho CRM Editions page, you will see that there is simply a check box next to the STANDARD, PROFESSIONAL, ENTERPRISE, and CRM PLUS subscriptions (Not FREE edition - although Custom Fields used to be free).


We, like any other reasonable consumer expected that, If Custom Fields are included in a subscription, there would be no limits on them.  After contacting a Zoho Customer Support Chat Agent named Pranesh Gopalakrishnan, we learned that, not only is there a limit of Custom Fields, but there are differing quantities of Custom Fields that Zoho Corp will allow you to have in the current CRM offering PER EDITION and PER MODULE?!?  

Yes, apparently now, you only get 10 custom fields/module in the STANDARD edition, 150 custom fields/module in the PROFESSIONAL edition, and 300 custom fields/module in the ENTERPRISE edition.  So now, after spending 25+ hours importing our Client data into Zoho CRM, customizing the package for them, and having them pay the quoted price of $288, we cannot deliver the customized CRM package that we promised.  

While chatting, explained the situation to Mr. Gopalakrishnan our Client's situation.  Pranesh explained that the only way to expand custom fields was for our Client to purchase another 2 user licenses at the PROFESSIONAL edition level for $480 MORE?!?

At this point, we had two choices; 1. Explain the oversight to our client and ask for, or cover the additional $480 for the two user licenses or 2. Revoke our long standing ZOHO CRM recommendation we have provided our clients for the past 5 years, researching another CRM package to replace ZOHO CRM, and then spend countless hours learning the new system, customizing it for our client's needs and exporting, and entering all of the data again that we had in this Client's Standard ZOHO CRM edition. 

.....OR maybe a 3rd option. Hope that Zoho CORP was willing to exercise some responsibility and good faith to cover their oversight and enable additional custom fields for this client at their current STANDARD subscription level.  

I asked Pranesh to chat with a Supervisor.  After waiting a few minutes, a lady named "Robin" took over the chat and once again explained the situation over text.  I let Robin know that, prior to signing this client up, we reviewed the sales / help documents here:   https://www.zoho.com/crm/comparison.html, and here:   https://www.zoho.com/crm/help/customization/field-level-customization.html, with NO MENTION of limits on custom fields.  After some awkward silence, Robin produces ONE link to an obscure help file buried in their help system that would elude even the most diligent seekers in a sales cycle:  https://www.zoho.com/crm/help/erutaef321.html 

I explained to Supervisor Robin that we feel trapped into upgrading our Client to a higher, significantly more expensive subscription level that they otherwise would not need if they had access to custom fields AS ADVERTISED.  I also explained that IMHO, most people would find it VERY misleading to have ANY limits on Custom Fields without advertising the change in advance on ZOHO CRM's online sales literature.  I concluded that, after all of the business that we had sent to ZOHO CRM over the years, we would expect them to at least comp an upgrade for our client from STANDARD to PROFESSIONAL, and correct their misleading sales documentation in order to prevent trapping more people into upgrades with unethical advertising and questionable free trial practices. 

In essence, I explained that in this case, we're not willing to pay any more for what we should already have (according to the online Zoho CRM Edition comparison), and have had in the past.  Supervisor Robin, said that she would arrange for a quick callback from the respective Account Manager.  I waited HOURS and NO CALL.  

Hours later, I finally receive and email from Ricky Thakrar, Regional Sales Manager | North and South America.  I'm thinking, "Now we're getting somewhere".  In his email to me, Mr. Thakrar says "You are correct it does not say on the main pricing page the specific number of custom fields per edition as it is a feature comparison page. It only says this information in the detailed technical comparison page on our user guide which shows features and limits."  Mr. Thakrar then goes on to say (without apology or missing a beat), "In order to get 150 custom fields, you will need to upgrade to the Professional edition".  WHAT!!??  Our Client really only needs 5 more!

Upset at wasting the whole day trying to resolve this, and pursing the situation now just on a matter of principal, I tracked down the phone number to  Mr. Thakrar's office   (877-834-4428, Option #1) and asked to speak to Mr. Thakrar regarding an email I just received from him.  After being on hold for approx.4 minutes, the gentleman who initially answered comes back on the phone, and nervously (lying??) explains that it appears Mr. Thakrar is on another scheduled call with another client and is unable to take my call.  The gent goes on to ask if I would be willing to talk to a Regional Account Manager.  I asked if that person had the authority to override / upgrade a subscription level to accommodate my Client's custom fields issue, and the gentleman says "Yes".   I agree to be forwarded to Cliffton Kent, Regional Account Manager.

I once again explain the situation to Mr. Kent, who tells me that he recognizes that their central comparison chart is misleading to the consumers, and that should be corrected.  He also understands what an inconvenience it would be to find out about the Custom Field limitations after the fact of entering data for 2 weeks in a Free Trial set to the PROFESSIONAL Edition, and later paying for a lesser subscription without knowledge of the limitation.  Mr. Kent said that he does not, nor does ANYBODY else at Zoho Corp have the ability to comp a free upgrade to our Client so that they can have access to the advertised functionality.  Mr. Kent does say that he will take the matter up with "management" and "go to bat" for my client.  Mr. Kent then emails me a bit later saying "We did discuss your concern with our management. Unfortunately, it is not possible for us to upgrade the Zoho CRM account from Standard to Professional (for free). Sorry to disappoint you."

As a now former team of Zoho CRM Evangelists for the past 7 years, words cannot express our disappointment in this decision   If we accomplish nothing else, we hope that you will help spread the word as far and as wide about this latent limitation, or as we see it, Zoho CRM upgrade trap that has been crafted and honed by the ZOHO CORP.  As it stands, we are going to work overtime into the night and through tomorrow to try to find an ethically sold and supported product.  Unless ZOHO reverses their present course, WE CANNOT AND WILL NOT CONTINUE TO SUPPORT ZOHO CORP'S FALSE ADVERTISING AN UNETHICAL PRACTICES IN PIGEON-HOLING NEW CUSTOMERS INTO OVERPRICED ZOHO CRM PACKAGES. We would rather suffer through this situation, than be further subjected to ZOHO's legal extortion tactics.  

So, now you know ;-)  Hopefully, Zoho will understand that space is cheap, and that unlimited Custom Fields IS a core CRM function (as it was in past ZOHO CRM versions).  Maybe someone at  will see the error of their ways and will work to include unlimited Custom Fields as part of a STANDARD subscription license.  Until then,  I will try to follow-up with a post detailing the new CRM we will be recommending in the future.

Rick B.

    • Recent Topics

    • How can I track which zoho users are actively using Zoho CRM

      I have several licenses of Zoho CRM. We now need to add a new user. I could purchase a new license, but before I do, I would like to see if any of our existing users are not actively using the license assigned to them. How can I determine the activity

    • Is anyone else having trouble saving a custom image in their email signature, or is it just me?

      When I try to save the image I get an error that says "Operation Failed" I opened a support ticket two weeks ago and received a response that it would be debugged, but it still isn’t working

    • Combine and hide invoice lines

      In quickbooks we are able to create a invoice line that combines and hides invoices lines below. eg. Brochure design         $1000 (total of lines below, the client can see this line) Graphic Design           $600 (hidden but entered to reporting and

    • Transaction Locking with the dynamic date

      Is it possible to dynamically update dates on transaction locking. We want to lock transaction x days from today

    • Zoho Devops

      We have a Zoho one account which we have integrated with an SAS educational product, sold on a subscription model, using webhooks and API calls. We make some use of custom fields and cross module lookups and relationships. We utilize CRM, Books and billing

    • Fuel up your sales with the Zoho SalesIQ + Bigin integration

      Hi everyone! We’re happy to bring you the all-new Zoho SalesIQ + Bigin integration. With this, every prospect from your website instantly becomes a contact in Bigin, complete with transcripts and follow-up tasks, so you never lose a lead again. Let's

    • Introducing AI-powered Assessments & Zoho's native LLM, Zia

      We’ve shipped a cleaner, faster way to create assessments in Zoho Recruit. 🚀 Instead of manually building question banks or copying old templates, you can now generate ready-to-use assessments in just a few clicks, all tailored to the role you’re hiring

    • Ability to Reset Visitor Fields During an Active Chat Flow

      Hello Zoho SalesIQ Team, We hope you are doing well. We would like to propose a feature enhancement to Zoho SalesIQ regarding the management of visitor fields within Zobot flows. Use Case: Our bot asks the visitor to provide information about a 3rd person

    • External ID in Zoho CRM

      Hello everyone! We know that Zoho CRM allows you to integrate third-party apps and manipulate data through APIs. While you integrate a third-party application, you may want to store the third-party reference IDs in Zoho CRM's records. To meet this need

    • Some emails are not being delivered

      I have this problem where some of my mail just seems to disappear. When I send it, it appears as sent with no mention of any problem, but my recipient never gets it, not even in the Spam folder. Same for receiving, I have a secondary e-mail address, and

    • New in Zoho Chat : Search for contacts, files, links & conversations with the all new powerful 'Smart Search' bar.

      With the newly revamped 'Smart Search' bar in Zoho Chat, we have made your search for contacts, chats, files and links super quick and easy using Search Quantifiers.   Search for a contact or specific conversations using quantifiers, such as, from: @user_name - to find chats or channel conversations received from a specific user. to: @user_name - to find chats or channel conversations sent to a specific user. in: #channel_name - to find a particular instance in a channel. in: #chat_name - to find

    • Template modifiactions

      Hello, I am struggling with the templates in ZOHO Books. Especially with the placement of some items, like company address, ship to, bill to etc.  For example: One item I like from template X (placement of ship to and bill to next to each other in the

    • Aggregating the First Value in the Group By of a dataset

      Hi I am trying to get the following Aggregate Formula to work in my chart, but cannot seem to get the right format. I have a series of data that I am running an include_groupby and want to SUM only a column in the first row of each group. So for example.

    • Admin Control Over Profile Picture Visibility in Zoho One

      Hello Zoho Team, We hope you are doing well. Currently, as per Zoho’s design, each user can manage the visibility of their profile picture from their own Zoho Accounts page: accounts.zoho.com → Personal Information → Profile Picture → Profile Picture

    • Track Zoho Campaign and Workflow sales impact

      I am attempting to measure the performance of our marketing workflows and campaigns by comparing the date each campaign was sent to a contact with the purchase date of the contact. For example, if Contact A was sent Email A on 9/1 and made a purchase

    • Tables for Europe Datacenter customers?

      It's been over a year now for the launch of Zoho Tables - and still not available für EU DC customers. When will it be available?

    • What is a line break code for zoho?

      Hi, I am archiving data by adding values from a single line field from one form to a multi-line field in another form. So I need a code/function that starts a new line on that multi-line field so it does not just keep adding it on the same line. Example, doing something like this means that it will be on a same line. archive.field1 = archive.field1 + input.Field1 I need a code so the input.Field1 can just start on the next line. Instead of "value 1, 2,3,4,5" It will be: "1 2 3 4 etc.".  something

    • Automatic Project Owner change

      Is there a way to change Project Owner automatically once a specific Milestone in a project is marked as completed. Different Teams are working on projects in our Org, they have their own Milestones to complete and so we transfer the project from team

    • Button to add product to cart

      Is there a way to have a button on a page, that when clicked, will add Qty 1 of a product to the cart?

    • Problem with Submit Button Design

      I have made a template to apply to my forms and under the button controls, I have it set to "standard" and yet it's still filling the container. This is super frustrating and looks weird. Why do we not have full control over button size? How can I fix

    • Zoho CRM- Authorize your Microsoft Teams account issue

      Hi, I tried to link Zoho CRM with Teams and I got the following message: Clicking "Authorize now" sent me to the following page, Microsoft tried to start a session but, after 3 seconds the page closed and nothing happened. I get the same message each

    • Passing the CRM

      Hi, I am hoping someone can help. I have a zoho form that has a CRM lookup field. I was hoping to send this to my publicly to clients via a text message and the form then attaches the signed form back to the custom module. This work absolutely fine when

    • Is there a way to associate an email in ZOHO Main to a Vendor record in ZOHO CRM

      My situation is as below, I have a vendor in ZOHO CRM lets say "Vend A" and an associated contact, "Cont A" If Cont A sends me an email using the email I've registered in the contact record the standard OOTB email sync will work. But the vendor has some

    • Bank charges are applied. Please select a bank account.

      Hello, I'm trying to add bank charges to a customer payment, but I get the error message "Bank charges are applied. Please select a bank account." I found this old thread, where it says that I need to "select a Bank account for the 'Deposit To' dropdown

    • Kaizen #207 - Answering your Questions | Advanced Queries using COQL API

      Hi everyone, and welcome to another Kaizen week! As part of Kaizen #200 milestone, many of you shared topics you would like us to cover, and we have been addressing them one by one over the past few weeks. Today, we are picking up one of those requests

    • Présentation de SecureForms dans Zoho Vault

      Soyons francs : demander à quelqu’un de transmettre un mot de passe ou des informations sensibles n’est jamais une tâche facile. On attend, on relance, parfois de nombreuses fois. Et quand l’information arrive, elle se retrouve souvent dispersée dans

    • Introducing Connected Records to bring business context to every aspect of your work in Zoho CRM for Everyone

      Hello Everyone, We are excited to unveil phase one of a powerful enhancement to CRM for Everyone - Connected Records, available only in CRM's Nextgen UI. With CRM for Everyone, businesses can onboard all customer-facing teams onto the CRM platform to

    • Granular Email Forwarding Controls in Zoho Mail (Admin Console and Zoho One)

      Hello Zoho Mail Team, How are you? At present, the Zoho Mail Admin Console allows administrators to configure email forwarding for an entire mailbox, forwarding all incoming emails to another address. This is helpful for delegation or backup purposes,

    • Sales order & purchase order item links for item details

      This is fantastic for checking lots of things, I use it a lot. It would be great to see it extended to invoices & bills On another note, may as well throw in my favourite whinge ..... Wish you guys would get the PO receive differences sorted urgently,

    • Zoho Workdrive - Communication / Chat Bar

      Hi Team, Please consider adding an option to allow admins to turn on or off the Zoho Communication Bar. Example of what I mean by Communication Bar: It's such a pain sometimes when I'm in WorkDrive and I want to share a link to a file with a colleague

    • Kaizen #190 - Queries in Custom Related Lists

      Hello everyone! Welcome back to another week of Kaizen! This week, we will discuss yet another interesting enhancement to Queries. As you all know, Queries allow you to dynamically retrieve data from CRM as well as third-party services directly within

    • Need the ability to have read only fields on a form.

      There needs to be functionality in Creator that allows a field on a form to be read only. Most screen building software applications have this capability. I know you can hide certain fields from specific users and that you can also make the whole form read only but that's not the functionality I need. I want to be able to create a form where certain fields are editable and other are for display purposes only (read only). For example if the form was displaying information on an item that the user

    • Reverse payment on accidentally closed invoice.

      An invoice was closed accidentally with the full payment added. However, only partial payment was paid. How can I reopen the invoice and reverse this to update it to show partial payment?

    • New integration: Track booking page appointments in Google Analytics 4

      Hello all, Greetings from the Zoho Bookings team! We’re excited to introduce our new Google Analytics 4 (GA4) integration designed to help you track booking activity, understand customer behavior, and measure marketing performance, all in one place. What

    • How to list emails in a folder, e.g. Inbox, on multiple pages when using Zoho mail webpage?

      Something as shown in the figure. There are totally 50 emails in Sent folder. If "Mail per page" equals 20, then the Sent folder is split into 3 pages. When I wander through Sent folder, I can just select a specific page to jump to. BTW, it seems that

    • Zoho Calendar soft bounce on @hotmail.com and @yahoo.com email addresses

      Hello, our Zoho calendar recently does not send the calendar invites to emails with hotmail and yahoo domains and comes back with a "soft bounce". other domains like Gmail works fine. Also sending "email" to the same emails to the above domains work well

    • ERROR CODE :512 - 5.4.4 DNS error:NXDOMAIN.

      Suddenly we cant send mail, we are getting this error for all outbound mail to multiple domains.

    • Can Zoho Flows repeat Actions more than once?

      I'm attempting to make an intentional Zoho Flow loop using the below layout. However, when "WithinLimit" condition is met, the program fails to execute the action "Get & Add Request Co..." again. Is this by design? Is Zoho Flows unable to repeat actions

    • Unveiling Cadences: Redefining CRM interactions with automated sequential follow-ups

      Last modified on 01/04/2024: Cadences is now available for all Zoho CRM users in all data centres (DCs). Note that it was previously an early access feature, available only upon request, and was also known as Cadences Studio. As of April 1, 2024, it's

    • customer data security

      We are exploring ways to enhance our within Zoho CRM. Our Goal: We want to fully integrate RingCentral with Zoho CRM to enable click-to-call functionality for our sales team. However, to comply with data privacy regulations and protect customer contact

    • Next Page