Zoho vs HIghLevel

Choosing the right CRM for your business can be challenging, especially with popular options like Zoho and HighLevel offering a wide range of features. The question is: which one aligns better with your existing tech stack? Zoho is known for its robust sales automation and multi-channel communication tools, making it a strong choice for businesses focused on streamlining sales processes. HighLevel, on the other hand, specializes in digital marketing automation, making it a go-to platform for agencies. In this blog post , we’ll compare the strengths and pricing of both platforms to help you choose the best CRM for your needs. We'll also introduce folk, a popular alternative that has become a firm favourite.

What is Zoho?

Zoho is a CRM system with a strong sales focus. It has journey orchestration, sales process management, and workflow automation features. There's also something for marketing teams, including event management and customer segmentation.

Key features of Zoho

• Sales automation: Automates sales tasks like lead management, deal tracking, and follow-up actions.
• Customizable dashboards and reports: Allows users to create and customize dashboards and reports for in-depth analytics.
• Multi-channel communication: Integrates with email, phone, social media, and live chat to manage customer interactions.
• Lead and contact management: Manages customer information, tracks interactions, and segments contacts for targeted campaigns.
• Workflow automation: Automates routine tasks and processes to improve efficiency and reduce manual effort.
• AI-powered sales assistant (Zia): Provides predictive analytics, task automation, and intelligent suggestions to enhance sales performance.

What is HighLevel?

HighLevel is a comprehensive platform designed to streamline digital marketing efforts for agencies and businesses. It offers features such as lead capture, automated booking, customer nurturing, and membership site creation. The platform provides tools to help agencies build their digital marketing engine, automate workflows, and drive business growth. It also includes a white-label option for agencies.

Key features of HighLevel

• Lead capture tools: HighLevel provides customizable forms, surveys, and landing pages to help businesses effectively capture and manage leads.
• Automated workflows: Automate tasks like follow-ups, appointment scheduling, and reminders, saving time and ensuring consistent communication.
• Customer nurturing tools: Engage with leads through email campaigns, text messages, and automated drip sequences to convert them into loyal customers.
• Membership site creation: Build and manage membership sites directly within the platform, offering valuable resources or courses to clients.
• White-label platform: Agencies can fully brand HighLevel as their own, delivering a seamless experience to their clients.

Zoho vs. HighLevel: Feature Comparison

Let's break down the key features of two CRM software solutions and take a closer look at their sales automation, email marketing tools, user experience, and more.

1. Sales Pipeline Management

Zoho CRM's pipeline management feature provides a visual overview of the sales process, allowing users to track deals at various stages and manage the flow of opportunities effectively. HighLevel CRM’s sales pipeline management feature enables businesses to create pipelines tailored to their sales processes. It provides tools to track leads, monitor deal progress, and view opportunities through a dashboard.

2. Ease of use

Zoho CRM offers a user-friendly interface with customizable dashboards and intuitive navigation, making it accessible for users of all experience levels. HighLevel CRM, while feature-rich, may present a steeper learning curve due to its extensive customization options, requiring more time to fully optimize its capabilities.

3. Contact enrichment

Zoho CRM's contact enrichment feature, powered by its AI assistant Zia, automatically updates and enriches records using data from various online sources. The feature can fill in missing details, such as email addresses, phone numbers, company information, and social media profiles. HighLevel CRM does not appear to offer dedicated contact enrichment features.

4. Outreach

Zoho CRM supports multichannel outreach, enabling businesses to connect with leads through email, social media, and other platforms. The platform automates workflows such as lead assignment and follow-up reminders, while AI-driven sentiment analysis helps prioritize customer responses for timely engagement. HighLevel CRM includes outreach tools such as email campaigns, text messaging, and automated sequences. These features are designed to facilitate communication with leads and customers, offering businesses multiple ways to manage interactions and follow-ups directly within the platform. However, the range of options may require time to configure and optimize for specific outreach strategies.

5. Automation

Zoho CRM provides comprehensive automation features that streamline tasks like sending emails, updating fields, and triggering alerts through workflow automation. It includes Blueprint for standardizing sales processes, Macros for automating repetitive tasks in bulk, and Zia AI for predictive automation that suggests workflows and actions based on data patterns. HighLevel CRM provides robust automation tools, allowing users to set up workflows for tasks such as lead follow-ups, appointment scheduling, and email or SMS campaigns. These automation features aim to streamline repetitive tasks and ensure timely communication. However, setting up complex workflows may require additional time and effort to configure effectively.

6. Integration

Zoho integrates with a wide range of third-party applications to expand its functionality, including popular tools like Google Workspace and Microsoft Office. It also connects with accounting software such as QuickBooks and more. HighLevel also offers integrations designed to streamline operations by enabling users to connect HighLevel with their existing systems and tools. However, the range of integrations may require additional setup and configuration to align with specific business needs.

7. Artificial Intelligence

Zoho CRM integrates AI through its assistant, Zia, which enhances productivity by automating tasks like data entry, lead prediction, and workflow recommendations. Zia provides predictive analytics for sales forecasting, identifies anomalies in sales processes, and suggests the best times for customer engagement based on past interactions. HighLevel CRM does not prominently advertise AI integration as a core feature. While it offers advanced automation and workflow tools, there is no clear mention of AI-driven functionalities, such as predictive analytics or intelligent lead scoring. The platform focuses more on manual configuration and automation rather than leveraging AI for decision-making or optimization.

Price and plans comparison

Let's take a closer look at the price and plans of both Zoho and HighLevel.

Zoho prices

Zoho offers a free plan limited to three users suitable for small businesses. After that, an annual subscription plan is as follows.

• Standard: $14 per user, per month.
• Professional: $23 per user, per month.
• Enterprise: $40 per user, per month.
• Ultimate: $52 per user, per month.

HighLevel prices

High Level has two price tiers for you to choose from.

• Starter: $97/seat/month.
• Unlimited: $297/seat/month.

Introducing folk CRM: the best alternative to Zoho and HighLevel

Looking for an affordable alternative? We recommend folk. A multiple award-winning CRM platform loved for its easy-to-use, plug-and-play CRM system. folk can support multiple business functions including sales, marketing, recruitment and more. Making it one of the most versatile CRMs in the market. You can also use folk as a solopreneur, small to mid-size team and large enterprise. Allowing it to scale with you as your business grows.

Key features

• Contact management: Bring all your contacts into one place seamlessly, from social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Instagram and X to multiple inboxes including Gmail and Outlook.
• Notes and reminders: Attach notes directly to a contact's profile in folk, and access them on the go. And assign reminders so you know exactly when to follow-up.
• Sales pipeline dashboard: Manage your entire sales cycle and leads with a highly customizable sales pipeline dashboard that can be used in Kanban-board view or listicle.
• Ease of use and customization: Easily customize the pipelines, dashboards, automation, email sequences, so that you can use it across your sales cycle and pipeline management – and other business functions such as recruitment, marketing, and more.
• Social media integration: Import people and companies from LinkedIn, Sales Navigator, Instagram, and X within a click thanks to folk’s Google Chrome extension.
• Contact sync from Gmail and Outlook: Full email sync enabling users to manage all communications directly from the CRM.
• Find email addresses in a click: Contact enrichment powered by Apollo, and Dropcontact so you can fill in missing data points with 1-click.
• Email sequences: Send email sequences with reminders if your leads don’t reply to your first emails. It includes an AI integration allowing you to personalize email at scale.

Price and plans

folk has a 14-day free trial. After that, there are affordable monthly or annual subscription plans. The annual subscription plan is as follows.

• Standard: $20 per user, per month.
• Premium: $40 per user, per month.
• Custom: Starts from $80 per user, per month.

Zoho vs. HighLevel: What's the Verdict?

It's clear how both Zoho and HighLevel offer robust CRM for different business needs. Zoho excels in providing a comprehensive suite of tools for sales and marketing teams, while HighLevel focuses on digital marketing automation for agencies. However, for companies seeking a more personalized approach to relationship management, folk provides a flexible alternative to these traditional CRM options, blending ease of use with customization. Try folk today, free.