Zoho Mail business review

Zoho Mail works best alongside other solutions from the same vendor. While there are some email providers that are content to simply deliver the best service possible for sending and receiving messages, some vendors see email as just one part of a broader digital ecosystem. That seems to be the case with Zoho Mail, which while serving as an effective and affordable business email platform in its own right, really comes into its own when you combine it with some of the other tools that fall under the brand’s cloud operating system. 

For instance, businesses may also want to explore Zoho CRM, one of our picks for the best CRM software on the market today, Zoho Forms, and Zoho Recruit. Although integrations with third-party software can be somewhat limited, connecting with the plethora of other solutions manufactured by Zoho is straightforward. For example, Zoho Mail works great at connecting to Zoho Meeting as there’s a shortcut to creating a meeting straight from your usual calendar app. 

In other areas, Zoho Mail is impressive too. It comes with some very reasonable pricing plans, generous amounts of cloud storage, and several first-rate collaboration tools. If you’re thinking of joining the Zoho tribe, you’ll be in good company. The company’s software is used by more than 100 million users globally, many of whom are very happy with Zoho Mail, in particular.

Zoho Mail: Plans and pricing

Zoho Mail is available at three pricing tiers: Mail Lite, Workplace, and Mail Premium. As you’d expect the features available at each level vary and this is reflected in the pricing. It must be said, however, all three are available at a reasonable price that compares well against the other business email platforms on the market.  

Mail Lite will set you back $1 per user per month if you only need 5GB of storage or slightly more if you want 10GB. Workplace, meanwhile, costs $3 per user per month, while the price for Mail Premium is set at $4 per user per month.

It’s also worth pointing out that there’s a generous free forever plan for up to five users who can access 5GB of storage per user, web access and free mobile apps, email hosting for a single domain, and attachments as large as 25MB. And larger enterprises can also contact sales directly to get a custom quote for more bespoke plans. 

The unique aspect of Zoho Mail’s pricing is that it offers flexible options to users, who can mix and match different plans for different users within the same organization. This kind of customization isn’t usually offered by email providers but could be hugely beneficial - especially for smaller businesses that may want to keep a tighter leash on budgets. 

Features

In terms of features, Mail Lite subscribers gain access to email hosting for multiple domains, email routing, offline access, tasks, notes, and bookmarks, a shared calendar, and more. Mail Premium customers, meanwhile, get everything included in Mail Light, plus their attachments can now be up to 1GB in size, they gain email backup and restoration and white labeling.

The Workplace plan is a little different as it’s about offering more than just email. It’s Zoho complete communication suite, which comes with business email, as well as online office apps to help with productivity. So as well as secure business email, customers also get an online file manager, wordprocessor, spreadsheet, chat communication tools, and an intranet.

In terms of collaboration, all pricing plans also come with access to the Streams collaboration tool, which allows users to share emails or posts and start social media-style conversations around them. It fosters teamwork while providing structure around any collaborative project.

Support

For customer support, Zoho Mail isn’t bad but certainly could be better. It does offer 24/7 phone support in 20 countries across the world, including the US, UK, India, Australia, and South Africa for paid subscribers but there’s no live chat support. With the fast improvement of AI tools, especially AI chatbots, this is disappointing and we’d be interested to see if this is added as a Zoho Mail support option any time soon. 

Other support options include a well-stocked help center with a range of documents and how-to guides, plus an FAQ page. There’s also the option of completing an online form or sending Zoho support an email. In our experience, the support team was friendly and helpful, and happily walked us through anything we were struggling with. 

Security

Zoho Mail performs strongly in terms of its security standards, something that businesses understandably take extremely seriously due to the financial and reputational damage that can ensue if even a single breach occurs. With that in mind, Zoho Mail makes it easy to block suspicious email addresses and boasts several compliance certificates, including SOC2 compliance. 

The platform also includes encryption as standard for data both in transit and at rest. In terms of identity management, Zoho Mail also boasts two-factor authentication and OAuth 2.0 support. There’s also a range of data protection tools available, including DMARC, malware detection, and advanced spam filtering.

The competition

There are a multitude of business email platforms on the market today, but Zoho Mail fares well against them all. It’s well-priced, reliable, and intuitive. It is a shame that its integration functionality seems to only really be geared towards other Zoho products. Although Zoho suite of tools is pretty extensive, it’s not hard to imagine a company wanting to use a tool from another vendor. There are other email providers on the market that do a better job of integrating with third-party solutions. 

Zoho Mail clearly views the likes of Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Proton Mail, and GoDaddy as its main competitors as these are the ones where comparison services are offered on its own website. It’s true that Zoho Mail does stack up pretty well in terms of features when compared to some of these players - but it ultimately all depends on what you’re looking for.  

Zoho Mail: Final verdict

Zoho Mail is a strong business email service. The integration may not be the best and the lack of live chat support is disappointing, but this is still a very good email platform - especially if you’re a user of some of Zoho’s other tools.

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