Both Zoho and Insightly are full-featured CRMs capable of handling all the everyday tasks associated with managing sales. Both companies have their roots in addressing the needs of small- to-midsized businesses. But as of late, both Zoho and Insightly have been focusing on adding capabilities intended to appeal to smaller enterprise organizations that might be looking for an alternative to Salesforce, Oracle or SAP.
The one fundamental difference between these two offerings is that Zoho CRM is part of a large suite of complementary applications spanning everything from marketing and human resources to project management and finance. Zoho has also been making significant investments in Zia Voice, a set of artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities that the company is working to embed across its entire application portfolio.
At the same time, Insightly recently reengineered its entire group of applications to run as a set of microservices that over time promise to make it simpler for Insightly going forward to slipstream new capabilities and services into its application.
What are the Similarities and Differences Between Zoho and Insightly?
Cost
A free 15-day trial of Zoho is available. A free edition for up to three users is available, also. A Standard level is $12/user/month; Professional level is $20/user/month; Enterprise level is $35/user/month; an Ultimate Edition (only available as a yearly subscription) is $100/user/month.
Insightly Plus is $29/user/month (billed annually), Professional is $49/user/month, and Enterprise $99/user/month. A free edition of Insightly for up to two users is available.
Ease of Use
Both Zoho and Insightly pack a lot of features behind a visual user interface that will take users some time to master. Insightly recently revamped its user interface to incorporate a Kanban-style interface that makes it simpler to visually identify workflows.
Zoho User Experience
Insightly User Experience
Implementation
Both Zoho and Insightly are software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications that don’t necessarily require a lot of IT expertise to invoke. Customers of both platforms can be up and running in about a week. But both applications require a significant amount of time and effort to populate data, which may require a third-party consultant to accomplish.
Customization
Both Zoho and Insightly are highly customizable. Zoho provides some wizards that make it simpler to customize some functions. However, the more an organization customizes these applications, the more difficult it can become to on-board new users.
Integrations
Zoho CRM is designed from the ground up to be integrated with over 40 other applications, spanning everything from marketing and finance. Insightly is designed to be a standalone application. There are over 250 Zoho CRM integrations.
Insightly does provide access to application programming interfaces (APIs) and Webhooks to make it feasible to integrate with other applications and platforms.
Customer Support
Zoho provides an online knowledge base, how-to videos and tutorials. There’s also an online community where end users can tap peer support. Zoho offers users enhanced support options at an additional cost.
Similarly, Insightly offers self-help knowledge base support and email support, along with community forums. The Insightly software subscription includes implementation, training, and dedicated phone support, and an option to pay for support.
Features & Add-ons
Both Zoho and Insightly provide all the CRM features that any organization is likely to require. However, in addition to providing a wide number of add-ons of its own, Zoho has embedded a range of analytics tools and made some early strides in making artificial intelligence more accessible via Zia Voice.
How to Decide which is Best for Your Situation
When it comes to finding the best CRM software, there’s no substitute for getting input from sales people. Too often, sales managers decide to implement a CRM application only to discover that sales people are reluctant to enter data. From a sales management perspective, both Zoho and Insightly are more than adequate and both companies are pouring resources into developing more advanced features.
In a lot of cases, however, many organizations appreciate the full breadth of the Zoho portfolio, as CRM only represents one facet of the business.
Regardless of the path chosen, thanks in large part to the investments being made by Zoho and Insightly, the CRM applications category remains one of the most vibrant in all of IT.
