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Zoho One Alternative: One Product, No All-Employee Rule
Zoho One is the bigger bundle by a distance: 40-plus apps at $37 per employee, if you license everyone on the payroll. EmpireVault is one product with fifteen modules at $39 per seat, for the people who use it. Here is the five-person team priced both ways, with Zoho’s own pages as the source.
No credit card required · One seat in the trial
The Short Answer
Pick Zoho One if you want finance, HR and payroll in the same bundle as your CRM and help desk, and every employee will have a licence. Standard is $37 per employee per month billed annually and includes Books, Invoice, Payroll, Expense, Inventory, People, Recruit, Analytics, Creator and Sign alongside CRM, Desk, Campaigns and Bookings, at what Zoho calls enterprise editions. Essentials is $9 for a smaller set. Nothing on EmpireVault’s price list matches that breadth.
Pick EmpireVault if you want to license the people who use it, not everyone on payroll. Zoho’s $37 rate is conditional on buying a licence for every employee; the pricing FAQ says unlicensed employees bring a notice to buy the rest or move to Flexible User pricing at $90 per user. EmpireVault is $39 per seat whoever the seat is for, one product on one customer record rather than a bundle of apps, billed monthly or annually. If you need accounting, payroll or HR inside the suite, Zoho has them and we do not.
Which Plan Covers a Five-Person Team
Thirteen things a five-person business needs: an owner, two salespeople and two support agents who need SLAs and a knowledge base, and email marketing to 1,000 contacts, the same team the pricing page prices against HubSpot. Each Zoho One cell names the plan that includes the item and its price per user per month billed annually; month-to-month prices are in the pricing block below.
No ticks and crosses: you cannot check a tick. Yes is included on the plan named in the cell. Partial is included with the limitation written out. No is not offered.
| What the team needs | EmpireVault ($39 per seat, one plan) | Zoho One |
|---|---|---|
| Pipeline CRM for the whole team | YesContacts, companies, deals on a pipeline board with AI lead scoring. One plan, $39 per seat. | YesZoho CRM on Standard: $37 per employee (All Employee pricing) or $90 per user (Flexible User). Essentials, $9, has Bigin, the lighter pipeline CRM, instead; CRM Ultimate is an add-on. |
| Helpdesk with SLAs for two support agents | YesTickets with SLA policies, AI triage and routing suggestions, a customer portal and CSAT ratings. Included. | YesZoho Desk on Standard, $37: 20 SLAs per department, with an on-hold state that stops the SLA clock. Essentials lists Desk at $9, but the plan page does not say which Desk edition or how many SLAs. |
| Knowledge base for self-service | YesPublic knowledge base and help centre, with articles the website chat agent answers from. Included. | YesDesk’s help centre on Standard, $37: a multilingual knowledge base with articles in over 40 languages. |
| Email marketing to 1,000 contacts | PartialNo contact cap and no per-contact charge, and each campaign step is generated for the contacts who are due and approved before it sends. Campaigns send through your own mailbox, so your email provider’s daily sending limit applies; there is no bulk sending service. | YesZoho Campaigns on Standard, $37: 5,000 contacts per employee licence and unlimited emails, so five licences cover 25,000 contacts. Marketing Automation adds 5,000 contacts and 5,000 leads per licence. Essentials lists Campaigns; its limits are not on the plan page. |
| Public booking pages | YesPublic booking pages per event type with conflict checking against your Google or Microsoft calendar, and bookings linked to the CRM contact. Included. One host per event type; no payment at booking. | YesZoho Bookings on Standard, $37: unlimited event types and customer records, 3 workspaces per organisation. Not in the Essentials app list. |
| Quotes | YesQuotes with your pricing and tax, share links, approvals, renewals and retainers; an accepted quote becomes a contract. Included. | PartialBooks and Invoice are on Standard, $37 (Books also on Essentials, $9), and the plan page lists invoicing and billing; it does not list quotes as a line of its own, so we have not scored a quoting feature from it. |
| E-signature | YesBuilt-in e-signature with an audit trail. No DocuSign or other signing service to buy. Included. | YesZoho Sign on Standard, $37: unlimited documents per employee a month, with 50 complimentary credits per employee a month for SMS and identity-verified signing (capped at 2,500 per organisation). Not in the Essentials app list. |
| Document editing | YesEuro-Office: documents, spreadsheets, slides and PDF, edited together in the browser. Included. | YesWriter, Sheet and Show on Essentials, $9, and on Standard through WorkDrive (5 TB per organisation). |
| Phone and SMS | PartialBusiness number, SMS inbox and missed-call text-back through your own Twilio or Telnyx account (carrier costs are yours). Inbound calls only; no outbound dialler. US texting needs A2P 10DLC registration. | PartialNo bundled telephony app in the Standard list. Desk and CRM integrate Twilio, Zoho Voice, Amazon Connect, Zoho PhoneBridge and others, and Desk has an SMS add-on; call and text costs are separate. |
| AI assistant | YesIncluded, no add-on: drafts and summaries in email, lead scoring, ticket triage and draft replies, resume scoring, the website chat agent. Allowance: 100 email AI requests per person a day, 40,000 a day for everything else. | YesZia features inside the included app editions on Standard: an AI bot, Zia insights, data enrichment of 500 records per user. The plan page shows no separate AI price; whether any Zia features use add-on credits is not stated. |
| A free plan that stays free | NoA 21-day free trial with one seat and every module, no credit card; no permanent free plan. | NoA free trial, after which you choose Essentials or Standard. Trial length and whether a card is needed are not stated on the pricing pages. |
| Everything on one price, nothing gated by tier | Yes$39 per seat per month covers every module. No feature tiers, no add-ons, no contact caps. Billed monthly, or $390 a seat a year ($32.50 a month) on annual billing. | PartialStandard puts 40-plus apps at enterprise editions on one price, but only on condition that every employee on payroll is licensed at $37; otherwise it is $90 per user. Essentials at $9 is a smaller set with Bigin instead of CRM and no Sign or Bookings. Upgrading Essentials to Standard upgrades every user. |
| Accounting, payroll and HR | NoNone. Invoices are created from signed contracts, with no online payment and no ledger; a jobs board handles hiring, but there is no HR or payroll. | YesBooks, Invoice, Billing, Expense, Inventory, Payroll, Commerce, People and Recruit on Standard, $37 (Books and People also on Essentials). |
Zoho One facts from zoho.com/one/pricing, its pricing FAQ and zoho.com/one/plan-details, read 23 October 2026. The pricing page renders its prices by script from a Zoho data file; the USD figures here are read from that file and match Zoho’s own “Starting at $37 per user per month” small-teams page and the “US$90” printed on the Flexible User card. Essentials’ per-app limits and Desk edition are not on the plan page, so Essentials cells say so.
Start a 21-Day Free TrialThe Same Team, Priced Both Ways
The team is the one the pricing page already uses: an owner, two salespeople and two support agents, with SLAs and a knowledge base for support and email marketing to 1,000 contacts. EmpireVault is billed monthly and can be cancelled at any time; Zoho’s lowest figures are its annual prices, and the all-employee condition is the line that decides which Zoho figure applies.
| Line | EmpireVault | Zoho One |
|---|---|---|
| What you buy | 1 plan, every module, for all 5 people | Zoho One Standard for all five on All Employee pricing: CRM, Desk with 20 SLAs per department and a knowledge base, Campaigns with 5,000 contacts per licence, Bookings and Sign, on condition that every employee on payroll is licensed. If they are not, Flexible User pricing. |
| Monthly cost | $195 for all 5 people (5 × $39) monthly, cancel any time, or $162.50 a month billed annually (5 × $32.50) | $185 billed annually (5 × $37), $225 month to month, if the five are the whole payroll. $450 billed annually (5 × $90), $525 month to month, on Flexible User pricing if they are not. Essentials would be $45 (5 × $9) but swaps Zoho CRM for Bigin and drops Sign and Bookings. |
| AI assistant | Included (100 email AI requests per person a day; 40,000 a day for the rest) | Zia included in the app editions; no separate price shown. |
| E-signature | Included, built in | Zoho Sign on Standard: unlimited documents, 50 credits per employee a month for SMS or identity-verified signing. |
| One-time onboarding | $0 self-serve | No mandatory fee. An optional Jumpstart setup service is sold separately. |
| Email marketing | No contact cap or per-contact charge; campaigns send through your own mailbox, so your provider’s daily limit applies | 5,000 contacts per employee licence and unlimited emails on Campaigns (Standard). |
| Tiers to choose between | None | Essentials or Standard; Standard priced two ways (All Employee or Flexible User); CRM Ultimate as an add-on. |
If these five people are the whole company, Zoho One Standard at $185 billed annually sits between EmpireVault’s $162.50 annual and $195 monthly, and includes far more. If the company has anyone else on payroll who will not be licensed, the same five seats cost $450 on Flexible User pricing. That condition, not the feature list, is what most small teams should price first.
Where Zoho One Wins
Not hedged, and not a set-up for a rebuttal. These are the reasons a team should buy Zoho One instead of EmpireVault.
Breadth Nothing Else Here Matches
Standard lists 40-plus apps described as enterprise editions: CRM, Desk, Campaigns, Marketing Automation, Bookings, Sign, Projects, WorkDrive with Writer, Sheet and Show, and then Books, Invoice, Billing, Expense, Inventory, Payroll, Commerce, People, Recruit, Contracts, Analytics, Creator, Flow and RPA. EmpireVault has fifteen modules around the customer and the working day, and no accounting, payroll, HR or app builder.
Essentials at $9
Essentials is $9 per user per month billed annually ($11 month to month) for Bigin, Sites, Campaigns, Mail, Cliq, Projects, WorkDrive, Writer, Sheet, Show, a PDF editor, Notebook, Meeting, Desk, Books and People. For a team that can live with Bigin rather than Zoho CRM and does not need Sign or Bookings, it is less than a quarter of EmpireVault’s price.
$37 Undercuts $39 When Everyone Is Licensed
All Employee pricing is $37 per employee per month billed annually ($45 month to month). A company where every person on payroll will hold a licence pays less than EmpireVault’s $39 and gets the whole bundle. The condition is real, and the pricing FAQ describes how Zoho enforces it, but for a company that meets it the price is lower.
Generous Bundled Limits
Campaigns: 5,000 contacts per employee licence with unlimited emails, sent by Zoho. Sign: unlimited documents per employee a month with 50 complimentary credits. Desk: 20 SLAs per department, a knowledge base in over 40 languages, and telephony integrations with Twilio, Zoho Voice, Amazon Connect and 85 others. EmpireVault’s campaigns send through your own mailbox and its phone and SMS run through your own Twilio or Telnyx account.
Where EmpireVault Wins
Four things, and none of them is a bigger bundle. EmpireVault’s case against Zoho One is the shape of the price and the shape of the product.
License the People Who Use It
EmpireVault is $39 per seat for the people who use it, whether that is five of fifty staff or all of them. Zoho’s $37 applies only if every employee on payroll is licensed; the pricing FAQ says that if not all employees are licensed Zoho will notify you to buy the remaining licences or switch to Flexible User pricing at $90 per user, and reserves the right to take further action including termination of service. For a business with warehouse, field or part-time staff who will never open a CRM, that condition is the whole price.
One Product, One Customer Record
EmpireVault is a single product on a single database: a chat conversation becomes a lead, the lead books a meeting, the meeting produces a signed contract, the contract gets a support history, all on one contact record with one login, one Today dashboard and one search. Zoho One is a bundle of separate apps, each with its own editions and limits, administered from one console. Both approaches work; they are different amounts of surface to learn and run.
Built-In Phone, SMS and Missed-Call Text-Back
A business number, an SMS inbox and an automatic text back to a missed call are modules on the seat, through your own Twilio or Telnyx account, so a missed call becomes a lead even with no voicemail. On Zoho One, telephony is an integration with Twilio, Zoho Voice, Amazon Connect or others, and SMS in Desk is an add-on; the plan page lists no bundled telephony app.
Monthly, With a Trial You Can Read the Terms Of
EmpireVault’s $39 is the monthly price, with annual billing at $32.50 if you want it, and the trial is 21 days, one seat, every module, no card. Zoho One’s best price is annual ($37 against $45 month to month) and its pricing pages do not state the trial length or whether a card is needed. Small differences, but ones you can check before you start.
What Else Comes With the Seat
Zoho One’s argument is breadth, and it is a good one. EmpireVault’s is that the fifteen modules a small business touches every day share one customer record on one seat, and that nobody has to be licensed who will not use them. Everything on the one $39 seat:
So the comparison worth running is Zoho One for everyone on payroll, or Flexible User seats at $90, against $39 seats for the people who will actually work in it. If every employee will use the bundle and you want accounting, payroll and HR in the same place, Zoho One is cheaper and broader, and this page is not going to argue otherwise.
Pricing, Side by Side
EmpireVault
$39 per seat / month
One plan. Every module included, no feature tiers. $39 per seat billed monthly, or $32.50 a month billed annually ($390 a year, two months free). A 21-day free trial with one seat and no credit card, but no permanent free plan.
Zoho One
$9–$90 per user / month, billed annually
Essentials $9 ($11 month to month). Standard $37 per employee on All Employee pricing, with a licence for every employee on payroll required ($45 month to month), or $90 per user on Flexible User pricing ($105 month to month). No free plan; a free trial of unstated length. Prices exclude VAT.
Per seat, EmpireVault is $2 more than Zoho One’s all-employee rate month to month and $4.50 less on annual billing, and $51 to $57.50 less than its flexible rate. Which Zoho figure applies is the only question that matters: it is the company’s payroll, not the team’s needs, that decides it. Essentials at $9 is in a different class on price and on contents.
Common Questions
Is EmpireVault a good Zoho One alternative?
It depends on who will be licensed. If every employee on payroll will hold a licence and you want accounting, payroll and HR in the same bundle, Zoho One Standard at $37 per employee per month billed annually is cheaper and far broader. EmpireVault is the better choice when only some of your staff will use customer software, because it is $39 per seat for those people, one product on one customer record, billed monthly or annually.
What is Zoho One’s all-employee rule?
Zoho One’s $37 All Employee price requires you to buy a licence for every employee on payroll. Zoho’s pricing FAQ says that if it sees not all employees are licensed it will ask you to buy the remaining licences or switch to Flexible User pricing, which is $90 per user per month billed annually, and that it reserves the right to take further action including termination of service. EmpireVault has no such rule.
How much does Zoho One cost compared to EmpireVault?
Zoho One Essentials is $9 per user per month billed annually, Standard is $37 per employee on All Employee pricing or $90 per user on Flexible User pricing, and month to month the figures are $11, $45 and $105. EmpireVault is $39 per seat per month, every module included, billed monthly, or $32.50 a month billed annually.
Does EmpireVault include accounting or payroll?
No. Invoices are created from signed contracts, with no online payment collection and no ledger, and there is no payroll or HR module; a jobs board covers hiring. Zoho One Standard includes Books, Invoice, Billing, Expense, Inventory, Payroll, People and Recruit.
What would a five-person team pay on each?
On EmpireVault, $195 a month for all five with everything included, or $162.50 a month billed annually. On Zoho One, $185 a month billed annually on Standard if those five are the whole payroll ($225 month to month), or $450 billed annually on Flexible User pricing if they are not. Essentials would be $45 but swaps Zoho CRM for Bigin and leaves out Sign and Bookings.
Can I move my data from Zoho to EmpireVault?
Contacts import from CSV with custom fields, and the Migration service moves contacts, deals and tickets as part of a build or on its own. Everything exports again at any time as CSV and through the REST API.
Still Deciding?
Tell us how many people are on payroll and how many would actually use the software, and we will tell you straight which price applies to you on each, including when Zoho One is the better buy.
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How we verified this
Compared against Zoho One’s published pricing and documentation, read 23 October 2026. Every Zoho One cell above cites a page Zoho One publishes; no third-party blogs or comparison sites were used, and nobody on our team has used Zoho One hands-on, so nothing here is an opinion about how it feels to use. If something has gone out of date, tell us and we will correct it.
Zoho One sources: Pricing · Pricing FAQ · Plan details · Small teams pricing · Pricing data file the page loads.
EmpireVault sources: Pricing · Products · CRM · Support tickets · Knowledge base · Email campaigns · Email & Calendar · Calendar and booking pages · Quotes · Contracts and e-signature · Euro-Office · AI assistance · Phone and SMS screenshots · Deals pipeline screenshots · Helpdesk and SLA screenshots · Booking calendar screenshots · Document editing screenshots.