Zoho licensing is the set of terms under which Zoho Corporation sells its online business applications. These include Zoho CRM, the Zoho Workplace email and office suite, finance and HR applications, and the Zoho One suite of more than 50 applications.[5] All are cloud services. The Terms of Service describe them as “cloud software and applications for businesses, including associated offline and mobile applications”. Customers may use them “for your personal and business use or for internal business purpose in the organization that you represent”.[1]
There is no product licence key and no perpetual option. Customers buy subscriptions of various durations that “will be automatically renewed at the end of each subscription period” unless the customer downgrades to a free plan or cancels.[1] Most plans are priced per user. The Terms of Service limit each user licence to one person: customers may not “allow user licenses to be shared or used by more than one individual other than by way of reassigning the user license to a new user”.[1] Catalog proof: User licences may be reassigned but not shared; Subscriptions auto-renew; give 7 days notice to stop.
The contracting party depends on where the customer is. The Terms point to a table of Zoho entities. Customers in the United States contract with Zoho Corporation (US) under California law, customers in India and the Russian Federation with Zoho Corporation Private Limited under Indian law, and other regions with local Zoho companies.[2] For paid customers, the governing law follows the billing address.[1] Catalog proof: Contracting entity and law follow the billing address.
The Zoho One FAQ calls ManageEngine one of “our” brands and lists its applications among those not included in Zoho One.[5] ManageEngine’s IT management software has its own licences and is covered under ManageEngine licensing.
Editions
Zoho sells applications in three ways: “individual apps, bundles, or our all-in-one suite”.[5]
| Purchase route | Examples | Unit | Deeper article |
|---|---|---|---|
| À la carte application | Zoho CRM Free, Standard, Professional, Enterprise, Ultimate | Per user; CRM Free up to 3 users[6] | Zoho CRM licensing |
| Bundle | CRM Plus; Finance Plus; Workplace[5] | Per unique login (CRM Plus); per Mail user (Workplace)[10][8] | Zoho CRM licensing, Zoho Workplace licensing |
| Suite | Zoho One Essentials; Zoho One Standard | Per employee (All Employee Pricing) or per user (Flexible User Pricing)[4] | Zoho One licensing |
Several services have free plans. Zoho CRM’s free edition “supports upto 3 users”.[6] Zoho Mail Free covers up to 5 users, and “From the 6th user all users enter a paid plan”.[8] Catalog proof: CRM Free edition and trials are limited to 3 users; Mail Free users do not carry over to paid plans.
Metrics
Zoho’s units are all user-based. They differ in what “user” means:
| Unit | Catalog row | Definition in Zoho’s words |
|---|---|---|
| User license | User license | May be reassigned to a new user but not shared[1] |
| Employee (Zoho One) | Zoho One employee license | Licences for “all the employees in your organization”, counted from the latest government filing[3] |
| Flexible user (Zoho One) | Zoho One flexible user license | “Buy only the number of user licenses you need”[4] |
| CRM user | Zoho CRM user | “Anyone whose email address is mapped to a user license”[7] |
| CRM team user | Zoho CRM team user | Partial access outside team modules[6] |
| CRM Plus login | CRM Plus user license | “Each unique login … is considered a user license”[10] |
| Workplace user | Workplace user license | The Zoho Mail user list is “the master user list”[8] |
| Per-employee allowance | Per-employee-license allowance | Usage limits that scale with Zoho One licences[5] |
Counting / floors
Billed licences, not active users. Deactivating a user does not reduce the bill. In Zoho CRM, deactivating a user frees the licence for someone else, but “the user license is not canceled”. The customer is billed for the licences bought until it unsubscribes them.[7] An effective licence position for Zoho therefore compares the number of licences billed with the number of active users. Catalog proof: Deactivating a CRM user does not cancel the licence.
All employees. Zoho One All Employee Pricing is a special price that requires “you obtain license for all the employees in your organization”. The customer must license each new employee during the term and certify compliance on request. Zoho may audit the government employee filing on 15 days’ notice.[3] Catalog proof: All Employee Pricing requires a licence for every employee; Zoho One certification and audit with 15 days notice.
No minimums. “There is no minimum amount of licenses for either plan” of Zoho One.[4] Catalog proof: Zoho One has no minimum licence count.
Inactive free accounts. Zoho may terminate “unpaid user accounts that are inactive for a continuous period of 120 days”, with notice, and delete their data. Inactivity is counted per Service.[1] Catalog proof: Unpaid accounts inactive 120 days may be terminated.
Virtualization & partitioning
Zoho services are hosted by Zoho, so processor, core and virtualization rules do not arise. Data location follows the customer’s region at sign-up. Zoho may migrate an account to another cloud facility, and customers “must not mask your internet protocol (IP) address at the time of sign-up”.[1] See Zoho Terms of Service.
Cloud / BYOL
All Zoho services covered here are SaaS. There is no bring-your-own-licence mechanism. Third-party applications integrated with Zoho need their own terms, and Zoho may suspend or remove access to a Third Party Application without liability.[1] Paid Marketplace extensions are licensed separately and are not part of Zoho One.[5]
Programs
- Auto-renewing subscription. Notice of non-renewal is due “at least seven days prior to the renewal date”. Price increases apply only after the current billing cycle.[1]
- Customer Satisfaction Policy. Full refund during the first month of a monthly subscription or the first 45 days of an annual one. Reducing licences on an annual plan earns subscription credits, not cash.[9]
- Free Trial and free plans. Data entered in a trial is lost unless the customer buys a plan or exports it.[1]
- All Employee Pricing and Flexible User Pricing for Zoho One.[4]
- Bundles (CRM Plus, Finance Plus, Workplace) and Workplace mix-and-match plans.[5][8]
Out of scope
This page does not cover ManageEngine, Site24x7 or other Zoho Corporation brands sold outside Zoho One. It also leaves out Zoho’s privacy policy and data processing terms, and the per-app Service Specific Terms of services such as Zoho Campaigns that customers accept separately.[4] Zoho’s list prices are not recorded because they vary by region. No court case about Zoho software licensing with a primary court record was found, so the wiki has no Zoho case article.