Zoho Review UK: What Zoho's Business Apps Cost in Pounds, and Is the US$100 Wallet Credit Worth Claiming?

Zoho Corporation started in New Jersey in 1996 as AdventNet, took the Zoho name in 2009 and now runs its main campus in Chennai, India. It sells dozens of web apps for running a business: Zoho Mail and the wider Workplace suite (mail, documents, file storage, chat), Zoho CRM for sales, Zoho Books for accounting, plus Projects, Desk, Forms and many more, and the Zoho One bundle. It passed 100 million users in 2023.

It is privately owned and says it has never taken money from investors. Its stated policy is never to show ads inside its products, free editions included, never to sell user information, and to keep third-party trackers off its websites. Wallet credit, including the referral credit, is issued by Zoho Corporation Private Limited.

Zoho's pricing pages show UK visitors sterling prices per user a month. Mail Lite costs £0.80 (5GB a user) or £1.00 (10GB) and Mail Premium £3.20, both annual only. Workplace Standard, with 30GB of mail per user plus shared file storage, is £2.40 on annual billing or £3.20 monthly, and Workplace Professional £4.80 or £5.60. Zoho CRM Standard is £12 a user on annual billing or £16 monthly, and CRM Professional £18 or £28.

Zoho Books has its own UK edition, priced per organisation a month: Standard £10 on annual billing or £12 monthly (three users, 5,000 invoices a year), Professional £20 or £24, Premium £25 or £30, with extra users at £2 a month on annual billing. Its page says the prices exclude local taxes, and each paid plan has a 14-day free trial.

Zoho Mail's Forever Free plan gives up to five users 5GB each with email on one domain you own, through the web and the mobile apps but without IMAP, POP or ActiveSync, so no Outlook or Apple Mail. It is offered only in some data centres and needs no card. A sixth user moves everyone to a paid plan.

Zoho Books' free UK plan is unusually generous: one user plus an accountant, 1,000 invoices and 1,000 expenses a year, 50 receipt scans a month, and filing for both Making Tax Digital for VAT and MTD for Income Tax. A sole trader or landlord whose needs fit it has no reason to pay, and no use for the credit.

Sign up through our link and Zoho adds US$100 of Wallet credit to your new account, to spend on a new Zoho app, an upgrade to a higher edition, a renewal, extra user licences or add-ons. It is not cash and can't be withdrawn, and it is valid for 360 days from the day you receive it. You can see the balance at store.zoho.com once you're signed in, so check it is there before you pay for anything.

The credit is for businesses and sole traders new to Zoho: anyone already registered, or already a paying Zoho customer, doesn't qualify, so a free account you opened earlier rules you out. Zoho can only link a sign-up to a referral if it starts from the link, and it has to happen within 90 days of your first click.

Disclosure: this is BonusRoam's own referral link, so Zoho gives us Wallet credit too: US$3 when you sign up, and 15% of what you pay Zoho in your first 12 months if you stay at least 60 days. Our credit doesn't come out of yours.

Zoho's Wallet terms decide how fast you can use it. On annual subscriptions, credit can pay up to 50% of the invoice total, capped at US$200 or the equivalent in your billing currency, so to use all US$100 on one invoice the bill must be worth at least US$200. If Zoho classes the credit as promotional, monthly billing can use it only on the first payment and one renewal, and only if you haven't changed payment method.

Credit can't buy the mobile-app versions of Zoho services (in-app purchases through Apple or Google), third-party apps sold inside Zoho, or paid support and training. If you cancel or downgrade during the subscription, unused credit lapses, and expired credit can't be reinstated. It can only be transferred to a colleague in the same organisation, on the same domain and data centre, by emailing [email protected].

Zoho quotes the credit in dollars and applies the sterling equivalent on a pound-billed account, which is worth more than £60 but less than £100. On Zoho Books Standard billed annually (£120 before VAT) the credit can pay at most half, £60, and the rest waits in your Wallet. Five users on Workplace Standard (£144 a year) can take up to £72.

Bigger annual bills absorb the lot: Books Professional (£240 a year) allows up to £120 of credit and CRM Standard for three users (£432 a year) up to £216, both more than the credit is worth. Splitting it also works: Workplace Standard for three users (£86.40) and Books Standard (£120) bought in the same year allow up to £103.20 between them, enough for the whole credit.

Zoho runs separate regional data centres, including the US (Quincy, with Dallas as backup), Europe (Amsterdam, with Dublin as backup), India, Australia, Canada and Singapore. At sign-up you pick the country you're signing up from, pre-filled from your IP address, and that decides which data centre holds your account.

Referrals only count inside one data centre: you have to sign up in the same one as the account that referred you. Our link opens Zoho's US store, so create your account on the page it opens rather than on a regional Zoho site. If your contracts require your data to be held in Europe, settle that before you sign up, because the referral only works in the referrer's data centre.

On 24 October 2026 the Zoho Mail iPhone app was rated 4.5 from about 1,600 ratings on the UK App Store. Reviewers like custom-domain email at a low price, managing several domains from one admin console, and the links to CRM and WorkDrive. The recurring complaints are that account administration only works on the website, which is awkward on a phone, and that deleted or moved emails sometimes reappear in the inbox.

The referral credit itself draws complaints in Zoho's own community forum from people who found its rules narrower than they expected, for example that it couldn't go towards an existing subscription. Read the limits in the section above before counting on it, and note that Zoho Mail's in-app plans (£3.49 or £5.49 a month on the App Store) are exactly the purchases the credit can't pay for.

Open our link, create your account as a new business or sole trader, choose your country, and check the credit in your Wallet before buying. Then buy on the web rather than in a mobile app, pick annual billing if you'll keep the plan a year, and add the apps you need. Zoho Books' paid UK plans start with a 14-day free trial.

Downgrading or cancelling during a subscription makes any unused credit lapse, so finish using it first. If you leave Zoho Mail, export your mail before the plan ends. Credit that expires after 360 days, or is left over when you leave, isn't refunded in cash.

Claim it if you are new to Zoho and about to pay for it anyway: a small team moving email to Workplace, a business adopting Zoho CRM, or a company that needs a paid Zoho Books plan. Pay annually on the web, and aim for at least US$200 of invoices within the first 360 days so the 50% rule doesn't strand part of the credit.

Skip it if the free Mail or free Books plan covers you, if you already have any Zoho account, if you'd only buy through the iPhone or Android app, or if your data has to sit in a European data centre. Never pay for a plan you don't need just to use the credit: it saves money only on spending you were going to do.