Zoho has made its mark in the digital world with dozens of apps and productivity tools, but Zoho Mail remains one of its most successful products. The email platform is specifically designed for business users and provides a range of options for collaborations and integrations, but that doesn’t necessarily make it a suitable service for everyone.
We’ll help you find the best alternative to Zoho Mail based on your terms, whether you’re looking for more features, cheaper services, or more streamlined workflow tools.
Here’s what this article will provide:
An overview of Zoho Mail—with pros and cons
Criteria for suitable Zoho Mail alternatives
Reviews of the top three alternatives
Zoho Mail overview: What’s good and what’s not
Zoho Mail was one of the first email services catering specifically to the professional and corporate world. The platform is ad-free, and even the free tier lets users set up a customized domain besides offering some ground-level functionalities. The paid tiers are affordable as well, although the price-to-benefit ratio may vary for different users.
Zoho’s free plan comes with a 5 GB/user and a 25 MB attachment limit. The pricing for the paid plans is as follows:
$1 user/month for Mail Lite
$3.90 user/month for Mail Premium
$6–$19/month for flexible alternative plans
Zoho Mail’s service review
Some of the best features of Zoho Mail include collaboration and workflow tools, consistent uptime, and ample admin tools. The platform’s overall performance is decent based on current standards, but the service could use several improvements.
For example, many customers find the user interface and search features to be non-intuitive and challenging to use. While Zoho Mail offers integration with other Zoho apps, users often complain that the process tends to be complicated.
Zoho offers a range of productivity features, such as Streams for collaborative emailing and a comprehensive admin console for customization and configuration, but these features are only accessible to paid users. Its free version provides basic functionality, and if you’re seeking advanced workflow tools, you need to opt for a paid subscription.
Zoho Mail started off as a unique, feature-rich solution for small- and medium-sized businesses but has since faced severe competition in its niche. While the platform has made several sophisticated additions to its profile, Zoho Mail competitors have come up with services more in tune with the latest demands.
Criteria for a superior Zoho Mail alternative
Considering its existing service features, there are four core aspects that make for a suitable Zoho Mail alternative. Check them out:
Workflow enhancement features | Zoho Mail is a business-focused service, and a suitable alternative should cater to the business world by providing advanced collaboration features, smooth integration, and admin control. |
Intuitive user interface | Many users find Zoho’s inbox and workflow management features clunky and difficult to navigate, so an ideal alternative should provide a smoother, intuitive experience. |
Affordability | You may want a free alternative to Zoho Mail’s paid tiers without needing costly upgrades or at least an affordable one that fits your budget and needs. |
Seamless integration | While Zoho Mail integrates with its own suite of apps, a modern email solution should provide seamless integration with a broader range of productivity tools to create a unified and highly efficient workspace. |
Perfect replacements: 3 leading Zoho Mail alternatives
Zoho Mail’s replacements can be both email hosting services and email clients. We went beyond Big Tech products like Gmail and Office 365 and singled out three new-age email services that rival Zoho Mail according to all the above-mentioned aspects:
Spark Mail
Proton Mail
Spark Mail: Filter the noise with top-notch organizational tools
Spark Mail—or Spark—is an email client designed to be a comprehensive solution for entrepreneurs, professionals, and their teams. Like Zoho Mail, Spark is scalable for small or medium-sized businesses and includes an array of productivity tools.
Features and user interface
The ad-free platform is available for Android, iOS, and macOS platforms. Some key Spark features include tools to label, monitor, and manage automated responses to emails. You can even delegate emails to employees within your team and collaborate using instant private comments. Spark can integrate with many useful platforms, including Google Drive, Trello, and Evernote.
Besides offering business-friendly functionalities, Spark has the edge over Zoho Mail due to its friendly interface that promotes productivity. You get a unified Smart Inbox that flashes priority emails and groups non-priority ones in a separate folder to be accessed at a convenient time. The Smart Search feature is intuitive and supports natural language keywords. Spark loads incredibly fast, and you won’t experience lags even with multiple threads open.
Workflow enhancement
While Spark Mail and Zoho Mail both offer organizational tools, Spark Mail elevates the experience with some unique intelligent features. Spark’s Smart Inbox, for instance, intelligently reduces email clutter by prioritizing important emails from less urgent ones.
Another unique feature Spark Mail has over Zoho Mail is the Home Screen, which provides a convenient overview of what’s new in your inbox since you last checked. It offers a quick and digestible summary of important activities and updates, so you can get up to speed faster.
Spark may not have a full productivity suite like Zoho, but it seamlessly syncs with popular productivity apps to further boost your workflow.
Pricing and value for money
Spark’s free tier comes with 5 GB storage and almost all features suitable for two collaborators. It offers two paid tiers:
Premium Individual: $4.99/month
Premium Teams: $6.99/month
The Premium Individual plan is not a significant improvement from the free tier as it provides the same collaboration tools. Premium Teams is a more advanced plan as it allows adding unlimited collaborators and assigning team roles. Each team member gets 10 GB of storage.
Pros | Cons |
Full-spectrum business collaboration tools Productivity-optimized user interface Unlimited collaborators Generous per-team-member storage Excellent organizational features Fast and glitch-free | No full-fledged productivity suite Lackluster Premium Individual plan |
Proton Mail: Securing sensitive and confidential business data
Proton Mail has established itself as a security- and privacy-oriented email service. The platform’s other services—Proton VPN, Proton Calendar, and Proton Drive—are automatically available to every user.
Features and user interface
Proton Mail and its sister services work together to allow seamless team management and control. The platform is ad-free and offers business plans that are scalable for small and large teams.
Proton Mail delivers decent features for businesses. You can set up custom domains, customize labels, and filter emails with ease. The platform enables creating self-destructing emails (you can find a similar feature in Gmail’s Confidential Mode).
Mobile users can access the service with Android and iOS apps. IMAP/SMTP integration is also available if you’d like to use the service with your current email client.
The platform allows integration with other services, but the process can be cumbersome. Compared to Zoho, Proton Mail’s user interface is more modern, with multiple layouts and theme configurations, but it may still be sluggish at times.
Keep reading: See how Proton Mail compares to Gmail in our detailed comparison guide.
Workflow enhancement
Proton Mail offers essential organizational features, such as custom domains, labels, and filters, that provide a basic level of inbox management. However, when compared to Zoho Mail’s robust business-oriented features, such as Streams for team communication or its comprehensive admin console, Proton Mail begins to look less formidable.
Although Proton Mail offers an integrated suite of services, the workflow isn’t as interconnected or as productivity-focused as Zoho Workplace. The occasional sluggishness with the interface can also hinder efficiency.
Ultimately, the tool’s focus on security can result in a less optimized experience for users who are mainly concerned with workflow and productivity.
Pricing and value for money
Proton Mail’s free service offers 1 GB of storage and limited inbox size and organizational features. To get more advanced features, businesses typically opt for paid tiers, such as:
Mail Essentials: $7.99/month, 15 GB storage
Business: $10.99/month, 50 GB storage
You can opt for a customized plan if you need larger storage.
Proton Mail might be pricier than Zoho, but it is significantly more privacy-focused, which is a crucial aspect for businesses. The value for money is satisfactory, but some features may be excessive for small businesses.
Pros | Cons |
Ad free Secure and privacy-focused Multiple collaboration tools Convenient admin controls Integrated calendar, VPN, and drive | Pricier than Zoho (modest free tier) Occasionally slow (navigation and search) |
Explore further: Check out these Proton Mail alternatives if you want to try a different approach to email management and discover how to delete your Proton Mail account.
Notion Mail: The most well-rounded alternative to Zoho Mail
Notion Mail is an AI-native email client that offers a unique approach to email management, prioritizing workflow and seamless integration. Notion Mail is a core part of a broader productivity ecosystem, uniting email, documents, calendar, and projects within the Notion environment, creating a powerful and unified hub for your workflow.
Features and user interface
Notion Mail boasts a clean and intuitive interface that helps you minimize distractions, reduce clutter, and maximize efficiency. Its easily customizable views let you match your inbox to the task you’re working on, so you only see what’s relevant when necessary.
Instead of the traditional folder system, Notion Mail allows you to create a tailored workflow view that displays emails based on your criteria, such as new projects or specific clients. Key features like the /schedule command allow you to insert your availability directly in your email, and recipients can choose their preferred meeting times from your message.
Notion Mail’s snippets also allow for the quick insertion of email templates, helping you save time and ensure consistency in your messaging.
Workflow enhancement
Notion Mail offers many features that help you revolutionize your email workflow. For instance, features like the AI-powered autopilot help you sort and automatically label your emails so you don’t waste time with repetitive inbox management. Furthermore, the email summarization tool quickly summarizes lengthy email threads using AI, so you can grasp the key points and take action quickly.
Notion Mail provides AI-generated response suggestions, speeding up your replies to common queries. It allows you to set up auto-replies for follow-up emails, ensuring you respond quickly without unnecessary manual intervention. Its range of keyboard shortcuts for frequent email actions helps speed up time-consuming email-drafting processes, taking the hassle out of inbox triage.
Notion Mail also helps eliminate the need to switch between multiple apps while you work. Although Zoho Mail offers an advanced level of integration with its productivity suite, Notion Mail provides comparable productivity suite features within its email client.
Pricing and value for money
Notion Mail provides a robust suite of tools to all users upon signing up. While the platform offers a paid AI add-on feature for those who need advanced automation, the core productivity functionalities are free to all users.
Pros | Cons |
Powerful AI automation Free access to core features Intuitive user interface Seamless Notion integration Intelligent sorting for enhanced efficiency AI-powered email composition and summarization | It’s an exclusive Gmail client, so you'll need a Gmail/Google account to sign up There may be a slight learning curve for non-Notion users since it’s a relatively new product |
How to get started with Notion Mail
Getting started with Notion Mail is straightforward. To set it up, you just need to connect your Gmail or Google account, and you’re in! You can enjoy advanced productivity features for free, but if you need even more powerful AI-driven automation, you can get the Notion AI add-on.
Bonus read: Explore our resources below to see what other popular email providers have to offer and how they measure up:
