Noticed today when signing a client up the free option is gone. Any good free alternatives?

I have made 3 free business emails with Zoho's Free plan.

I was looking to make one more for a partner who has his own domain,

so I went to the usual Zoho Mail page, but couldn't find the Free plan.

Only paid options with a free 15 Day trial.

But I knew they had a free one, as I had already made 3!

A bit of research on Reddit lead to finding a comment by Zoho saying they discontinued it (in some places).

What do you think? & What should a person do now if trying to avoid a paid plan?

Either for business or for private use. Is it good? Do you like it? Have you managed it in enterprise?

Hey everyone,

I’m setting up a business email to link with Calendly. Nothing too fancy, I just need it to send/receive messages reliably and look professional.

I was going to use Zoho’s free plan, but after reading reviews, it seems like everyone is calling them a dumpster fire…

Is it really that bad in this case if it’s just for connecting with tools like Calendly?

Also open to better free/cheap alternatives if you’ve got suggestions. Thanks!

I was looking to make a free business email with Zoho as I have already 4 times, but now they have made it much more difficult. Below is the direct link to the free plan. Enjoy!

https://mail.zoho.com/signup?type=org&plan=free

I heard that Zoho Mail free plan doesn't allow email forwarding. Is the conditional forwarding in filters also disallowed either?

What happened to the Forever Free plan for business emails? I can’t seem to find it on the plan comparison page.

I know that Zoho Mail is free, but I’ve heard a lot of negative reviews about its reliability and deliverability.

I wanted to know if there are any real free email platforms (apart from Zoho Mail) that are actually usable for a small business.

I just registered a domain and though I am not doing anything with it right now, I would like to connect a free e-mail service to it that is preferably compatible with MS Outlook. Are there any good ones out there? Recommendations great appreciated!

Greetings,

I was asked for advice for someone who runs a small business and has two accounts within a Google Workspace Suite.

They're currently facing a technical issue with Gmail authentication on several of their Apple devices which technical forums nor Google Workspace's support (once we ere able to find it) have been successful in resolving or providing meaningful guidance. The communication via email from Google Workspace support was also often fairly slow, In what appeared to be broken English ran through ChatGPT and not really relevant to the issue or types of devices.

Frustrated with the experience so far and limited support options, they're seeking advice on an email host to migrate their accounts and mailboxes to.

From what I can tell, the main three are

- Google

- Microsoft

- Zoho

I can't exactly say that Microsoft is well known for support accessibility and what I've read about Zoho on various boards suggests they may have outages more frequently then the other two as well as issues with sent emails being marked as spam or blackholed.

What I've read so far suggests that they're probably best off holding their nose and sticking with Google as It doesn't sound like the support quality of alternatives is much better from what I've read. Adding on top of that, you'd have to deal with migrating mailboxes and the challenges that brings, as well as learning curve of a new admin portal.

Could anyone please offer me some guidance and insight? As I'm not really sure what to tell them at this point.

Hey everyone,

I’m setting up a business email to link with Calendly. Nothing too fancy, I just need it to send/receive messages reliably and look professional.

I was going to use Zoho’s free plan, but after reading reviews, it seems like everyone is calling them a dumpster fire…

Is it really that bad in this case if it’s just for connecting with tools like Calendly?

Also open to better free/cheap alternatives if you’ve got suggestions. Thanks!

I've been with Zoho for over a year. I signed up for their "Forever Free" email for my small business and have slowly been integrating more and more of their services (Invoice, Sign, Forms, etc.). I've since recommended Zoho to numerous colleagues in the midst of starting up their businesses.

This morning, however, I tried to access my email and was instead presented with a message stating that my account is inactive and that I had no active subscription. I could not access through a browser or the app on my phone. After hours of trouble shooting and discussing with the call centre, it turns out that Zoho has discontinued their "Forever Free" plan for email, contacts, calendar, and docs.

I have no issue with businesses needing to adjust their pricing or changing their plans, that is very much the reality we live in. But this was done with zero notice. Being unable to access my email and contacts at the start of the work day has profound consequences for customer relations. I missed several scheduled meetings and was unable to even notify said clients in advance.

Further, because I was effectively locked out of my emails, I couldn't even export or save them through other means. In essence, Zoho extorted me into paying for a subscription. As I understand it, this shift has only landed in Canada and Saudi Arabia at the moment, but it seems obvious that it will be coming to other regions, too. Other "Forever Free" services are likely to follow a similar path. Despite having now paid for a year of services, I will be moving everything to a different services immediately.

I hope this helps some other folks out there.

Many platforms claim to offer their services for free, but I am not sure what their underlying intentions are. I have always been skeptical about using anything completely free, especially when it comes from a billionaire. So, what exactly is the deal with Zoho? Why are they free? What is the catch? And why should I choose Zoho over other affordable startups like Neo Mail or Mailfence? How is Zoho Mail actually benefiting from making me their customer?

I guess title has it all. Can I setup a personal email with Zoho Mail but with a custom domain?

I tried setting up an account but quite quickly (around payments page) I got asked about the company name...

Hi, so I'm starting a small business on the side and I'm looking for an email hosting provider.

I was thinking about google workspace, but I'd like to cut the costs as much as it's possible to do so. That's how I came across Zoho - it's cheap and the basic plan is all that I need for now.

Would you recommend going with it, or is it really worth it to pay extra and get google workspace/microsoft 360?

edit: I've just found Titan, they seem alright and the price is nice too. Is this the right choice?

I don't want to have a recurring charge for my email. So trying out Zoho free mail.
I have a couple of Zoho accounts created with a custom domain long back (Around 5 years ago). I can port my domain to Zoho mail (IMAP/POP available) with 25 free users.

My ultimate fear is, what if Zoho discontinues the free email and faces the same situation as the Google Legacy edition? When a big giant like Google can't keep us with a Free plan, can Zoho keep us in forever free mail?

Only been using it for a day but it came highly recommended by someone I trust. He was looking at free mail solutions for a client and happened across Zoho. Looks like we might both jump in full-on but I'd like to hear any criticisms, thoughts, questions.

Thoughts on the free version:

• 25 email accounts, 5GB each. 30 if you're referred as I was. Bit limited but most of my clients would be fine or happy to pay for more storage/accounts. Haven't looked at pricing.

• Usual stuff; IMAP support, spam filtering, contacts, aliasing, etc. Standard client setup but see below.

• Absurdly fast. I get a mail from Gmail as fast as I can click back on the webmail tab. My home server is nowhere near that fast (OK, we're talking seconds to a minute) and my ISP connection rocks out.

• Has calendaring and shared calendaring, which a client of mine dearly wants.

• Tasks and Notes, which I haven't tried yet but look cool.

• Something called "Streams"? No idea. Internal blog?

• Webmail support. Seems like a no-brainer but my home server solution (Xeams) doesn't offer this.

• GREAT documentation so far. Very clear even if you don't know email (MX records, etc.) This has been the most positive sign. Kinda like how Digital Ocean has mind blowing docs out there.

• Everything looks "syncable" for a whole company's team. Just my wife and myself on it now but maybe I can test it in a limited environment? This might be a good selling point for the (very) small businesses I support.

• You can customize your webmail logo. Very cool. It seems small but clients swoon over proper branding.

• Limited, but supported, webmail themes. Nothing great. Branding again, love to see more. Perhaps it's in the paid version?

• iOS and Android apps. Android seems to work well.

• Doesn't support autodiscover and that scares me. This is supposed to be a full-blown enterprise-grade email service and I have to manually configure each client like some kind of animal?!? I worked with our email provider at work, who started as two guys working out of a closet, and got autodiscover working. WTF Zoho?!

Re-reading this and I wasn't clear. Sysadmin day job with a side-business. This is for my side-business.

Hi everyone,

I'm writing this post to let others know about my experience with Zoho Mail Lit e or otherwise.

Background

I've always had a custom domain for my email. For a long time, I've been running it off a cPanel with a bit of hit and miss, however, for the most part, it worked. I wanted a solution that just worked out of the box and turned to Zoho due to pricing.

What I needed

I needed the basic stuff: email, calendar, contacts.

Anything extra was a bonus.

What worked

Sending emails worked fine for the most part.

What didn't work

Receiving emails

• most, in excess of 70% of normal emails, went to spam including:

  • emails from Zoho itself

  • emails from government

  • invoices

  • purchases

  • everything else, you name it

After about 5 support tickets they got it, almost. If I send emails to myself they are marked as spam. There are some other genuine emails are marked as "Junk".

Contacts sync

• Android contacts sync simply doesn't work, I tried everything including paid solutions. The sync simply gives up after 2 - 3 days. Refuses to sync with a "Gateway Error". Support couldn't help.

• Thunderbird, EM Client, or any other desktop client refuses to sync contacts. Support can't help.

Calendar

• Can't sync the calendar with Thunderbird, EM Client or almost any other client

• You can have only 1 Google Calendar import

Sending Emails

• Writing emails sometimes creates drafts emails. Lots of them. Writing 10 emails a day sometimes resulted in 20 draft emails saved there. Sometimes it doesn't. I don't understand how it works or why.

Android phone

• If you modify the contacts online and attempt to write an email from your Android phone client, you will not see the modified contacts, instead, you will see the old ones. You can see the online ones which display correctly but you can't select them.

• Sometimes you delete or move emails and they keep popping back where they were

• More drafts

• Unsyncable contacts

• Look at their Play Store, most of the apps sit in 3-star rating with lots of them under. CalDav sync has 2.5, contacts manager 2.7, etc. You get the idea

Sending emails with attachments

• I have sent multiple emails, including to Zoho support, only to get a reply that there were no attachments

• I have sent multiple images and screenshots, only to get a reply stating that the images are ... blank or black

Other problems

Support

• Support is slow

• I spoke with them over the phone. Could barely hear the block on the other side and the conversation was awkward at best. They called me to resolve my issues yet they were asking me what is wrong

• It takes support about 3 - 4 days for each reply

• No issues were resolved

Support pages

• Have a look at the following support page instructions.

  • " 6. Enter the server address as https://calendar.zoho.com.au.au.au.au and Sign in. "

• They wrote the whole page like that, at least 5 times you can see zoho.com.au.au.au.au

Desktop Client

• You might get the client to work for you, or not. If not, you will need to contact support again to explain how to modify it to see it properly

Contacts management

• Editing contacts works fine and the contact refreshes in place as it should. If you delete one contact the page refreshes and you have to scroll down again. That wouldn't be a problem if it wasn't for the fact that you have to wait for the contacts to load every time you scroll down. Good luck getting back where you were.

My thoughts,

It is a very unpleasant experience. I'm still in discussions with them over the issues. After about a dozen support tickets, the issues persist.

It may seem like little things here and there for you but it does mount up.

It has been an enormously unpleasant experience which ended up costing me a lot of time and nerves.

Unless they solve their issues, I can't say I can recommend them.