Honouring the commitment we made ten years ago

There's no denying that a custom domain is no longer a nicety but an absolute necessity, not just for established businesses or corporations, but also for small businesses or in some cases, families. We have always believed that starting up shouldn't cost too much, or should we say, shouldn't cost at all. Of course our plans have gone through its fair share of changes, with Zoho Mail having been in the business for almost 15 years now and crossing 15 million users worldwide. But we have always made sure that we grandfather our existing users, and retain a free tier for light users.

To rewind a little, around 2012, we announced that we will provide Zoho Mail free of cost for up to 5 users with custom domain support. A decade later, we still feel the same about offering a fully free tier, no matter how the landscape around is changing, and how almost all competition out there is moving away from free models. Instead of stripping away the free plan, we give our customers the choice to pick what they want.

Ever since Google's announcement a decade ago about discontinuing their free service to new customers, we have seen numerous migrations to Zoho, and we don't expect it to be any different this time, with the legacy users also forced to upgrade. Because quite honestly, it was never really "free", was it?

However, our free plan isn't the only reason we think Zoho Mail/Workplace is a viable alternative. Because, if and when you are ready to do more than just basic emailing, or to scale up, you will have the power to choose from a wide range of pricing plans between the light version that costs 1$ per user per month and the fully loaded collaboration suite that costs 6$ per user per month and includes everything from email, calendar, tasks, file storage with online office suite to business chat, virtual meetings, and social intranet. And with this choice comes true flexibility— the ability to mix and match these plans for different users with no caps on the number of users in each plan.

So if you are a Google Apps user who has been forced to look for alternatives, or a Gmail or Workspace user not very happy with your current service or pricing, what we have to tell you is, we are ready for you. You don't have to take our word for it-- our users were quick to recommend Zoho Mail on social media. With millions of users trusting us worldwide and the number constantly growing, you can be sure, you are in good company.

The migration process is free, lossless and simple and can be managed in just a few steps from the Zoho Mail admin console and we have a detailed transition guide to make the jump easier. Whether all you want is a way to move out of Gmail, or a way to replace your Google Workspace, Microsoft Teams, or Microsoft 365, we've covered all bases right from pricing, comprehensive features, and ease of switching. Of course, we are not the only provider you would be evaluating, so we are open to extending the trial period of our paid plans beyond the usual 15-day window.

Entering the Zoho ecosystem does NOT mean that you will be cut off from the rest. Zoho Workplace can co-exist with these players too, and integrate with a wide variety of third-party applications, so that you can plug it into your existing software landscape and not worry about data flows.

Over the years, we have grown in numbers and features, but our values and convictions haven't changed, so won't our commitment to our small business users.

P.S: We also realised that other than businesses, families who use Google for custom domain email addresses and for file storage are also the ones most affected by this recent announcement. To cater to their niche needs, we have a family-focused collaboration product coming from Zoho very soon. Expect our announcement in the next few days!

Update: Our family-focused collaboration offering is now available! Read our announcement here.