Item: Zoho Mail
Rating: 8
Author: Benjamin Jeffrey

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Zoho Mail across our entire organization. We are able to host our mail with a pretty easy-to-use interface for admins to deal with spam, audit logs, etc. in a centralized location. If a user forgets a password it's pretty simple to reset it from my mobile phone quickly to keep downtime to a minimum. The pricing for what you get is pretty outstanding so we can add or remove emails as needed without a large hit to the budget.

Pros and Cons

Alerts to admins and users when mail box storage is close to full.
Downtime is almost non existent and has been reliable in the 2 years we have used it.
Managing user accounts via mobile app or web browser is simple once you get the hang of it.

Navigating around the admin menus is annoying. You can't sort alphabetically or by anything really. Where most programs you can click a header to sort, Zoho Mail does not contain this functionality. You have to sort through your users page by page until you find who you are looking for.
Unblocking users is a common occurrence because of the extremely sensitive rules they have in place server side. They claim no mass marketing but we have several salesmen who have to send the same invoice and information to multiple people within our company and they constantly get marked as spam, blocked, then I have to unblock them.
Things are named strangely in the back end. There is something similar to Google's filtering for promotional emails and social emails that Zoho has tried to implement, but it is on by default and cannot be shut off for everyone in one fell swoop. You have to have every single user log into the web portal to disable "streams" or emails that Zoho decides fits a certain criteria will skip the inbox and show up in a folder called "Notifications" or "Messages" and it took a very long time for my users to get used to needing to search this additional set of folders.

Return on Investment

We have saved a lot of money using Zoho over our previous provider for essentially the same functionality. We went from our ISP hosting our email which had insanely small storage per user and constantly had issues with delivery and are now paying less and getting the same or more in return.
I have had to train employees on what to look out for as emails bounce back often and if one email is sent to many users, one failed email address will stop all recipients from receiving the communication.
The alerts are awesome for storage capacity and allows users to manage their own inboxes and mail clients BEFORE the capacity is reached to avoid missing emails.

Support Rating

I have spoken with Zoho several times and their support is always friendly and helpful. I have always been asked for security pins and codes when seeking assistance which helps me to feel my accounts are secure and I have never had to wait on hold to speak with someone for more than 5 minutes. They always seem to have someone available to help. If you call asking for instructions on how to do something they gladly walk you through the process and if you just need something done and don't have time to do it yourself they will happily customize whatever you need without you having to spend all day with it.

Key Insights

Do you think Zoho Mail delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Zoho Mail's feature set?

Yes

Did Zoho Mail live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Zoho Mail go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Zoho Mail again?

Yes

Other Software Used

SpamTitan

Likelihood to Recommend

If you don't have a huge budget and want something that works with minor quirks here and there then Zoho Mail is definitely something you should look into. For half the price of Google G Suite or Office account you get 5GB of storage per user and can send up to 25MB emails without restrictions. Great for small businesses in my opinion.

I have had some issues with their spam filter, but we use SpamTitan and just shut off the one that comes with Zoho Mail. Zoho's spam filter isn't horrible but you should definitely use something in addition or instead of what comes with Zoho.

Worth every bit of what you pay, compares to larger more expensive hosts.

Overall Satisfaction with Zoho Mail