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Prices correct as at August 2026
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Platform profile
Zoho Bigin
Deliberately small CRM for very small teams
Market
Coverage
♥
♠
★
Price band
£££
AI maturity
Basic
Skill level reqd
LOW
ESTABLISHED
01
At a glance
02
Who it's really for
Best fit
- Very small teams moving off spreadsheets who want structure without a project
- Businesses that tried a larger CRM, never adopted it, and want to start again smaller
- Zoho users who need pipeline discipline but not the full CRM
Poor fit
- Teams above roughly 20 people, or anyone with a genuinely complex sales process
- Marketing-led businesses needing nurture and attribution
- Buyers who want one system for sales, marketing and service
03
Core functional coverage
04
Commercial model
Verified as at 1 August 2026Prices are indicative list positions in GBP, converted where the vendor publishes in another currency, and exclude VAT. Treat them as directional.
Licensing structure
Per-user, per-month, billed annually. No seat minimum on any tier.
Entry price
Free for one user, or around £6 per user per month on Express.
What an SME realistically pays
Premier at roughly £10 per user per month once the Express workflow cap starts to bite. A five-person team lands around £50 per month, and implementation is your own time rather than a fee.
Minimum seats
None. One user is a legitimate deployment.
Contract terms
Annual for the headline price; monthly available at a premium
Common hidden costs
- Workflow and pipeline caps on Express that force an upgrade rather than an add-on
- Zoho Campaigns, Desk and Books as separate subscriptions once you need them
- Telephony minutes on the built-in phone
- Storage above the plan allowance
05
Ecosystem and integrations
Marketplace
Bigin's own toppings marketplace plus the wider Zoho estate - small, but the useful integrations are present
Key native integrations
Google Workspace and Microsoft 365Zoho Books, Campaigns and DeskXero and QuickBooksTwilio and telephony providersZapier and Make for the gaps
UK implementation partners
Effectively none, and none needed. This is a self-serve product by design.
06
Customisation and extensibility
Configurable without developers
- Custom fields and multiple pipelines
- Workflow automation within tier limits
- Sub-pipelines for post-sale stages
- Simple dashboards
Where the ceiling sits
Low, and deliberately so. The moment you need custom modules or scripting you should be looking at full Zoho CRM, which is the intended upgrade path.
07
Implementation reality
Typical time to value
A day to a week
Is self-implementation realistic?
Yes - it is difficult to justify paying anyone to set this up
Migration considerations
Straightforward CSV import, and little to migrate because little is configurable. Moving up to Zoho CRM later is supported but not wholly seamless.
08
Support and success
Included as standard
Email and chat on all paid tiers
Costs extra
Premium support plans, though rarely warranted at this scale
Documentation and community
Clear and short. The Zoho community covers most questions, if sometimes about the wrong Zoho product.
09
Scalability and lock-in
Behaviour as you grow
Comfortable to about 20 users on a simple process. Beyond that the caps are a signal to move, not an obstacle to work around.
How hard it is to leave
Low. Data exports cleanly and there is almost no configuration to lose - one of the few CRMs that is genuinely cheap to leave.
10
Strengths and watch-outs
Strengths
- Outstanding value, and honest about what it is not
- Adoption is close to effortless for teams that have failed with bigger tools
- Built-in telephony and email at a price no competitor matches
- A clear upgrade path into Zoho CRM if you outgrow it
- Genuinely cheap to leave
Watch-outs
- Sales only - expect separate subscriptions for marketing and service
- Workflow and pipeline caps on the lower tiers are restrictive
- Reporting is too shallow for a management audience
- Minimal AI capability compared with the wider market
- You will outgrow it if the team roughly doubles
11
Bottom line for an SME
The right answer for a very small team that needs pipeline discipline this week and nothing more. Buy it knowing you may move to full Zoho CRM within a few years - and that the move is planned for, which is more than most CRMs offer.
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