Zoho People only covers HR. Avani Business OS combines HRMS, payroll (PF/ESI/TDS), CRM, projects and finance in one unified workspace. The best Zoho People alternative for growing Indian businesses.
Zoho People is HR-only and lives inside the Zoho suite — you need Zoho CRM, Zoho Books, and Zoho Projects separately. Avani is a single product where HR, CRM, payroll, finance, and projects share one database and one login.
Avani's CRM with lead pipeline, call logging, sentiment tracking, and conversion analytics is built into every plan. No need to pay separately for Zoho CRM and then maintain an integration between Zoho People and Zoho CRM.
Zoho People is an HR management tool, not a payroll engine. You need Zoho Payroll (a separate product) for PF/ESI/TDS. Avani includes full Indian payroll in every plan — no separate payroll subscription.
In Zoho's world, an employee exists in Zoho People (HR), Zoho CRM (sales), and Zoho Projects (tasks) as separate records that need syncing. In Avani, there is one employee record that powers all modules instantly.
Zoho People gives HR-only analytics. Avani's analytics crosses modules — see how attendance affects sales performance, which teams are burning project budgets, and which departments have rising attrition simultaneously.
Export your Zoho People employee data and import into Avani in 1-2 days. Our migration team handles the full process. All your HR history, leave balances, and org structure migrate cleanly.
Zoho People is Zoho's HR management product — it handles employee records, leave, attendance, and basic performance management well. Its limitations for Indian SMBs are: (1) Payroll is a separate Zoho product (Zoho Payroll) with its own subscription; (2) There's no built-in CRM — you need Zoho CRM separately; (3) Project management requires Zoho Projects (another subscription); (4) The multiple-app model means data lives in separate silos that need to be connected via Zoho's integration engine, adding complexity and maintenance overhead.
No. Zoho People is an HR management tool, not a payroll engine. Indian payroll — PF, ESI, TDS, Professional Tax, Form 16, payslips — requires Zoho Payroll, which is a separate Zoho product with its own pricing. Avani includes full Indian payroll in every plan. When evaluating Zoho for payroll, you need to price both Zoho People and Zoho Payroll together and account for the integration setup between them.
Zoho One bundles many Zoho apps (CRM, People, Books, Projects, etc.) into a per-user subscription. While comprehensive, it means: (1) Per-user pricing that becomes expensive as you grow; (2) Multiple separate apps that need integration configuration; (3) Each app has its own UI and learning curve; (4) Support is spread across multiple product teams. Avani is a single product built as one — not apps bundled together. Data is natively unified, the UI is consistent, and support is centralized.
Zoho People Essential starts at ₹48/employee/month. For a 50-person company that's ₹2,400/month — but you still need Zoho Payroll (₹40/employee/month = ₹2,000/month) and Zoho CRM (₹1,300/user/month for 5 sales users = ₹6,500/month). Total: ₹10,900/month for three separate products. Avani covers all three (HR + Payroll + CRM) in a flat plan starting at ₹2,999/month. The savings for a 50-person company are ₹7,000-9,000/month.
The switch is straightforward. Export your employee data from Zoho People (the platform supports standard CSV exports). Avani's migration team maps and imports the data, configures your org structure, leave policies, and payroll components, and runs a parallel payroll check. The full process takes 1-2 business days. Because Avani's payroll is more automated than Zoho's setup, many teams find the first month's payroll run faster than it was on Zoho.
If you also switch your CRM to Avani from Zoho CRM, we migrate your lead and contact data as well. Export leads from Zoho CRM to CSV and import into Avani CRM using the bulk import wizard. Your pipeline stages, notes, and call logs can be imported. If you prefer to keep Zoho CRM and only switch HR to Avani, that's also an option — Avani works standalone for HR and payroll without requiring you to migrate everything at once.
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