Zoho Marks 30 Years With 1 Million Customers and Growing SMB Demand

Zoho is marking its 30th anniversary with a milestone meant to signal stability in a fast-changing software market: the company says it has surpassed one million paying customers and 150 million users globally, following what it describes as 32% year-over-year customer growth and 20% revenue growth in 2025. For small business owners juggling rising costs, staffing constraints, and more complex operations, the announcement reinforces a familiar question: does it make more sense to run on a connected suite of tools—or to stitch together specialized apps and hope the integrations hold?

Zoho Corporation—whose portfolio includes Zoho, ManageEngine, Qntrl, and TrainerCentral—positioned its growth as evidence that businesses of all sizes continue to look for “powerful, scalable, and affordable solutions,” especially from vendors that can consolidate workflows across departments. The company shared a short milestone page with additional context here: Zoho Corporation one million customers milestone.

Zoho’s leadership used the anniversary to underscore its business model and product philosophy.

“Being bootstrapped, private, and built entirely in-house makes Zoho an outlier among competitors,” says Sridhar Vembu, Co-founder and Chief Scientist, Zoho Corporation. “But vendors don’t need our help, businesses do, which is why delivering customer value has, for 30 years, been Zoho Corporation’s North Star. Before any innovation, strategy, or guiding principle becomes a product, pivot, or policy, it must first affirm the question, ‘Will this help businesses?’ We are incredibly grateful that companies around the world have responded so positively to our customer-first approach over the past three decades, and will continue to meet the evolving needs of businesses with powerful, scalable, and affordable solutions.”

For small businesses, vendor claims about “customer-first” tend to land only if owners see tangible results: smoother sales pipelines, fewer manual steps in invoicing and collections, more reliable IT operations, better visibility into performance, or faster onboarding for new employees. Zoho’s strategy aims at that practicality by offering a broad portfolio under one roof—starting with its main suite at Zoho.com and extending to IT management via ManageEngine, process orchestration via Qntrl, and training delivery via TrainerCentral.

What the Milestone Means in Day-to-Day Terms

A customer count doesn’t automatically translate to “best fit” for your company, but it can hint at product maturity and ongoing investment. For a busy owner, the more immediate value is whether a platform can:

• Keep customer and financial data consistent across teams
• Reduce duplicate data entry
• Automate routine handoffs (lead → deal → onboarding → billing → support)
• Make it easier to report on what’s working without pulling spreadsheets from five systems

Zoho’s announcement didn’t introduce a specific new feature set. Instead, it used customer stories to argue that businesses use the portfolio to scale and adapt over time—without getting boxed into rigid processes.

Zoho spotlighted customers across industries, including manufacturing, security, IT operations, and healthcare, and it framed their experience around partnership, flexibility, and consolidation.

“’Partnership’ is a word that gets frequently used in business, but it rarely matches its definition … With Zoho, I can say that they have always genuinely felt like a true partner. Rather than simply delivering software, Zoho engages with us in a collaborative way — helping us think through challenges, adapt to change, and improve how we operate. That level of customer focus and long-term perspective is what has made our relationship endure over eight years.”

David Fauser, VP of Sales, Marketing and Strategy – CIMCO

Another customer emphasized the ability to adjust systems during organizational change—an issue that can hit SMBs just as hard as enterprises, especially after acquisitions, rapid hiring, or shifts in service models.

“As our business has evolved over the past 10 years through further acquisitions, organizational restructures and new operating models, Zoho has continued to scale with us rather than forcing us into rigid frameworks … The broad range of apps available and the extreme flexibility they offer have repeatedly helped us quickly pivot our business needs, make informed decisions, and maintain momentum during times of significant challenge.”

Brandon Lennix, Director of Commercial Operations – GardaWorld

For small businesses, “flexibility” often comes down to whether the software can handle real-world quirks: unique pricing rules, approvals, territory structures, multiple service lines, or customer onboarding steps that differ by client type. Many SMBs also want the freedom to start simple and add complexity only when needed—without replatforming every two years.

Where SMBs Typically See Practical Value

Even though Zoho’s milestone announcement stayed high-level, the underlying suite narrative maps to a few common SMB scenarios:

1) Reducing tool sprawl
If you currently run a CRM, separate email marketing tool, separate help desk, separate invoicing platform, and separate analytics/reporting app, you likely deal with fragmented customer records. A suite approach can centralize customer data, reduce duplicate work, and make reporting less painful—especially when a small team wears multiple hats.

2) Improving visibility without hiring a full analytics team
Owners often don’t need “big data.” They need fast answers: Which offers convert? Which sales rep pipeline looks real? Which service line has margin compression? Which customers create the most support load? Platforms that unify activity across sales, finance, and support can make these answers easier to access—assuming the underlying data remains clean.

3) Supporting growth without ripping and replacing systems
Businesses that grow from a handful of users to dozens (or hundreds) often discover that their first tools can’t handle permissions, reporting, automation, or process complexity. Several Zoho customer quotes focused on expanding usage rather than switching vendors midstream.

“After seven plus years of using Zoho, we are convinced it is the right CRM for us. A project that started with just a few users has grown to over 1,000, largely because we have built a partnership with Zoho that addresses our demanding growth and business needs.”

Rene Selemi, Vice President of Operations – IDT

“Like many, our decade-plus journey with Zoho began with just one application, Zoho CRM, and like many, Zoho has grown with us. Once we realized we could run our entire business on Zoho, we moved over to Zoho One. Over time, our entire business has improved, and it has everything to do with Zoho providing a suite of products at a reasonable price, with far better support than competitors.”

Roque Rodon, Director of Operations – Erase.com

And for companies operating in multi-dealer or multi-region models—where CRM, analytics, integrations, and workflow automation all need to connect—Zoho highlighted the “integrated ecosystem” angle.

“We’ve been with Zoho since 2014, and what keeps us here is the breadth of the platform. As a Canadian hot tub manufacturer with over 200 dealers across North American and Europe, we need our CRM, analytics, and operations tools to work together seamlessly. Zoho gives us that integrated ecosystem without forcing us into enterprise-level pricing. As our business has grown and our needs have become more sophisticated—from dealer management to API integrations and workflow automation—Zoho has scaled with us. Thank you to everyone at Zoho for building a platform that allows mid-market companies like ours punch well above their weight – you’ve given us an essential tool in the growth of Arctic Spas.”

Phil Edey, General Manager – Arctic Spas

Zoho also called out the ManageEngine brand in the context of IT operations growth—relevant for SMBs that increasingly face enterprise-grade security expectations from customers and insurers, even if they don’t have enterprise budgets.

“When we started our journey with ManageEngine 15 years ago, our operations were much smaller in scale. As our company expanded, so did ManageEngine … We’ve grown with the product suites, and whatever goals or challenges we have, ManageEngine seems to always have the solution.”

Gerry Forde, IT Operations Manager – Lakeland Dairies

What to Consider Before Consolidating on One Platform

Zoho’s customer stories emphasize breadth, flexibility, and support. Small business owners evaluating a similar “suite-first” move often benefit from stress-testing a few practical areas before committing deeper:

• Implementation ownership: Even easy-to-use platforms require process decisions. Someone must map workflows, define fields, set permissions, and maintain data hygiene. If nobody owns it, automation can turn into chaos.
• Integration reality: Many SMBs rely on specialized industry tools (POS systems, vertical scheduling, niche e-commerce workflows). Confirm what integrates out-of-the-box and what requires custom API work.
• Switching costs: Consolidation can lower monthly costs and reduce friction, but it can also make future migrations harder. Ask about exports, APIs, and how easily you can retrieve data and rebuild workflows if plans change.
• Support experience at your scale: Quotes praise strong support, but support can vary by product line and region. A pilot project and reference calls with similarly sized businesses can clarify what you’ll experience.

Zoho also included a customer quote highlighting a theme many owners are debating right now: using AI to automate work without losing service quality or creating a “black box” business process.

“We were interested in Zoho due to the quality of the software, but began using it once we saw that it’s a company that shares our values—growing a business with purpose, not simply just to make money. We liked Zoho’s mission to create jobs, train internally, and maintain a healthy work culture. We have always felt a genuine interest from Zoho in getting to know our company, our needs, and building software that actually works for us, even in a specific industry like healthcare. Over time, we’ve eliminated now-extraneous software systems, and Zoho has become our operational powerhouse. The tech space is changing rapidly, but so far we’ve been impressed by how Zoho has balanced embracing AI and maintaining a human touch, something that is a priority of ours, as well.”

Jessica Miller, LMHC, Chief People Officer – Island Psychiatry and Island Practice Management

The Real-World Implication for SMBs

Zoho’s 30-year milestone announcement is, at its core, an argument for operational simplification: fewer vendors, fewer disconnected systems, and a longer runway for growth without a disruptive technology reset. That approach can appeal to owners who want to spend less time managing software and more time managing customers, employees, and cash flow.

At the same time, the best choice depends on how your business runs today. For some companies, a suite reduces friction immediately. For others—especially those with specialized requirements—best-of-breed tools still win, provided the integrations remain reliable and the team can manage the operational overhead.

Zoho’s milestones and customer stories suggest it expects more small and midsize businesses to choose consolidation as complexity rises. For owners weighing that move, the most practical next step is simple: identify the workflows that cost you the most time (lead handling, invoicing, collections, support triage, reporting), then evaluate whether a unified ecosystem—Zoho’s or another vendor’s—can reduce steps without creating new bottlenecks.

This article, "Zoho Marks 30 Years With 1 Million Customers and Growing SMB Demand" was first published on Small Business Trends

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