By Alpit Patel and the aibrevo team · October 22, 2026 · 7 min read
Bigin vs Zoho CRM: Pricing, Limits and the Upgrade Path
Bigin vs Zoho CRM: Bigin is the cheaper, simpler pipeline tool at $7 to $18 per user a month, and Zoho CRM is the full platform from $14. The catch is that Bigin Premier allows 25 custom fields per module while Zoho CRM Standard allows 10, so an upgrade can cut limits before it adds features.
Key takeaways
- Bigin lists Free ($0, 1 user), Express ($9 monthly or $7 yearly per user), Premier ($15 or $12) and Bigin 360 ($21 or $18); records cap at 500, 50,000, 100,000 and 1 million (bigin.com/pricing.html, checked Oct 22, 2026).
- Zoho CRM Standard is $14 and Professional $23 per user a month billed yearly (aibrevo's October 6, 2026 price check; Zoho's pricing page rendered without prices in this run), so Bigin 360 at $18 costs more than Zoho CRM Standard at $14.
- Custom fields per module: Bigin Express 10, Premier 25, Bigin 360 50; Zoho CRM Standard 10, Professional 155, Enterprise 300 (Zoho CRM feature-availability page, checked Oct 22, 2026).
- Zoho's upgrade guide says that on Standard, items beyond 5 pipelines, 10 custom fields and 20 tags per module do not migrate, and on Professional only 1 team pipeline migrates because Professional supports 1 layout.
- The Bigin to Zoho CRM migration does not cancel Bigin, carries no add-ons such as purchased phone numbers, and moves extra users to the inactive tab until you buy licenses.
Bigin costs $7 to $18 per user a month on yearly billing and Zoho CRM Standard costs $14, so the most expensive Bigin plan (Bigin 360, $18) costs more than the cheapest paid Zoho CRM. The two are different products with different limits: Bigin is a lightweight pipeline CRM, and Zoho CRM is the full platform. Upgrading is a supported migration, but limits on the destination edition decide how much of your Bigin setup survives it.
Bigin vs Zoho CRM: which one do you need?
Use Bigin when the work is a visible pipeline, contacts, follow-ups and simple automations for a small team. Use Zoho CRM when you need multiple sales processes, blueprints, custom modules, forecasting and large data volumes. If you are already on Bigin, the question is not which is better but whether you have outgrown a specific Bigin limit.
When does each one win?
| What you see in the business | Better fit | Why |
|---|---|---|
| One sales process, 1 to 10 people, a Kanban view is enough | Bigin Express or Premier | $7 or $12 per user yearly, 3 or 5 team pipelines |
| You keep exporting to a spreadsheet to report | Zoho CRM | Unlimited reports on Professional, forecasting on Standard and up |
| More than 50,000 records on Express | Premier or Bigin 360 | Records are 100,000 and 1 million |
| You need an approval process or enforced stages | Zoho CRM Professional | Blueprints start there (3 included) |
| You need a custom module (projects, assets, contracts) | Zoho CRM Standard and up | Standard lists 10 custom modules; Bigin pages list none |
| 25 custom fields in use on contacts | Stay on Bigin Premier, or Zoho CRM Professional | Zoho CRM Standard allows 10 per module |
| API-heavy integration with a data warehouse | Zoho CRM | API credits scale with users; Free has 5,000 a day |
| You want the cheapest paid seat | Bigin Express | $7 yearly against $14 for Zoho CRM Standard |
Bigin vs Zoho CRM pricing: what does each plan cost?
Bigin has four plans, and Zoho CRM has five editions. Bigin prices below come from bigin.com/pricing.html, checked Oct 22, 2026. Zoho CRM’s own pricing page rendered without dollar amounts when fetched, so its Standard and Professional prices come from aibrevo’s October 6, 2026 price check (see our CRM pricing comparison); the Zoho page itself says “Save up to 34% with yearly plans.” Enterprise and Ultimate prices are not stated here because we could not confirm them from Zoho.
| Product and plan | Per user per month, monthly billing | Per user per month, billed yearly |
|---|---|---|
| Bigin Free | $0, 1 user | $0 |
| Bigin Express | $9 | $7 |
| Bigin Premier | $15 | $12 |
| Bigin 360 | $21 | $18 |
| Zoho CRM Free | $0, up to 3 users | $0 |
| Zoho CRM Standard | Not confirmed | $14 |
| Zoho CRM Professional | Not confirmed | $23 |
The surprise is the overlap. Bigin 360 ($18) costs more than Zoho CRM Standard ($14), and Bigin Premier ($12) sits just under it. A team choosing between those two is not choosing by price, but by limits.
What are the limits on Bigin and Zoho CRM?
Limits are the real difference between the two, so this table puts the matching numbers side by side. Bigin from its pricing page and Zoho CRM from its feature availability page, both checked Oct 22, 2026.
| Limit | Bigin Express | Bigin Premier | Bigin 360 | Zoho CRM Standard | Zoho CRM Professional |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Records | 50,000 | 100,000 | 1 million | 100,000 records (200 MB) | 10 GB (about 5 million records) |
| Pipelines | 3 team pipelines | 5 team pipelines | 15 team pipelines | 5 sales pipelines | 10 sales pipelines |
| Custom fields per module | 10 | 25 | 50 | 10 | 155 |
| Automations | 30 | 50 | 100 | 30 workflow rules per module (15 active) | 80 per module (40 active) |
| Layouts per module | Not stated | Not stated | Not stated | Not available | 1 |
| Blueprints | Not stated | Not stated | Not stated | Not available | 3 |
| Custom modules | Not stated | Not stated | Not stated | 10 | 25 |
| Mass email | Feature listed | Not stated | 1,000 a day | 250 a day per organization | 500 a day per organization |
| AI credits | None listed | 1,000 a month | 3,000 a month | Not stated on that page | Not stated on that page |
Read two rows twice. Custom fields: Bigin Premier gives 25 per module and Zoho CRM Standard gives 10. Records: Bigin counts “each row of data you enter across Pipelines, Contacts, Activities and Notes”, so notes and activities consume the allowance, which is a different counting basis from Zoho CRM’s record storage. A team near 50,000 Bigin records may hold far fewer contacts than the number suggests.
How do you migrate from Bigin to Zoho CRM?
Upgrade as a Bigin administrator, choose a Zoho CRM edition and pay, then run the built-in migration. The steps below follow Zoho’s upgrade guide, checked Oct 22, 2026.
- Log in to Bigin as an administrator and choose the upgrade option under Subscription.
- Choose a Zoho CRM edition and complete payment.
- If you already have a Zoho CRM account, open the Data Migration page, choose Bigin, pick the organization and click Migrate Now.
- If you do not, finish Zoho CRM onboarding, then go to Setup, Data Administration, Import, select Bigin and start the migration.
What moves: users, companies, contacts, team pipelines, sub-pipelines, stages, tasks, events, notes, attachments, associated products and photos, plus custom fields in contacts, companies, pipelines and products. What does not: add-ons including purchased phone numbers, and extra users, who land in the inactive tab until you buy licenses. The migration does not cancel your Bigin subscription and does not delete Bigin data, so you can compare both for a while, and you keep paying for Bigin until you cancel it.
What breaks when you land on the wrong edition?
Edition limits trim the migration silently. Zoho’s guide says that on Standard, “Extra items beyond these limits don’t migrate”: 5 pipelines, 10 custom fields and 20 tags per module, and the Associated Products sub-form is not supported. On Professional, which supports 1 layout, only 1 team pipeline migrates (the guide’s example is 1 of 5). Team pipelines in Bigin become layouts in Zoho CRM’s Deals module, and sub-pipelines become pipelines.
By the layout counts on the feature page (Professional 1, Enterprise 3, Ultimate 6 per module), keeping more than 3 team pipelines as separate layouts would need Ultimate. That is my reading of two pages, not a statement in the guide, so confirm it with Zoho before choosing a plan for a multi-pipeline Bigin account. The safe sequence is to list your team pipelines, custom fields per module and tags first, then pick the edition whose limits cover them, or trim fields in Bigin before the upgrade. Our data export guide for Zoho CRM is a good backup step before any migration.
Should you stay on Bigin or move to Zoho CRM?
Stay if one pipeline view, light automation and under 100,000 records cover the work. Move when you hit a limit that costs you time: a spreadsheet export every week, a second tool for approvals, a custom data type you cannot model, or an integration that needs more API room. Zoho’s other product, Zoho CRM Plus, is a different decision, covered in Zoho CRM vs Zoho CRM Plus, and for other systems see Zoho vs Pipedrive and HubSpot vs Zoho.
When to get help
The point where help saves time is the edition choice and field cleanup, because the migration trims items that exceed the new edition and cannot be undone by clicking back. aibrevo implements Zoho CRM and can audit your Bigin account, choose the edition, rebuild layouts and automations, and run the migration. Book a short call or send a message, and see the Zoho service page.
Sources
All checked Oct 22, 2026. Vendor prices change; confirm before buying.
- Bigin pricing: plans, prices, limits, record definition.
- Zoho CRM feature availability and limits: limits by edition.
- Upgrade to Zoho CRM from Bigin: steps, what migrates, edition limits.
- Zoho CRM pricing: billing note (prices did not render in this run).
- Internal: CRM pricing comparison 2026 for Zoho CRM Standard $14 and Professional $23 (checked Oct 6, 2026).
- Not verified: Zoho CRM monthly-billing prices, Enterprise and Ultimate prices, Bigin API limits.