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max_

I am an African based in Uganda and I am currently working on my project https://labour.quest

I wanted to start by using Google Workplace. But then switched to Zoho for the generous free tier.

I am so glad I did. Zoho has so many tools that a project needs to run "built in".

For example I was thinking of signing up for the services below but Zoho already had these built in.

SendGrid - Zepto Mail MailChimp - Zoho Campaigns Email - Zoho Emails

Not to mention many other tools like CRMs

It's a real "batteries included" service for email & communication.

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I'm sure you're aware, but you have to be careful with being very reliant on free-tier products. Once a magnitude of people are "locked in" then they'll start to do some of the pricing and licensing shenanigans where once common features or bundled products get hidden under a fee or broken up after an update.

(Interesting project BTW, I'd just recommend having a screenshot or 2 of one of the resumes if you're explicitly advertising them as beautiful. Calling them that is one thing, but showing people that is much better.)

Thanks for the feedback.

This sentence gives me PTSD. We got the startup "90% discount" from Hubspot but what they don't tell you is that it's 5 users plan which you are locked in to. Then they lock you on to min 5 users for sales for the next two years where you are spending up to $500 per month which you cannot break out of.

To cancel it you have to notify them ON THE DAY of renewal because it's yearly contract.

We only had one sales person in our startup and all our customer data was locked in Hubspot + we were using their chat+ email.

I spent a weekend writing up scripts and moving to self hosted service (TileDesk!) and I had to cancel my credit card; there was no way out because you sign the "contract" when you take up their startup plan (https://mvpgrow.com/hubspot-for-startups/)

Thanks for the warning! That’s super sketch.

Zoho has a fantastic progrma for startups. You can explore that as well. Its straight forward with wallet credits.

To be fair, while they did introduce new restrictions in the past, for example disabling imap support for free email accounts, the restrictions did not apply to older accounts that had already these features activated. Ie if you were using imap before the change, you would not have to pay to continue using it.

Ime zoho has been very reliable. Not relying on venture capital [0] and seemingly working on longer than shorter term profit makes it imo also less likely to resort to this type of strategies.

[0] https://techcrunch.com/2022/09/10/how-zoho-became-1b-company...

> I'm sure you're aware, but you have to be careful with being very reliant on free-tier products

Depends where the org is in its economies of scale, operating leverage, cost efficiencies (vs volume), and earnings. Zoho is based in India, in business for decades with pretty much the same model, reaping millions in profits, and can very well afford to not bill its clients as if it was paying developers in London or San Francisco.

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