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Facto Lite vs Zoho One for Businesses Under 100

By Rohan Jain, Co-founder and CEO, FactoChecked against the product on

Is there a simpler alternative to Zoho One for a small team?

Yes, if the jobs are tasks, sales follow-ups and payroll rather than fifty apps. Zoho One puts over fifty Zoho apps, accounting and email included, under one licence. Facto Lite sells three modules, each priced flat for up to 10, 50 or 100 users, so you pay for what the team opens.

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Side by side

Facto Lite and Zoho One, row by row.

The marker says which side is better at each row. Where Zoho One wins, it says so.

  • What you get

    Zoho One
    Zoho One
    Over fifty Zoho apps on the Standard plan, across sales, marketing, support, finance and HR
    Facto Lite
    Three modules: Tasks, CRM, and HR & Payroll

  • HR and payroll in India

    Even
    Zoho One
    Zoho People and Zoho Payroll are in the plan, and Zoho lists India among the countries where Payroll is available in Zoho One
    Facto Lite
    Attendance, leave and payroll with PF, ESI and TDS, and a payslip each employee opens on their own phone

  • Sales follow-ups

    Zoho One
    Zoho One
    Zoho CRM, with the features of its Enterprise edition
    Facto Lite
    Leads with an owner, scheduled follow-ups with reminders, deals and quotations

  • Handing out work

    Even
    Zoho One
    Zoho Projects is one of the apps in the plan
    Facto Lite
    Tasks with an owner, a due date and a reviewer who signs them off, plus checklists raised on schedule

  • Accounting and email

    Zoho One
    Zoho One
    Zoho Books and Zoho Mail are in the plan
    Facto Lite
    Not included. Keep your accounting software and your email

  • Who needs a licence

    Even
    Zoho One
    Either only the users you choose, or every employee in the organisation under all-employee pricing
    Facto Lite
    Each module is priced for a band of up to 10, 50 or 100 users

  • How much there is to learn

    Facto Lite
    Zoho One
    One login to many apps, each with its own screens
    Facto Lite
    Three modules on one login
The bill

What you pay for, and how it grows.

Facto Lite’s own prices, as published on the pricing page. For Zoho One, only how the cost behaves: their prices are theirs to state.

What you pay for

Facto Lite: Only the modules you use: Tasks from ₹1,499, HR & Payroll from ₹2,499 and CRM from ₹2,999 a month

Zoho One: The whole suite, per user or per employee on payroll

As the team grows

Facto Lite: A flat price per band, not per person. HR & Payroll for up to 50 users is ₹4,999 a month

Zoho One: Rises with each licence you add

Paying yearly

Facto Lite: Cheaper by the year: HR & Payroll for up to 10 users is ₹24,999 a year

Zoho One: Zoho says its best price is on an annual subscription; monthly is offered too

Add-ons

Facto Lite: A module’s price covers the whole module

Zoho One: Enterprise or Premium support and some Marketplace extensions are billed separately

Trying it first

Facto Lite: Every module free for 60 days, with no card

Zoho One: A free trial with access to the full suite

See every price

Which one fits

Each is the better buy, somewhere.

Stay with Zoho One if

  • You want accounting, email and your CRM from one vendor
  • You need marketing, help desk or analytics apps as well
  • You want to build your own apps and workflows on the same platform
  • You already run Zoho Books or Zoho Mail and want everything else alongside
  • Your team is past 100 people

Choose Facto Lite if

  • You need tasks, sales follow-ups and payroll, and nothing else from a suite
  • You want PF, ESI and TDS worked out every month, with payslips on each person’s phone
  • You want the price to stay put until you cross 10, 50 or 100 users
  • You would rather learn three modules than find your way round fifty apps

Zoho One is the widest suite a small Indian business is likely to look at: over fifty apps on its Standard plan, from CRM and payroll to accounting, email and a help desk, all under one licence. Facto Lite is much narrower on purpose. It has three modules, Tasks, CRM, and HR & Payroll, for teams of up to 100.

So the choice isn't really which one is better. It's how many of those fifty apps your team would actually open.

When a Zoho One alternative makes sense

Zoho One suits a business that wants one vendor for almost everything, and will use a good part of it. If you run your books in Zoho Books, your mail in Zoho Mail and your support desk in Zoho Desk, the suite ties them together and that's worth a lot.

Most of the owners we meet want three things fixed: work handed out and chased, enquiries followed up, and payroll done right with PF, ESI and TDS. For them, a suite is a lot of software to learn and license for three jobs.

Read the licensing page closely: Zoho One offers two ways to buy. Flexible user pricing licenses only the people you choose. All-employee pricing asks you to license every employee in the organisation. Which one fits depends on how many of your people will log in.

What Facto Lite costs, by team size

Facto Lite is priced per module, flat for a band of users rather than per person. Here is what all three cost together, a month, at each band, worked out from the prices on our pricing page:

TeamThree modules separatelyAll three together
Up to 10 users₹6,997₹5,597
Up to 50 users₹13,997₹11,197
Up to 100 users₹23,997₹19,197

Take a 30-person clinic chain in Indore. It sits in the up to 50 users band, so all three modules come to ₹11,197 a month, and that figure doesn't move when it hires its 31st or its 50th person. If it only wants Tasks and HR & Payroll, that's ₹7,998 a month. We don't print Zoho's prices on this page; their pricing page has them, and you can set the two side by side for your own headcount.

What you give up with Facto Lite

Being honest about this matters more than the table. Facto Lite has no accounting, no email, no marketing tools and no help desk. It doesn't let you build your own apps. If you need those, you'd be buying Facto Lite and something else, and Zoho One may well work out simpler.

What you get is depth where small teams feel it most. Payroll works out PF, ESI, TDS and professional tax (in Karnataka, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu) for every person, every month, and each employee opens their own payslip. You can check the same maths on our free salary calculator. Tasks give every job an owner, a date and a reviewer, and the HR & Payroll module shares the same list of people.

If delegation is the part that hurts, how to delegate work and know it got done goes through it step by step.

Sources

What this page says about the other product comes from its maker's own pages, each checked on 24 Sep 2026:

Products and plans change. Check the current page before you decide, and tell us if something here has gone out of date.

Questions

Asked often, answered here.

Is Zoho One cheaper than Facto Lite?

It depends on how many people use it, and for what. Zoho One is priced per user, or per employee if you license everyone; we never quote another company’s prices. Facto Lite is priced per module: HR & Payroll is ₹2,499 a month for up to 10 users.

Does Zoho One include payroll for India?

Yes, by Zoho’s own FAQ, which lists India among the countries where Zoho Payroll is available in Zoho One. Facto Lite’s HR & Payroll works out PF, ESI and TDS, and professional tax in Karnataka, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu.

Can we buy only the Facto Lite modules we need?

Yes. Each module is sold on its own and priced by team size, and all three together cost less than the three bought separately.

Does Facto Lite do accounting or email?

No. It runs tasks, sales follow-ups and HR with payroll. Keep your accounting software and your email; Zoho One includes both, and that is a fair reason to choose it.

Try it on your own team for sixty days.

Tasks, CRM and HR & Payroll, with no card. Keep the sheet running beside it for the first month and compare. Or see it first on a half-hour walkthrough.

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