Is Zoho's US$100 Credit Worth Grabbing? Company Email and CRM in US Dollars: 10 Things to Know First

Zoho started out in New Jersey in 1996 as AdventNet, renamed itself Zoho in 2009, now has its main campus in Chennai, India, and opened an Asia-Pacific HQ in Singapore in 2018. It makes dozens of business apps: Zoho Mail and the Workplace suite (email, documents, cloud drive, chat), Zoho CRM, Zoho Books, Projects, Desk and more, plus the all-in Zoho One bundle; it passed 100 million users in 2023.

Zoho is privately owned and says it has never taken investor money. It also promises no ads in its products (free versions included), no selling user data to third parties and no third-party trackers on its websites. The Wallet credit is issued by Zoho Corporation Private Limited.

Sign up through our link and Zoho adds US$100 of Wallet credit to your new account, for buying new Zoho apps, upgrading, renewing, adding users or add-ons. It's not cash, you can't take it out, and it lasts 360 days from the day you get it; log in and check the balance at store.zoho.com before you pay for anything.

Who qualifies: only businesses or freelancers who have never registered with Zoho and aren't paying Zoho customers. Zoho can only track sign-ups that start from the referral link, and you need to open the account within 90 days of first clicking it.

Full disclosure: this is our own referral link, and Zoho gives us Wallet credit too: US$3 when you sign up, plus, if you stay at least 60 days, 15% of what you pay Zoho in your first 12 months. Our credit doesn't come out of yours.

Zoho's Wallet terms spell it out: credit can pay up to 50% of an annual bill, capped at US$200 or the equivalent. So a bill needs to be US$200 to use the whole US$100 in one go. Examples (all annual): 10 people on Mail Lite pay US$120 a year (about HK$936), the credit covers up to US$60 and US$40 is left over; 5 people on Workplace Standard pay US$180 (about HK$1,404), the credit covers up to US$90 and US$10 is left.

Bigger bills soak up the lot: 2 people on CRM Standard pay US$336 a year (about HK$2,621), the full US$100 applies and you pay US$236; 5 people on Workplace Professional pay US$360 (about HK$2,808), again the full credit, and you pay US$260. Bottom line: get US$200 of annual bills inside the first 360 days or some of the credit goes to waste.

If Zoho counts your credit as promotional, monthly plans can only use it on the first payment and one renewal, and only if you haven't changed your payment method. To get the most out of it, go annual.

Another easy trap: the credit can't pay for in-app purchases in Zoho's phone apps. Zoho Mail on the Hong Kong App Store lists in-app items like Standard at HK$33 and HK$283 and Pro at HK$53 and HK$568, and paying through the App Store means zero credit. The right move is to buy on the Zoho website in your browser, then log in on the phone app, which is free to download. Third-party apps and paid support or training aren't covered either.

Zoho charges Hong Kong in US dollars, per person a month: Mail Lite US$1 (5GB) or US$1.25 (10GB) and Mail Premium US$4, both annual only; Workplace Standard US$3 annual or US$4 monthly, with 30GB of email per person plus a shared cloud drive; Workplace Professional US$6 annual or US$7 monthly. CRM Standard is US$14 annual or US$20 monthly, Professional US$23 annual or US$35 monthly.

At US$1 to HK$7.8, Workplace Standard on annual billing is about HK$23.4 per person a month and CRM Standard about HK$109. Annual is generally cheaper than monthly; paying US dollars on a Hong Kong dollar card may add a foreign currency fee, so use a card without one if you have it.

Zoho Mail Forever Free covers up to 5 people with 5GB each and email on one domain you own, on the web and phone apps, but with no IMAP, POP or ActiveSync, so no reading mail in Outlook or Apple Mail. It isn't offered in every data centre and needs no credit card; add a sixth person and everyone has to move to a paid plan.

Heads up: the credit is only for people who have never registered with Zoho, so if you go and open a free account yourself first, you lose it. If you think you'll upgrade to paid later, open the account through the referral link from day one; but the credit only lasts 360 days, so upgrade within that window.

Zoho runs lots of regional data centres: the US (main site Quincy, backup Dallas), Europe, India, Australia, Japan, Canada and Singapore (main site Tai Seng, backup Sunview). When you sign up you pick your country (pre-filled from your IP), and that decides which data centre your account lives in.

Referrals only count within one data centre, so you have to sign up in the same one as the person who referred you. Our link opens Zoho's US store, so open your account on the page it brings up and don't wander off to another region's Zoho site. If your company has rules about where data is kept, check before you sign up.

Cancel or downgrade mid-subscription and any unused credit vanishes on the spot; expired credit doesn't come back either. You can only transfer credit to a colleague in the same company, on the same domain and in the same data centre, by emailing [email protected].

So use up the credit before you think about switching plans. If you're leaving Zoho Mail, export your emails before the plan ends; whatever credit expires or is left when you leave isn't refunded as cash.

On 24 October 2026 the Zoho Mail iPhone app scored 4.5 on the Hong Kong App Store (128 ratings). Fans mostly say it works smoothly with other Zoho apps, feels fast and secure, and is easy to use.

The gripes: a Hong Kong user said back in 2018 that the app had no separate language setting and showed only English when the phone was set to Traditional Chinese; UK App Store users say account admin only works on the website and that deleted emails pop back up. And on Zoho's own community forum, people complain the referral credit is narrower than they expected, for example it can't go towards an existing subscription.

Grab it: Hong Kong small businesses using Zoho for the first time that already plan to pay, like teams moving company email to Workplace or starting on Zoho CRM; pay annually and have US$200 or more of annual bills in the first 360 days, and you'll get every cent of it.

Skip it: if the free Mail plan does the job; if you already have a Zoho account; if you'd only ever buy inside the phone app; or if your company says data can't sit in a US data centre. Don't buy plans you don't need just to use up the credit. Keep a cool head.