Zoho Cliq

Zoho has a reputation for making high-quality, cloud-based business software that doesn't cost a fortune. Its business messaging app, called Zoho Cliq, is no exception. This thoughtful and speedy messaging platform costs less than any other app in the space and adds a unique paneled layout that lets you view multiple discussions at once. However, Zoho Cliq needs to offer better customization options for notifications, status settings, and the interface. In terms of features and integrations, Zoho doesn't yet rival Editors' Choice winner Slack, either, but it's a suitable option if you prefer its layout or if your team needs to keep costs down.

How Much Does Zoho Cliq Cost?

Zoho Cliq offers both free and paid accounts. The free version has a few limitations. For example, when you search, the results come from only the most recent 10,000 messages. With the free plan, you get organization channels and private channels, but not team channels. You cannot manage permissions in channels either at this tier, nor can you set up external channels or have secret chats. Your team does get a generous 100GB of shared storage space for uploads, however.

The paid account removes all the free plan's restrictions and expands upload storage to 100GB per person. You also get a custom domain and a few other benefits.

The price per person for paid accounts depends on the number of people on your team. For the first 500 people, the rate is $3 per person per month with a discount for paying annually. Once you have more than 500 people on the team, Zoho charges a lower rate for each additional user. The rate drops even further as your account size reaches various benchmarks.

As an example, Zoho would charge a team of 1,005 users in the following way:

Once your account has 10,000 users, the rate drops to $1 per person per month for all additional people.

Comparison Pricing

Compared with other team messaging apps, Zoho Cliq is the least expensive. Slack is one of the priciest options; it costs between $8 and $15 per person per month depending on the account type you choose. Flock and Twist both charge $6 per person per month. Microsoft Teams runs $5 per user per month as part of a Microsoft 365 account.

Getting Started With Cliq

The basic function of Zoho Cliq and most other team messaging apps is to create a space for group chats. You sign up for an account, invite people to join, and set up channels, which are similar to group chat rooms. Zoho Cliq includes an integrated calendar and reminders as well.

Channels can be open to anyone in the account or require an invitation. Every channel needs a name, but a description is optional. Companies commonly create channels for projects, departments, teams within departments, as well as for socializing.

As with most team messaging apps, channels are not the only place to have a conversation. Cliq supports direct messages between individuals and groups.

A Different Design

The most notable aspect of Zoho Cliq is a columnar design that's reminiscent of TweetDeck's layout. As you join channels and send messages to people, each chat opens in a new panel. The more chats you open, the more columns fill your screen. The panels scale down in width up to a point (depending on your screen size), after which you must scroll laterally to find the one you want. 

One benefit of the ability to keep more than one chat window open at a time is that you can reference one conversation while replying to another. Unfortunately, you can't rearrange the columns, which feels like an oversight. With most other online apps that use this type of layout, you can drag and drop the columns to reorder them. In Zoho Cliq, the only way to change the order is to close all the windows and then open them again sequentially in your preferred order.

Tracking Conversations

One problem that messaging apps have struggled to solve is how to prevent conversations from getting lost in a channel. Take, for example, the following situation: Someone asks a question or starts a conversation in a channel, and then, because of time delays, someone else posts something directly below it that's unrelated. If the second post gets more responses, the first one gets buried. At that point, it's easy for people to miss it entirely.

Zoho Cliq handles this problem with forking. Forking is not unlike starting a thread in Slack. When a post that necessitates separate follow-up that's not right in the main channel, you can fork it to a private direct message. The forked conversation appears as its own selection in the list of channels; direct messages show up on the left with the annotation " - Forked." One downside of this approach, as opposed to threads, is that the conversation isn't public and therefore not everyone can follow it and know what was said.

Cliq's Best Features

Cliq supports unlimited video and audio calls, as well as screen sharing. When you click on someone's name in your list of direct messages, an info box appears with buttons to call them.

Speaking of video, there's a great feature called PrimeTime that lets anyone with the right permission level host a one-way video stream that everyone else in the organization can watch. It's useful for town hall meetings, presentations, and other announcements. 

Your status in Zoho Cliq, meaning where you indicate whether you're available, busy, or away, can sync across other Zoho apps that you use. You can also check in to work when you log in to your Zoho account, which lets other people in your organization see that you're in fact working today. You can also automate your status to update whenever you check in (you can choose what that status will be), as well as when you leave work.

Small Details Make a Difference

Fine details help Zoho Cliq stand out from other business messaging apps, too. When you have a private chat with someone who is on a mobile device, for example, you see a smartphone icon next to that person's chat. That's helpful for determining how soon you might expect a response. Additionally, when you're using a mobile device, you can opt into a location feature that tells your colleagues where you are. You can adjust the setting to alert them as to your exact whereabouts or only the city.

Reminders in Cliq let you add a notification to any message. You can add more reminders (not related to any message) by typing them in free-form. Cliq also keeps track of events that you and your teammates create in the app. When you make an event, a bot called Taz sends an invitation to the appropriate people. You can then review all the invitations you've accepted from a panel on the right.

Apps and Integrations

Zoho Cliq offers desktop apps for macOS, Windows, and Ubuntu, plus mobile apps for Android and Apple devices. You can also use Zoho Cliq's web app.

Zoho makes a wide range of online business apps, from its popular CRM software to a project management platform. Fittingly, Zoho Cliq works with other apps in Zoho's portfolio; I already mentioned the option to sync your status update across apps. Cliq also supports integration with several other apps, including Asana, Box, Dropbox, GitHub, Google Drive, JIRA, Trello, and Zendesk.

Zoho lets you create custom integrations using Zoho Flow, an integration service that's similar to IFTTT, Integromat, or Zapier. You use Zoho Flow and its simple drag-and-drop interface to build integrations with other apps and services. You don't need to know how to code to make simple integrations, but a little familiarity with coding helps if you want to get more advanced with them.

Standard Notifications

Notifications in Cliq behave much as you'd expect and there aren't any special options. If someone puts an @ sign in front of your name, you receive a notification. The same goes for when someone sends you a direct message. You also get alerts for incoming audio and video calls, as well as any time someone starts a PrimeTime session. You can turn off some of these alerts if you like and customize the specific alert tones you hear.

Still, there's room for improvement in notifications—not in how you get them, but in how you stop them. Cliq gives you a few options for its Do Not Disturb mode, but they're all for a set number of hours, rather than recurring hours, such as every day from 9 p.m. to 7 a.m. This invaluable setting is common now in other messaging apps.

There are no keyword alerts in Cliq either, unlike in Slack. When a keyword is used anywhere in a public Slack conversation, you can choose to be notified.

What's Missing?

One limitation with Zoho Cliq is that you can't be a member of more than one account. You must choose your allegiance. Other apps, including Slack and Microsoft Teams, let you join multiple team accounts and toggle among them rather easily.

While I like that you can automate custom status updates based on when you check in or out of work, this area of Cliq could still be improved. For example, you can't add any icons or dates to your status, which some other apps offer, notably Twist. Say you'll be unavailable for an extended period, such as for parental leave. It's useful to indicate that in your status and include a date of your expected return. That helps other colleagues know quickly where you are and how long you'll be gone.

You can share files using Zoho Cliq and discuss them right in the app, so long as you can describe your comments using text alone; Cliq lacks integrated image and PDF markup tools. Glip by RingCentral offers some lightweight markup tools, which add a lot of value for teams that frequently discuss visual files.

Excellent Value, Inflexible Interface

Zoho Cliq borrows (and, in some cases, improves upon) some of the best features from Slack and other established team messaging apps. It's also one of the best values in the category. That said, we would like Zoho Cliq to improve some of its notification options and give users more flexibility to customize the layout of columns. 

Zoho Cliq still doesn't edge out Slack, our Editors' Choice winner for business messaging apps. Slack continues to offer unparalleled features and integrations.