API review

Zoho CRM API review

Low-cost, highly customisable CRM with REST API v8 (records, upsert with duplicate-check fields, search, COQL), Bulk Read/Write jobs, notifications (webhooks), GraphQL, multi-data-centre OAuth and a free Zoho MCP that spends the same API credits. Best for cost-sensitive clients that still need an API.

Verified 25 Oct 2026 · 8 endpoints listed · Official MCP server

See pricing

Zoho CRM API docs

What a call costs

The actions you pay for, as Zoho CRM prices them.

Action	Cost	Per
Insert/Update/Upsert	1	credit per 10 records
Bulk Write initialize	500	credits per job
Bulk Read initialize	50	credits
Convert Lead	5	credits
Merge records	50	credits
Send Mail	20	credits

Pricing, plan by plan

US dollars, as Zoho CRM's pricing page shows them on 25 Oct 2026. Monthly and annual billing are shown apart.

Free tier Free edition: up to 3 users, 5,000 API credits/day, no webhooks. Signup opens a 15-day trial and requires a mobile number verified by SMS OTP (our trial from an Indian IP, 2026-10-25).

Standard

$20/mo

billed monthly

$14/mo

billed annually

per user; India price ₹1,300 monthly / ₹800 annual per user/month (same price file, INR column)

API included

Plan details

pay-as-you-go extra API credits

Professional

$35/mo

billed monthly

$23/mo

billed annually

per user; webhooks 50,000/day or 100/user licence/day; India price ₹2,100 / ₹1,400 per user/month (same price file, INR column)

API included

Enterprise

$50/mo

billed monthly

$40/mo

billed annually

per user; webhooks 500,000/day or 500/user licence/day; India price ₹3,000 / ₹2,400 per user/month (same price file, INR column)

API included

Ultimate

$65/mo

billed monthly

$52/mo

billed annually

per user; webhooks 1,000,000/day or 1,000/user/day; India price ₹3,200 / ₹2,600 per user/month (same price file, INR column)

API included

Starter (India)

Price not verified

₹600/user monthly, ₹500/user/month annual; shown only in INR on the comparison page and absent from the USD price file (India-only plan)

API included

Rate limits

Credit system on a rolling 24-hour window plus a concurrency cap per org per app (no per-minute limit).

Limit	Free	Standard/Starter	Professional	Enterprise/Zoho One	Ultimate/CRM Plus
Credits 24h	5,000	50,000 + users x 250 + add-ons (max 100,000)	50,000 + users x 500 + add-ons (max 3,000,000)	50,000 + users x 1,000 + add-ons (max 5,000,000)	50,000 + users x 2,000 + add-ons (unlimited max)
Concurrency	5	10	15	20	25

How to get an API key

Zoho CRM uses OAuth. The steps below follow Zoho CRM's own docs.

Create a Zoho CRM account. API access starts on the Standard plan.
Register a client in the Zoho API console, get a grant code, exchange it for an access token (expires_in 3600 s) and a refresh token; tokens are org-specific and data-centre-specific. Accounts URLs: US accounts.zoho.com, AU.com.au, EU.eu, IN.in, CN.com.cn, JP.jp, SA accounts.zoho.sa, CA accounts.zohocloud.ca; API domain follows the DC (e.g. www.zohoapis.eu, www.zohoapis.com.cn).
Send it with every request: header: Authorization: Zoho-oauthtoken <access_token>.
Make a first call: Insert or update up to 100 records, matched on duplicate check fields (system unique fields or fields marked unique), order set by duplicate_check_fields. Keep the key in an environment variable, never in the command.
```
curl -X POST "https://www.zohoapis.com/crm/v8/{module}/upsert" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $ZOHO_CRM_ACCESS_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{}'
```

Where the docs live

What	Where
Documentation	zoho.com/crm/developer/docs/api/v8
API reference	zoho.com/crm/developer/docs/api-directory.md
llms.txt	zoho.com/crm/developer/llms.txt
Base URL	`https://www.zohoapis.com/crm/v8`
MCP server	`https://www.zoho.com/mcp/`
SDKs	PHP, Node.js, Java, C#, Python, Ruby, TypeScript, Scala, JavaScript (client-side)

Strengths and limits

Where it fits

Cost-sensitive clients (Standard from $14/user/month annual) that still need an API
Batch writes: insert/update/upsert 100 records per call for 1 credit per 10 records
Large imports via Bulk Write (25,000 records per CSV, 500 credits per job)
Org-wide SQL-like reads with COQL

Where it falls short

Webhooks on Free/Starter/Standard (webhook actions start at Professional)
Exact-match dedupe via Search: the equals operator behaves like contains
Teams that cannot handle OAuth refresh tokens and data-centre-specific domains

Worth knowing

Search API 'equals' behaves like 'contains': (Company:equals:ABC) also returns 'ABC Inc'. Do not use it as an exact dedupe check; prefer upsert with duplicate_check_fields or COQL. Source: zoho.com/crm/developer/docs/api/v8/search-records.html
Every Bulk Write job costs 500 credits even if it fails; on Free (5,000/day) that is 10 jobs. Source: zoho.com/crm/developer/docs/api/v8/bulk-write/limitations.html
Credit caps conflict between Zoho pages: the comparison page lists Professional 500,000 and Enterprise 1,000,000 credits/day/org, while the API limits doc gives a formula (50,000 + users x 500/1,000) with maxima of 3,000,000 / 5,000,000. Sources: zoho.com/crm/comparison.html; zoho.com/crm/developer/docs/api/v8/api-limits.html
Deluge integration tasks (zoho.crm.*) inside Zoho functions also consume API credits. Source: zoho.com/crm/developer/docs/api/v8/api-limits.html
Tokens and API hosts are data-centre specific (.com/.eu/.in/.com.au/.com.cn); a token from one DC fails on another. Source: zoho.com/crm/developer/docs/api/v8/multi-dc.html

6 moreShow fewer

Zoho MCP is free but spends the same daily API credits. Source: zoho.com/mcp/pricing.html
Observed 2026-10-25.
Notification channels expire after ONE HOUR unless channel_expiry is set (max one week); re-enable before expiry to keep them alive. Source: zoho.com/crm/developer/docs/api/v8/notifications/enable.html
Bulk Write jobs do not trigger workflows, and do not support attachments, notes, file/image fields or formula/auto-number fields. Source: zoho.com/crm/developer/docs/api/v8/bulk-write/limitations.html
Signup requires a mobile number verified by SMS OTP (from an Indian IP the form preselects +91).
Prices differ by region inside USD itself (US 'USD' vs Latin-America 'OLDUSD' vs 'USDAFRICA'), so quote the 'USD' column for a US audience. Source: zohowebstatic.com/sites/zweb/json/pricing/crm-pricing-val.json

Our take

We compared Zoho CRM's Free edition when choosing a free CRM for our own team and ruled it out: it caps data at 5,000 records and has no webhooks, no custom fields and no de-duplicate tool.

Who should use it

Use Zoho CRM for: Cost-sensitive clients (Standard from $14/user/month annual) that still need an API
Look elsewhere for: Webhooks on Free/Starter/Standard (webhook actions start at Professional)

If Zoho CRM is not the answer

Other CRM tools in this directory, each with its own review.

Attio

CRM

Free planOfficial MCP

Best for start-ups and agencies wanting a free/cheap CRM with API, webhooks and MCP on every plan.

Attio API review

CRM

From $9/moOfficial MCP

Best for inside-sales teams that call and email from the CRM.

Best for google Workspace teams that want a simple CRM inside Gmail.

Copper API review

Before you build

Four things to settle first, each read off Zoho CRM's own pages.

Confirm the API is on your planAPI access starts on the Standard plan. Free tier: Free edition: up to 3 users, 5,000 API credits/day, no webhooks.
Keep the key out of your codeOAuth. It is sent as: header: Authorization: Zoho-oauthtoken <access_token>.
Design around the rate limitCredit system on a rolling 24-hour window plus a concurrency cap per org per app (no per-minute limit).
Know the catch before you scaleSearch API 'equals' behaves like 'contains': (Company:equals:ABC) also returns 'ABC Inc'. Do not use it as an exact dedupe check; prefer upsert with duplicate_check_fields or COQL. Source: zoho.com/crm/developer/docs/api/v8/search-records.html

Want us to build it for you?

Tell us what you want Zoho CRM to do in your stack. We will show you how we would wire it into your data, outbound or CRM, and what we would check first.

Book a call

See case studies

Read from zohowebstatic.com/sites/zweb/json/pricing/crm-pricing, zoho.com/crm/developer/docs/api-directory.md and zoho.com/crm/developer/docs/api/v8/api-limit. Verified 25 Oct 2026.

All 8 endpointsFor developers: method, path, what it does and what it costs.

Base URL: zohoapis.com/crm/v8 (data-centre specific, e.g. zohoapis.eu/crm/v8)

Bulk and async: Bulk Write: zipped CSV max 25MB, 25,000 records and 200 columns per file, 500 credits per job; Bulk Read: 50 credits per job. Source: zoho.com/crm/developer/docs/api/v8/bulk-write/limitations.html

Webhooks: Two kinds: workflow webhook actions (Professional+; per-day caps by edition) and Notification API channels (instant create/edit/delete events, channel expiry max one week, re-enable to keep alive). Sources: zoho.com/crm/comparison.html; zoho.com/crm/developer/docs/api/v8/notifications/enable.html

Filter endpoints

8 endpoints

Method	Path	What it does	Cost
POST	`/{module}/upsert`	Insert or update up to 100 records, matched on duplicate check fields (system unique fields or fields marked unique), order set by duplicate_check_fields	1 credit per 10 records (max 10 per call)
POST	`/{module}`	Insert up to 100 records	1 credit per 10 records
GET	`/{module}/search`	Search records in one module by criteria/email/phone/word	1
POST	`/coql`	SQL-like SELECT across a module (COQL)	1 (LIMIT 1-200), 2 (201-1000), 3 (1001-2000)
POSTasync	`https://www.zohoapis.com/crm/bulk/v8/write`	Bulk Write job from an uploaded zipped CSV (insert/update/upsert)	500 credits per job regardless of outcome
POSTasync	`https://www.zohoapis.com/crm/bulk/v8/read`	Bulk Read (export) job	50 credits per initialize
POST	`/__composite_requests`	Run several API calls in one request	1
POST	`/actions/watch`	Enable instant notifications (create/edit/delete events) to a URL; channel_expiry max one week, and if omitted (or set beyond a week) the channel expires after one hour	1