Zoho Bigin vs Zoho CRM for small NGOs: when to start small
If your nonprofit has fewer than about ten people using a CRM, one or two fundraising pipelines and no programme data to track, start on Zoho Bigin. Move to Zoho CRM when you need custom modules, approval steps or many kinds of relationships in one place. This page is one of the deep dives from our comparison of the best CRMs for nonprofits, and it uses a worked example rather than a feature list.
What’s the difference, in one table
| Zoho Bigin | Zoho CRM | |
|---|---|---|
| Built for | Small teams that work from a pipeline | Organisations with several teams, modules and processes |
| Price (annual billing) | Free for 1 user; US$7 / 12 / 18 per user per month (Bigin pricing); ₹400 / 720 / 1,080 in India | US$14 / 23 / 40 / 52 per user per month (Zoho) |
| Pipelines | 3 (Express), 5 (Premier), 15 (Bigin 360) | Many, per module and layout |
| Custom fields per module | 10 / 25 / 50 | Far higher |
| Records | 50,000 / 100,000 / 1,000,000 | Edition-based |
| Custom modules, approvals, complex automation | Limited | Yes |
| Who can set it up | A staff member, in days | Usually a partner, over weeks |
Both are Zoho products, so data moves from Bigin to Zoho CRM when you outgrow it. Starting small does not lock you in.
Worked example: a six-person NGO’s first CRM
Picture a Pune-based education nonprofit (a composite of several we have worked with). Six staff touch fundraising. They have about 400 individual donors, 30 CSR prospects and a handful of foundation grants, all in three spreadsheets and one founder’s inbox.
Step 1: Three pipelines, not one. On Bigin Premier (5 pipelines allowed) we would set up:
| Pipeline | Stages |
|---|---|
| Individual donors | New contact → Thanked → First gift → Repeat gift → Lapsed (12 months no gift) |
| CSR partners | Identified → Intro call → Proposal sent → Due diligence → MoU signed → Reporting |
| Foundations and grants | Prospect → Concept note → Full proposal → Awarded / Declined |
Step 2: Twelve fields that matter. Contact: PAN, preferred channel, consent to email (date), donor type. Deal: amount, fund type (domestic or FCRA), receipt number, campaign, expected close date, owner, next action, last contact date. That sits inside Premier’s 25-fields-per-module limit with room to spare.
Step 3: Three automations. Thank-you email when a gift is marked received. A task for the owner when a CSR deal has had no activity for 21 days. A “lapsed” move for individual donors with no gift in 12 months.
Step 4: One weekly view. The Monday meeting runs from the pipeline board, not a spreadsheet.
Licence cost: six users on Premier at ₹720 is about ₹52,000 a year before tax, and Bigin’s own pricing page notes that taxes are extra. Set-up: a few days of a staff member’s time with partner guidance.
Five signs it’s time to move to Zoho CRM
- Your CSR partners need their own records. A CSR relationship has an MoU, tranches, utilisation certificates and reports. In Bigin that becomes a deal with too many notes. In Zoho CRM it is a custom module linked to the company.
- You keep arguing about one pipeline. In a Bigin project for a Himalayan waste-management nonprofit, the team asked during testing whether retail and institutional donors should share a pipeline. That is a design question; if the answer is “it depends on five things”, you need Zoho CRM’s layouts and modules.
- You’ve hit the field limit twice. Bigin’s limits are deliberate. Working around them with text fields ruins reporting.
- Someone needs approval. Proposals over a set amount, refunds or donor merges that need a second pair of eyes.
- Programme teams want in. Once programme or beneficiary data enters the picture, think about a separate system linked to the CRM. Our guide to beneficiary management systems explains why.
When Bigin is the wrong start
Skip Bigin if you already know you will need grant tranches, CSR reporting or more than five pipelines within a year. A second migration in 12 months costs more than a well-scoped Zoho CRM build now. Also skip it if your organisation is already on Zoho One, which includes Zoho CRM.
Indian NGOs should add the compliance fields from day one, whichever tool they choose. Our companion piece on donor CRM for Indian NGOs: 80G, FCRA and CSR tracking lists them.
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