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Interactive Intelligence vs Salesforce Essentials comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 19, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Interactive Intelligence
Ranking in CRM
50th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Salesforce Essentials
Ranking in CRM
18th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the CRM category, the mindshare of Interactive Intelligence is 0.7%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Salesforce Essentials is 0.6%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
CRM Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Salesforce Essentials0.6%
Interactive Intelligence0.7%
Other98.7%
CRM
 

Featured Reviews

MA
CX Team Lead
A customizable solution that can be integrated with almost anything
The best thing about this solution is the customizability because it can be integrated with pretty much anything. There are many solutions that are black boxes and we're unable to make any modifications to the call flows. With Interactive Intelligence, we can utilize APIs and variables. With the REST call, you can send a request and response. Elements can be incorporated into the workflow based on the response. This is the go-to thing with Interactive Intelligence. The Interactive Intelligence is quite user friendly. And Avaya, in that case, is not that great solution, on user friendliness. Basically, yeah, the same purpose I've used, but you need more expertise to manage the product. And Interactive Intelligence is one box. It contains a lot of features and we don't need to have much resources. But Avaya and others have many servers to be maintained with a single solution. It has a CN. You have to go for session manager and lots of other product servers. So, for a single solution, you need to maintain a lot of servers. This is more or less an easy environment to manage, but Avaya is very complex on the architectural level.
SB
Growth Adviser at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
Creates efficient integrations and boosts operational efficiency through comprehensive dashboards
I have experience with products such as Acronis and Huntress, though Salesforce Essentials serves a different purpose. I have had experience with Huntress for the last few months as we are an MSSP and offer Huntress to our clients. I have used Odoo and HubSpot recently, though not extensively. The main differences between Salesforce Essentials and HubSpot or Odoo is the market presence. It is comparable to the Windows versus Linux situation because both have a huge presence. They have deeper pockets so they can spend money on collecting insights and developing features. Integration and good partnerships with major companies make Salesforce Essentials better than the others.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The social media integration is excellent."
"The stability is really good and it's a really powerful platform that is more powerful than Avaya or other kinds of vendors for contact centers."
"Interactive Intelligence is quite user friendly."
"Being able to automate aspects such as outbound confirmation calls has saved us a lot of time and money."
"The product is stable."
"The solution helps to track the performance of salespersons before closing deals."
"High availability is really important for us when getting our reports as a vendor."
"Salesforce Essentials is a reliable and powerful application."
"Salesforce makes tracking every product and customer activity easy, enabling managers to monitor their products, such as key products and their peak performance."
"The solution is very scalable and flexible. It can be customized as per the business need."
"In terms of features, the cloud-based solution and easy deployment are standout elements that have made a difference."
"The most important feature is how Salesforce Essentials brings together information from multiple channels. The nature of our complex custom product data has been challenging due to our manufacturing nature. Salesforce also allowed business processes like finance, credit lines, customer complaints, and quality issues to integrate seamlessly. I haven’t used the mobile app functionality, because we haven't fully utilized because of our preferance of more personal interactions over using mobile apps."
 

Cons

"The initial setup can be a bit difficult."
"The problem with this current system is that the support is not great."
"We are not happy with the technical support. They take too long to answer."
"Salesforce Essentials operates in a table format where the entire user interface is based on tables, more specifically pivot tables. This is not very user-friendly for mobile."
"Integrating Salesforce with SAP, considering our business relies heavily on SAP for ERP, has been quite challenging due to the intricate product configurations. Unlike standard products like computers with a few options, our products have hundreds of configurable options, making the integration complex. If such integration were possible, it would have been easier to understand the unique nature of our industry and the limited number of customers who buy steel products, unlike consumer electronics."
"Salesforce Essentials does not contain domain-specific solutions."
"Areas that could be improved or upgraded in the next release include analytics, automation capabilities, and stability."
"The solution could be cheaper."
"The primary area for improvement in Salesforce Essentials is its pricing. There are other competitors, like Zoho CRM, that offer similar features at a lower cost."
"The solution's UI is not user-friendly."
"The product's reporting area has certain shortcomings, making it an area where improvements are required."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The pricing is a bit on the expensive side."
"It's a perpetual license, and the subscription can be expensive."
"The tool is moderately priced."
"Salesforce Essentials is quite expensive, almost 10 out of 10. I don't have the exact cost, but we found it to be very expensive based on our budget constraints."
"There is a need to make yearly payments towards the licensing costs attached to the solution."
"I rate Salesforce Essentials' pricing an eight out of ten."
"The pricing is on the higher side, especially with additional costs for professional services like consultants."
"We chose quarterly payments."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Construction Company
26%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Marketing Services Firm
8%
Retailer
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise7
 

Questions from the Community

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Salesforce Essentials?
Salesforce Essentials is very expensive, but it delivers exceptional value. It is a good platform to have if you can afford it because it has numerous add-ons and modules. Anything that Salesforce ...
What needs improvement with Salesforce Essentials?
The mobile access can be improved in several ways. Salesforce Essentials operates in a table format where the entire user interface is based on tables, more specifically pivot tables. This is not v...
What is your primary use case for Salesforce Essentials?
I have experience with Salesforce Essentials' Tableau and Salesforce Marketing Cloud, but not extensively. I was more focused on their CRM platform, specifically the core CRM and sales basics. My e...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ABC Financial, AFAS Software, Quality Bicycle Products, CryptoLogic & WagerLogic, SERVOData, Shinsei Bank, TENAQUIP, MCAP, Visaya Knowledge Process Outsourcing Corporation, Allianz-Tiriac Asigurari, Memira
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Find out what your peers are saying about Interactive Intelligence vs. Salesforce Essentials and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,894 professionals have used our research since 2012.