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Marketo vs SugarCRM Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 6, 2025

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

Marketo
Ranking in Marketing Automation
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
Marketing Management (4th)
SugarCRM Platform
Ranking in Marketing Automation
12th
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
CRM Customer Engagement Centers (9th), CRM (25th), Sales Force Automation (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Marketing Automation category, the mindshare of Marketo is 10.4%, down from 14.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SugarCRM Platform is 1.8%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Marketing Automation Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Marketo10.4%
SugarCRM Platform1.8%
Other87.8%
Marketing Automation
 

Featured Reviews

Anika Gaur - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Digital Solutions Analyst at Rich Products
Effective lead management and useability with room for reporting improvements
Customer support could be more helpful. The reporting could be better, with more engaging reports and the ability to collaborate more objects, like opportunities. Incorporating AI features similar to tools like HubSpot and Salesforce account engagement would be beneficial. Additionally, Marketo should work on automating tools and updating the product since it looks similar to how it did five years ago.
reviewer1345677 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager / IT Planning & Architecture Services at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
Easily customizable, automation enhances the marketing campaigns but support is the main hiccup for us
It has been effective in managing customer relationships. It has sales email campaigns, plus integration with Active Directory. And there are centralized reports for the CEO and the general managers. We work with automation for these marketing and email campaigns. It sends out emails to prospective customers related to sales offers automatically. And it copies the sales team so that they can follow up. They are tracking the sales leads. So, the automation within SugarCRM enhances the marketing campaigns. For now, my work is done because I am the IT strategy and planning manager. I just try to deliver the solution according to the requirements of the business. From my side, it's implemented already, the requirement related to the sales funnel. But if they have any other requirement from the business side, they will submit it to me, and then I will look for a suitable solution.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The smart campaign looks quite interesting and useful."
"I like that Marketo is user-friendly and has an easy view. It's like a one-stop solution for everyone. It is very good, and you can categorize leads in different ways. You can also create your custom objects and enjoy good connectivity."
"It is a very user-friendly solution. I'm mainly working on Design Studio, which is useful for companies in tracking repeat users. The progressive proofing is also useful. It is not available in other solutions."
"We have a better alignment of sales and marketing."
"I like that the solution is flexible."
"Marketo gives me the toolset necessary to create automated drip email campaigns to my customers and prospects, delivering HUGE ROI with great customer service and a relatively nimble dev team always willing to help, even in special or one-off scenarios."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is Smart Campaigns."
"Marketo makes it easy to stay in contact with our base of customers, prospective customers, and partners."
"The most valuable feature is relation capability, which allows us to relay customers with invoice orders."
"By default, it comes with a really good model where you can start working with it without having a lot of developers in your team."
"It has sales email campaigns, plus integration with Active Directory."
"The performance and stability are fine."
"Available source code, good documentation, training programs, and a relatively active community, provide the hallmarks for a successful open source effort."
"The most valuable features of the SugarCRM platform include its flexibility in customizing fields, layouts, and dashboards."
"The most valuable aspect of this solution is its low cost, and it works well."
"Affordable and commercial open source solution is good for organizations with budget constraints."
 

Cons

"Marketo filters are not very efficient, and timely updates or features could improve this aspect."
"Adobe, the parent company, needs to improve on getting more information published to allow users to educate themselves on how to use the solution."
"Marketo's reporting and dashboarding features could be better. Compared to other tools, the visualization options with charts and graphs seem somewhat limited."
"There is a bit of room for improvement in the level-one support team. It relies too much on documentation."
"Takes time to setup and manage."
"It could be more scalable."
"I had an issue while integrating JavaScript with forms. When you embed JavaScript, you can either embed it in a landing page or some other self-contained management system like WordPress. Currently, it provides you access to CSS, where you can customize your form design, but there is no option for JavaScript modification for a particular form. This area needs to be improved where you can integrate JavaScript, and it has the JavaScript functions for that particular form. There are a lot of other areas of improvement. In the design area, they can give us more testing options instead of relying on email testing alone. It would be great if they can provide responsive testing where email clients can be tested within Marketo. It would be also helpful if they can implement some in-built options for users or forms for blocking a generic email ID such as Yahoo or Gmail. Similarly, it would be helpful to have JavaScript features and forms as well as the option to add Google analytics and a header and footer for the landing pages."
"Customer Service: This is where Marketo falls short. Their customer service is awful."
"In the next release, I would like to see personalization of information about customers or specific businesses or opportunities."
"Putting so many things into SugarCRM became a much-hated task, mainly because of the horrible UI."
"In the next release, I would like to see personalization of information about customers or specific businesses or opportunities."
"You cannot include all your entities under one instance at the moment."
"I would like to see more integration on a mobile platform in the next release."
"It lacks customization, and this is the main reason that we are switching to a different solution."
"The UX was such that it limited the use of it."
"Sugar Enterprise could improve by removing bugs and glitches. For example, a comment was made but in the comment section, it was never displayed. However, the problems we faced might not be the fault of the solution."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is expensive. We have a yearly license."
"The initial pricing was excellent, but the pricing for renewals is not as good."
"The pricing is not cheap, but it's not that expensive either."
"Marketo's pricing depends on the number of contacts and the level of features you need. Compared to other platforms like Oracle Eloqua and Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Marketo is generally more affordable. Like other platforms, it offers different packages based on your needs."
"Marketo is used a lot because it's cheaper and preferred by many firms."
"Marketo is too expensive for a small-sized company but more affordable for a larger-sized company."
"The solution is expensive compared to others."
"I'm not sure about the cost because I don't get into this aspect. Clients normally take care of that. I only know that it is costly, and I don't think there are any additional costs to the licensing."
"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Construction Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Construction Company
14%
Engineering Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise10
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise3
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Marketo?
One of the most important things about Marketo is its focus on GDPR compliance. It helps you follow GDPR and CAN-SPAM rules. For example, with Marketo, I won't accidentally target audiences without...
What needs improvement with Marketo?
The user interface could be improved. I would like to see an updated UI for 2025.
What is your primary use case for Marketo?
As a seasoned Marketo Expert with a decade of experience and a deep understanding of Adobe's ecosystem, I can confidently say that the primary use case for Marketo lies in empowering businesses wit...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sugar Enterprise?
All are almost the same pricing. Maybe the cheapest is Salesforce, I believe.
What needs improvement with Sugar Enterprise?
The only challenge was that we implemented it in our on-premise data center instead of using it in the cloud. That was a little bit of a challenge. But it was overcome with the help of SugarCRM com...
What advice do you have for others considering Sugar Enterprise?
To start with, SugarCRM is a very good platform. It's easy to implement and easily customizable. Might be later when you want to scale, then I would recommend Salesforce. Overall, I would rate it a...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Marketo has a customer base of thousands of companies, including Sony, Citrix, BrightTALK, Curves International, HootSuite, Hyundai, SanDisk, and Samsung Electronics.
Redglaze Group, TengoInternet, Hilco, Bancvue, Vet Adivsor
Find out what your peers are saying about Marketo vs. SugarCRM Platform and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
894,668 professionals have used our research since 2012.