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Pardot vs Salesforce Marketing Cloud 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

Pardot
Ranking in Marketing Automation
6th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Ranking in Marketing Automation
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
58
Ranking in other categories
Social CRM (2nd), Marketing Management (1st), Social Media Management Solutions (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Marketing Automation category, the mindshare of Pardot is 3.3%, down from 4.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Salesforce Marketing Cloud is 22.0%, down from 24.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Marketing Automation
 

Featured Reviews

Vikram Rawani - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers an easy initial setup phase and good ROI
With Pardot, users can do the segmentation based on their requirements. You can segment your prospects based on their interests, locations, companies, or the sales cycle. You can also use the engagement studio to create a journey for the people you have segmented with the help of automation feature of the tool. The aforementioned area consists of the most useful features I found in the tool apart from its out-of-the-box features. The integration between Pardot and Salesforce is beneficial if you know how to share the leads that a company finds useful so that they don't have to invest in manual work or do anything blindly to reach out to leads. Users can segment the leads using the features that the tool provides. I recommend the product to those who plan to use it. If a business is into B2B marketing and can afford to purchase Pardot, then they should buy it. If the product of a company is good, then Pardot can help multiply such an organization's ROI. Based on the product and how the sales and marketing team works, the tool can be useful. In short, the tool can be as good as the person who is using it. I rate the tool a nine out of ten.
ADAIR WATHIER - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides efficient data integration features and good technical support services
Our primary use cases for the product include website personalization and email campaign evaluation The platform has significantly expedited our campaign implementation process and provided centralized control over operations. The platform's most valuable features include ease of implementation…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Campaign tracking is a valuable feature."
"The tracking and automation of outbound messaging is the solution's most valuable aspect."
"It's easy to create email templates and landing pages."
"For me, the best thing is the Custom Redirect. That's one key thing I like because using that particular Custom Redirect, I can track a link wherever I'm sharing it. I can track how and when people are accessing it."
"The most valuable feature is the customization of the solution."
"The product is stable."
"Pardot's most valuable feature is its B2B marketing capabilities."
"The solution can be easily integrated with Salesforce."
"The notification system for customer alerts, including the integration of various communication channels such as email, SMS, and mobile push, is excellent."
"The most valuable features of Salesforce Marketing Cloud are that it performs well and gives me what I need. It's the most friendly interface system for CRM I've worked with. Additionally, it integrates fairly well with different kinds of AI and ML to allow you to receive more out of your application."
"Email Studio is one of the core parts of Salesforce Marketing Cloud."
"Its ability to integrate data and provide a comprehensive view of customer engagement sets it apart."
"Salesforce is constantly evolving and have a good release cycle."
"The most valuable feature is the 'Accelerators', which are expert-taught subject matter webinars on items such as personalization of emails and SMS to contacts and prospects."
"It makes it easy for a business to use any module based on their preference."
"Offers many great features and is intuitive."
 

Cons

"Needs to improve list building."
"​Technical support has been quick and helpful every time."
"Pardot must be synced with Salesforce."
"When we compare it to other automation tools, in Pardot, I'm not able to see any drag-and-drop options. We have to work on an HTML template itself."
"When it comes to integration with third-party tools, Pardot's APIs are not that robust."
"The solution is quite expensive, at least, for smaller teams."
"Pardot needs many improvements in terms of email design and design studio functionalities."
"The user interface could be made more intuitive and user-friendly."
"The quality of support for this solution has been decreasing over time and the support team are sometimes more focused on closing tickets that resolving issues. Often the support team is not well trained or aware of the new features or products released by Salesforce."
"The technicality of the solution can be streamlined."
"Salesforce Marketing Cloud is expensive. The email functionality should be more modern and user-friendly."
"If you want to use advanced features in Salesforce Marketing Cloud, they are extremely difficult to use."
"Salesforce Marketing Cloud could improve by having more graphical options because a lot of tables are now only numbers and percentages and data. I prefer graphs, lines, and pie charts. I know there are ways to receive this from Salesforce Marketing Cloud. It doesn't play a huge role in my daily work to invest the time to figure it out. I feel that it would be time wasted. They could make the graphical options easier to find and use in the future."
"The encryption and decryption have room for improvement."
"We would like an improvement to the 'Einstein Engagement Frequency'; the optimal range of emails that our subscribers will engage with."
"Managing large volumes of data takes too long."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of this solution is expensive. However, you are going to receive good value for money. They could improve by reducing the price."
"​Make sure you do not pay for features that you may not need​."
"We pay about $4000 a month."
"In terms of pricing, Pardot is cheaper than Marketing Cloud."
"It is a competitively priced product, considering what it provides."
"This solution is priced in the medium to high price range."
"We have two types of licensing. We have a yearly license for end users and we have a concurrent login for selling."
"We did a yearly license. We negotiated and got a great deal. I don't think we would have gotten far with the regular price, but they negotiated, so it was worth that."
"It is a license per user."
"My company pays to use this solution."
"It's normal pricing."
"The licensing cost for the solution is on a yearly basis."
"Its licensing is on an annual basis. Customers are okay with its licensing cost, and they don't find it expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
53%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Insurance Company
3%
Educational Organization
43%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Pardot?
It has no limit for sending marketing emails.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pardot?
Pardot was somewhat costly for our requirements, nonetheless, the capacities of the item were limited.
What needs improvement with Pardot?
Pardot needs many improvements in terms of email design and design studio functionalities. It lacks a robust design studio, limiting our ability to perform various design activities efficiently. Yo...
What do you like most about Salesforce Marketing Cloud?
Datorama is part of Salesforce Marketing Cloud, which is quite a valuable feature that provides customer analytics.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Salesforce Marketing Cloud?
I did not work on any pricing or implementation aspects but learned on my own when dealing with Revenue Cloud products.
What needs improvement with Salesforce Marketing Cloud?
In terms of improvements, it would be beneficial to enhance the Copilot actions. The issue lies with the internal language setup. It takes the default language and doesn't accept custom language sp...
 

Also Known As

No data available
ExactTarget
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Arketi Group
American Express, Financial Conduct Authority, KPN, Merck KGaA, Peterborough City Council, The Chapar, ADP, Financial Times, Stanley Black & Decker, SureFlap, Western Union, Philips
Find out what your peers are saying about Pardot vs. Salesforce Marketing Cloud and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.