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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
7.3
Number of Reviews
59
Ranking in other categories
Social CRM (2nd), Marketing Management (1st), Social Media Management Solutions (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Marketing Automation category, the mindshare of Pardot is 3.4%, down from 4.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Salesforce Marketing Cloud is 21.2%, down from 24.0% 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.
Napitch K - PeerSpot reviewer
Integration challenges impact workflow efficiency
The features of Salesforce Marketing Cloud that I have found most valuable are the Journey Builder and Flow. These capabilities are valuable because they make managing automation easy. Automating customer journeys saves time when scheduling content through every channel, and we can set the automation in advance when planning marketing content. The AI-powered tools such as Salesforce Datorama and Einstein save time and have an impact on marketing strategy decisions for my customers. I have noticed a positive impact from Salesforce Marketing Cloud through customer feedback. For example, a customer mentioned after project completion that it had a significant impact on their marketing team by eliminating the need to hire additional staff for marketing content and planning.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I have not had any issues with the product's stability. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"Pardot directly integrates with CRM, specifically Salesforce, which has an excellent R&D team."
"The most valuable feature is the customization of the solution."
"It's easy to create email templates and landing pages."
"The tracking and automation of outbound messaging is the solution's most valuable aspect."
"The solution can be easily integrated with Salesforce."
"Pardot's most valuable feature is its B2B marketing capabilities."
"The product is stable."
"The most valuable features of Salesforce are the automation and the ability to create dashboards which provide a wider picture of what is going on."
"Salesforce Marketing Cloud integrates with multiple systems seamlessly, enabling effective lead management."
"It is a stable solution...It is a scalable solution...I rate the technical support a ten out of ten."
"Salesforce is constantly evolving and have a good release cycle."
"The automation is great. It saves us a lot of time and it makes us move faster."
"Salesforce Marketing Cloud's journey builder is very easy to handle and quickly sets up a journey for clients who use a lot of communication."
"It makes it easy for a business to use any module based on their preference."
"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."
 

Cons

"​Technical support has been quick and helpful every time."
"For new people, the installation of the tool can be difficult."
"Lacks sufficient free custom fields."
"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."
"Pardot must be synced with Salesforce."
"Pardot needs many improvements in terms of email design and design studio functionalities."
"The user interface could be made more intuitive and user-friendly."
"When it comes to integration with third-party tools, Pardot's APIs are not that robust."
"The majority of my clients are happy, but when it comes to the CDP of Salesforce, the client gets confused. They have no clue that Salesforce has a CDP platform too. If my clients want to go ahead with the same vendor, Salesforce, they get confused about the different marketing suites which are available. There is no clear marketing done for the suites available for the clients, this is where the client is facing the real challenges."
"An additional feature needed would be better capacity for personalization."
"This solution could be more user-friendly."
"Query Studio in Salesforce Marketing Cloud needs to be improved because not all queries are supported and we cannot debug the AM Script or SSJS code, which makes code debugging manual."
"I would like to see more ways to accomplish specific tasks."
"The UA could be better designed for a mobile connection."
"I've noticed on one-to-one leads, the customer objection option is not available."
"Managing large volumes of data takes too long."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We pay about $4000 a month."
"It is a competitively priced product, considering what it provides."
"In terms of pricing, Pardot is cheaper than Marketing Cloud."
"​Make sure you do not pay for features that you may not need​."
"The price of this solution is expensive. However, you are going to receive good value for money. They could improve by reducing the price."
"This solution is priced in the medium to high price range."
"On a scale where one is the lowest and ten is the most expensive, I rate the solution an eight out of ten."
"Salesforce is an expensive solution."
"The solution's pricing is very high and should be more flexible for smaller companies."
"The licensing cost for the solution is on a yearly basis."
"My company pays to use this solution."
"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Educational Organization
8%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
6%
 

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: July 2025.
863,901 professionals have used our research since 2012.