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Pega CRM vs Salesforce Sales Cloud 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

Pega CRM
Ranking in CRM
18th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
CRM Customer Engagement Centers (5th)
Salesforce Sales Cloud
Ranking in CRM
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
115
Ranking in other categories
Opportunity Management (1st), Sales Force Automation (1st), Conversation Intelligence Software (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the CRM category, the mindshare of Pega CRM is 1.5%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Salesforce Sales Cloud is 8.6%, down from 10.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
CRM
 

Q&A Highlights

it_user735081 - PeerSpot reviewer
Oct 03, 2017
 

Featured Reviews

Srinivas Ganisetti - PeerSpot reviewer
Case management feature is valuable but the pricing is expensive
I would like to suggest the solution but it really depends on your specific requirements, your business use cases and future plans. There is a significant investment involved in this solution and therefore it is very crucial to reevaluate your future necessity including automation potential and modernization plans. I would suggest that you select any kind of solution and explore alternatives of similar functionalities at a lower cost. This might help you to achieve more with less. In my experience, I would rate it between seven to eight because it offers robust capabilities. But please be aware that other BPM tools are emerging with similar features at a lower cost. Pega CRM is perceived as bulk care compared to order tools, as many of its capabilities are potentially underutilized. I would rate it 7 out of 10.
Richard Mottershead - PeerSpot reviewer
Infinitely customizable, good end-to-end sales and customer management processes but lacks good documentation
Essentially, it's the CRM solution for managing customers and leads. The features that had the most significant impact on our sales efficiency include flexibility, regular updates, and very good end-to-end sales and customer management processes. AI and machine learning are on the agenda for next year. Initially, it will be very silo-based, but eventually, we'll be integrating MIBI data into our solution. Sales Cloud's reporting and analytics capabilities influenced our sales strategy quite a lot. We can build every report as a dashboard, and there are various sorts of things. We are using Tableau as our MIBI analytic solution, which is also owned by Salesforce these days.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is very easy to use."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to pull information about the customer on-the-fly so they feel the interaction is more personal."
"It also reduces the duration per call, and it ensures a first time resolution of the issue."
"We can effortlessly manage the data within it, and it offers ease of use and high flexibility to present the data across various vendors."
"Pega offers a clear parent-child case relationship that's easily created and maintained. Dependencies can be configured, where reaching a specific stage in a parent case automatically triggers a child task in a child case, while the parent case remains on hold until a certain condition is met before moving forward. This configuration allows multiple users to work on cases in parallel. Many of these settings are readily available within Pega case settings. Overall, Pega's case management is unparalleled compared to other options."
"One of the most valuable features of Pega CRM for our team's productivity is its ease of setup, thanks to its configuration-driven approach."
"The product's deployment phase was easy."
"The case management feature is really valuable."
"Salesforce highlights what are we selling in different regions and which regions or areas offer opportunities. We are able to view sales by month, quarter or year."
"There are many extremely useful features."
"The product is very fast and responsive. There's no lag time when you are on the platform."
"The most valuable feature of Salesforce Sales Cloud is for teams the ability to do marketing on our page and to manage their marketing leads. You are able to close a deal and do the renewal. For the life cycle management for customer management, we use Salesforce Sales Cloud. The performance of the solution is good."
"The reporting is easy and helpful."
"The features of Sales Cloud most useful for testing and running email campaigns are highly valuable."
"The type of customization that comes with Salesforce CRM gives me a lot of liberty and ease of access to add any information that I wish to add. For example, the name, email ID, designation, the name of the decision maker, when the client joined the company, and the amount of influence he will have on the product."
"It is a good platform that shows consolidation of information for our customer base."
 

Cons

"There has been a common acknowledgment among customers that this solution is an expensive tool and they often opt for cheaper tools like Comodo"
"They should enable the data-driven streaming feature inside it."
"Price is always a concern for many organizations. They often think Pega is expensive, and sometimes they don't fully understand the pricing model."
"The UI should be improved."
"It would be beneficial to enhance the pricing and support implementation options as they are currently quite expensive."
"The UI is lagging and needs to be improved."
"The disadvantage of the tool stems from the fact that it does not allow users to make database-level modifications."
"The solution has room for improvement around decisional and real-time data analysis."
"The user interface could be more intuitive. I had some challenges with how to convert from a lead to an opportunity."
"My rating for Salesforce Sales Cloud is seven. There are modern AI products that are now in the market offering better capabilities."
"Its licensing can be improved to accommodate small companies. They provide a certain number of licenses in a set or batch, and you have to buy the set. For example, if they have 20 licenses in a set, you have to get the whole set, even if you need just three licenses, which could be a barrier for small companies. There is no option to buy fewer licenses. So, small companies have to go for a smaller CRM, such as HubSpot."
"Salesforce Sales Cloud needs a more user-friendly interface."
"It could have a more user-friendly interface."
"It would be nice if they had an ERP offering or a firm strategic partnership with a best-in-class ERP. So rather than say they're just ERP agnostic, you would pick whichever ERP you want, which is very generic. I think it would have a lot of merit if they partnered strategically with a best-in-class trusted ERP platform or acquired an ERP platform."
"Salesforce Sales Cloud does not integrate with Slack or WhatsApp, for example. As a result, there is no easy way to directly log a conversation with a client that occurred on one of these platforms. There are a few things that still need to be done manually in these instances."
"The tool's technical challenges vary depending on the requirements. When a new requirement arises, we must analyze the best approach to address it, whether through automation tools or coding. We encounter limitations such as the number of reports we can process or update, the queries we can write, and other similar constraints. Understanding when to utilize coding and when to rely on simple configurations is crucial."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is on the higher side."
"We have numerous uses of the solution in our organisation. Almost 72 applications are integrated with Pega CRM, and some of them are shutting down for various reasons including the high licensing costs. There is a strong focus in the market and offices on cost reduction."
"It is expensive."
"The main issue is the price. Because it's SaaS, you will have to pay on a monthly or yearly basis."
"We must pay for the licenses."
"My understanding is that Salesforce is a little bit expensive, but in terms of the efficiencies, automation, and visibility, I think it's definitely value for money."
"The licensing fees are reasonable."
"Not the cheapest"
"The main thing is it is costly. Salesforce it is not cheap, it's costly. Some of our customers say it is a costly solution. So, we have lost some sale opportunities regarding the high price. This is the main thing that we are facing. It is sales per user and the user price is about $150 per month, per user for the Enterprise Edition. The other edition is less than this, but it is costly. A company that has 70 or 80 users would pay more than $8,000 USD yearly because it is cloud based."
"Sales Cloud is quite expensive."
"The subscription is on a monthly basis."
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Answers from the Community

it_user735081 - PeerSpot reviewer
Oct 3, 2017
Oct 3, 2017
My advice is to compare the full investment of the CRM implementation - software, cloud and services - as from a general perspective, all top level "costs" are generally comparable. It is the cost-to-value ratio that you will want to focus upon. Also, you’ll want to assess whether you will be looking to deploy AI or not, as some vendors’ offerings are not quite as real and ready-to-deploy as ot...
See 2 answers
it_user70698 - PeerSpot reviewer
Oct 3, 2017
Hi thanks for your request. Each of the ERP CRM listed above has certain functionalities in common and comparing the cost between them will completely depends upon the need. Overall Salesforce and SAP CRM has CRM functionality and it is Tier 1 CRM product. Pega is not a CRM product and it specializes in BPM ( Business Process Management). Please email me and I can discuss over the phone with you for further details.
it_user747921 - PeerSpot reviewer
Oct 3, 2017
My advice is to compare the full investment of the CRM implementation - software, cloud and services - as from a general perspective, all top level "costs" are generally comparable. It is the cost-to-value ratio that you will want to focus upon. Also, you’ll want to assess whether you will be looking to deploy AI or not, as some vendors’ offerings are not quite as real and ready-to-deploy as others. Note that I am biased, as I am with Pega, running their CRM practice. With this said -- in terms of unbiased independent reviews, Gartner's latest Magic Quadrant for the CRM Customer Engagement Center for 2017, cites “Reference customers gave Pegasystems' overall package the best cost-to-value rating of any solution assessed for vendors in the Leaders quadrant.” A free copy of Gartner's report may be downloaded here: https://www.pega.com/gartner-crm-cec-2017 Best of luck in your research. Just let me know if I can be of any further assistance. Regards, Jeff Nicholson
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
25%
Computer Software Company
14%
Real Estate/Law Firm
6%
Comms Service Provider
5%
Educational Organization
70%
Computer Software Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
4%
Manufacturing Company
3%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Pega CRM?
The product's deployment phase was easy.
What needs improvement with Pega CRM?
The disadvantage of the tool stems from the fact that it does not allow users to make database-level modifications. In Siebel CRM, you have complete control over your database, you can do any datab...
What is your primary use case for Pega CRM?
Pega CRM uses a layer cake architecture. Basically, the tool is a convenient application to use even if you are not a technical person, like a business analyst. I use the solution for the CRM modul...
What do you like most about Salesforce Sales Cloud?
The features of Sales Cloud most useful for testing and running email campaigns are highly valuable.
What needs improvement with Salesforce Sales Cloud?
Improving system performance and processing speed would enhance productivity and allow for even smoother workflows according to my view. Additionally, introducing faster data retrieval and real-tim...
What is your primary use case for Salesforce Sales Cloud?
My primary use case for Salesforce is to streamline sales strategies, define key sales parameters, and manage focus areas effectively. I leverage Salesforce to record, track, and optimize our sales...
 

Also Known As

Chordiant
Sales Cloud, SFDC, Salesforce
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

The State of Maine, Aegis, Aegon, AIG Japan, ING
Coca-Cola Enterprises, Kuoni Global Travel Services, Financial Times, Just Eat, Jobsite, H.R. Owen, PlayerLayer, O2, DMGT, Philips, Xtreme.ie, Business Stream, Remote Asset Management, Dialogue Group
Find out what your peers are saying about Pega CRM vs. Salesforce Sales Cloud and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
851,471 professionals have used our research since 2012.