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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
21st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
CRM Customer Engagement Centers (6th)
Salesforce Sales Cloud
Ranking in CRM
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
118
Ranking in other categories
Opportunity Management (1st), Sales Force Automation (1st), Conversation Intelligence Software (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the CRM category, the mindshare of Pega CRM is 0.8%, down from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Salesforce Sales Cloud is 2.1%, down from 9.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
CRM Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Salesforce Sales Cloud2.1%
Pega CRM0.8%
Other97.1%
CRM
 

Q&A Highlights

it_user735081 - PeerSpot reviewer
Works at a energy/utilities company with 10,001+ employees
Oct 03, 2017
 

Featured Reviews

Srinivas Ganisetti - PeerSpot reviewer
AVP/Sr Analyst Apps at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
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.
Jonny Katz - PeerSpot reviewer
VP of Business Operations at PeerSpot
Uses data-driven insights to improve workflows and highlights a need for simpler automation tools
Salesforce Sales Cloud can be improved in several areas. First, the UI is an area for enhancement. Even though they've launched Lightning, it's clunky at times with page load speeds. It also needs to be made extremely more user-friendly. For new people using Salesforce Sales Cloud, there is a steep learning curve. Additionally, giving non-admins the ability to make changes on the fly is something that I feel is necessary. Currently with Salesforce Sales Cloud, you need to have a consultant. It's hard to build the flows or workflows. Making it easier for that end-user who's not so technically minded to help themselves is essential. I choose seven out of ten because I think you need a consultant or a consulting company to help you build it out. Certain changes should be made much easier and more user-friendly where an admin can do it. The automation processes need to be much simpler. If you're looking at other tools out there, for example SalesLoft or HubSpot, it's much easier to build those workflows and do automation.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"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 case management feature is really valuable."
"Great flexibility and its locking mechanism enable multiple users to work on the same case seamlessly."
"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."
"The solution is very easy to use."
"We can effortlessly manage the data within it, and it offers ease of use and high flexibility to present the data across various vendors."
"Salesforce is a very powerful tool which helps us to build that through tools like Process Builder or Flows, or even write code to achieve these scenarios."
"The most valuable features are custom objects, custom workflows, triggering, and integration with other SaaS solutions."
"When it comes to the lead management process, we track and evaluate the different stages and the challenges in each stage. It's so that the entire team has visibility of what's going on with each individual lead."
"I like that Salesforce is ERP agnostic. In the past and at different companies, I have implemented new or replacement ERPs. It's best in class. I like that it's a SaaS. I like that it can work on any device—any Windows, Android, or Apple device."
"The dashboards and dashboard customization are great."
"The most valuable features of Salesforce Sales Cloud are code hub management and sale opportunity management."
"The biggest benefit of the Salesforce Sales Cloud is a centralized point, a centralized source of truth for customer-related information; you centralize all the information in a single database, and that's the biggest benefit."
"Salesforce Sales Cloud has positively impacted my organization as the old excuse where a lot of people used to prefer working in Excel has been eliminated; nowadays, we have a system that's built around our business needs, which helps us optimize processes, make processes much shorter, and give us insights into sales cycles and how to improve them."
 

Cons

"The disadvantage of the tool stems from the fact that it does not allow users to make database-level modifications."
"For many of the clients, they have a separate system or separate layer of UI and a separate layer of the business rules engine, which Pega has taken care of in the recent releases."
"The solution has room for improvement around decisional and real-time data analysis."
"The UI is lagging and needs to be improved."
"Price is always a concern for many organizations. They often think Pega is expensive, and sometimes they don't fully understand the pricing model."
"It would be beneficial to enhance the pricing and support implementation options as they are currently quite expensive."
"The UI should be improved."
"They should enable the data-driven streaming feature inside it."
"Its reporting capabilities can be improved. Its reporting interface should be improved to personalize reports."
"If they could have convenient APIs into the other parts of the corporation that I wish to share data with, that would be helpful."
"There are also certain restrictions on the reports in terms of the number of records. Ideally, that should be removed."
"Salesforce is a powerful tool and you need specialists to create or to develop new functionalities. It is a difficult platform to learn to manage and you need years to know the whole product."
"If the infrastructure is not correct, then customers are having an issue and it's taking a lot of time to load."
"The solution's scalability has some limitations."
"My age-old complaint with Salesforce Sales Cloud is that it has to be refreshed because it's a cloud-based system. If you make any updates, you have to refresh and save because you're fundamentally looking at what's running in the cloud. It can be slow since you constantly refresh and save the screen. If you were running a local application, like a local CRM system, as you input anything, it would be more seamless."
"The reporting formats could be better."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is expensive."
"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."
"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."
"We pay a yearly subscription fee."
"We must pay for the licenses."
"The main issue is the price. Because it's SaaS, you will have to pay on a monthly or yearly basis."
"In terms of investment value and return of the investment, Salesforce right now is pretty good on the Western markets where the price of the employees is pretty high."
"It is alright for now because we ended up getting a discount off the base price. So, for now, it is okay. We may have to renegotiate when we get more users, and I don't know if the price would stay the same or increase. It has just a standard licensing fee. If you end up hiring a consultant for implementation, you will have to pay for the implementation. Other than that, there are no additional fees."
"Not the cheapest"
"It's expensive, storage being the most costly aspect."
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Answers from the Community

it_user735081 - PeerSpot reviewer
Works at a energy/utilities company with 10,001+ employees
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
Works at a tech consulting company
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
Vice President, CRM Product Marketing at Pegasystems
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
27%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Performing Arts
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business55
Midsize Enterprise26
Large Enterprise40
 

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?
Salesforce Sales Cloud can be improved in several areas. First, the UI is an area for enhancement. Even though they've launched Lightning, it's clunky at times with page load speeds. It also needs ...
What is your primary use case for Salesforce Sales Cloud?
Salesforce Sales Cloud serves as our primary tool for our sales team and reviews team to document and keep all our information in one place as a source of truth. We use it to manage our business pr...
 

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: December 2025.
879,455 professionals have used our research since 2012.