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Salesforce Essentials 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
8.0
Salesforce Essentials enhances sales growth by simplifying implementation, navigation, and automating processes, benefiting testing, development, and daily operations.
Sentiment score
7.2
Salesforce Sales Cloud enhances adoption, decision-making, efficiency; benefits include ROI, productivity, visibility, collaboration, and non-profit fundraising.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.7
Salesforce Essentials offers responsive customer service with fast responses, though some users suggest improvements for even better efficiency.
Sentiment score
7.1
Salesforce Sales Cloud's varying support quality depends on subscription, with premium options preferred and community resources enhancing user experience.
Salesforce Essentials has excellent customer service.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
Salesforce Essentials scales efficiently for diverse user volumes, earning high praise for supporting organizational growth and flexibility.
Sentiment score
7.8
Salesforce Sales Cloud scales well for various business sizes, though challenges and costs may arise with over 3,000 users.
Salesforce is highly scalable and operates efficiently.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.1
Salesforce Essentials is reliable with smooth SAP integration, though some users experience delays in automation processes.
Sentiment score
8.2
Salesforce Sales Cloud is highly stable and reliable, with minor issues often related to configuration rather than the platform.
Salesforce Essentials has proven stable, with no downtime that affects my work.
I have not experienced any degradation in Salesforce's performance.
 

Room For Improvement

Salesforce Essentials struggles with integration, user-friendliness, and pricing, needing improved automation, AI, and analytics features.
Salesforce Sales Cloud needs simplified functionality, improved UI, better integration, more customization, and enhanced performance, automation, and analytics.
There are other competitors, like Zoho CRM, that offer similar features at a lower cost.
Compared to AWS, it is slower, which could be a hindrance.
 

Setup Cost

Salesforce Essentials is considered costly by users due to high licensing fees and additional professional service expenses.
Salesforce Sales Cloud is costly but offers extensive capabilities; price negotiation is advised for large-scale deployments.
The costs associated with Salesforce Essentials are substantial, which is a drawback compared to competitors who offer similar services for less.
 

Valuable Features

Salesforce Essentials provides scalable, flexible solutions with cloud deployment, AI customization, and mobile support, enhancing productivity despite high costs.
Salesforce Sales Cloud provides comprehensive CRM features, customizable tools, and integrations to enhance productivity, reporting, and sales management.
Salesforce Essentials is excellent because it is one of the most flexible CRMs available.
Its easy-to-navigate interface aids in delivering clear vision and organization, especially for sales and business management.
 

Categories and Ranking

Salesforce Essentials
Ranking in CRM
17th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Salesforce Sales Cloud
Ranking in CRM
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
114
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 Salesforce Essentials is 0.3%, up from 0.1% 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
 

Featured Reviews

Srini-Dhanaraj - PeerSpot reviewer
Manages service requests and dispatches engineers to resolve issues
I work from home for a heater manufacturing company. They wanted to move away from their current SAP CRM system to Salesforce. There is a fulfillment process, which involves taking an order, delivering it, and providing service. Salesforce is used to manage the order-taking process. Once an order is taken, the backend system, SAP ERP, handles product manufacturing, delivery, and installation. After installation, the Service Cloud in Salesforce takes over for ongoing service management. Once your order is confirmed, integration with the SAP ERP backend will be seamless. The system takes the sales order from Salesforce and starts processing it for procurement, starting with creating a production order, manufacturing, and then delivery. Once the product is delivered, this information is passed back to Salesforce Service Cloud. In the Service Cloud, a service engineer receives a notification indicating that a product needs to be delivered to a specific location for installation. The engineer then inspects and installs the product at the designated site. SAP ERP manages the product manufacturing and delivery processes. After the product is delivered to the customer, Salesforce Service Cloud takes over. It manages service requests and dispatches engineers to resolve issues reported by customers. Service Cloud captures the information and creates an incident record when a customer reports a product fault. Engineers receive this information and promptly visit the client site to fix the issue. The solution is easy to implement. Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.
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.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Educational Organization
73%
Computer Software Company
4%
Financial Services Firm
3%
Manufacturing Company
2%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Salesforce Essentials?
Salesforce provides the best they have with the current version. Most of the features we need are already there, and it's very easy to use.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Salesforce Essentials?
The costs associated with Salesforce Essentials are substantial, which is a drawback compared to competitors who offer similar services for less.
What needs improvement with Salesforce Essentials?
The primary area for improvement in Salesforce Essentials is its pricing. There are other competitors, like Zoho CRM ( /products/zoho-crm-reviews ), that offer similar features at a lower cost. Sal...
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

No data available
Sales Cloud, SFDC, Salesforce
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
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 Salesforce Essentials vs. Salesforce Sales Cloud and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.