Salesforce Marketing Cloud vs Sprout Social comparison

Salesforce and Sprout Social are both solutions in the Social CRM category. Salesforce is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.5, while Sprout Social is ranked #6. Salesforce holds a 5.9% mindshare in SC, compared to Sprout Social’s 7.8% mindshare. Additionally, 98% of Salesforce users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Sprout Social users who would recommend it.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Read 62 Salesforce Marketing Cloud reviews

5,146 Views
463 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

Sprout Social

Read 12 Sprout Social reviews

739 Views
458 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Sprout Social

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 8, 2026

Sprout Social and Salesforce Marketing Cloud compete in social media management and digital marketing sectors. Data indicates Salesforce Marketing Cloud holds an edge due to its robust feature set, preferred by users seeking comprehensive marketing capabilities.

Features: Sprout Social focuses on social media management tools, analytics, and engagement tracking, offering an intuitive approach to enhancing brand presence. Salesforce Marketing Cloud features marketing automation tools including email marketing, journey builder, and advanced targeting options, presenting a versatile solution for detailed campaigns.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Sprout Social offers quick deployment and accessible support, ideal for businesses aiming for fast implementation. Salesforce Marketing Cloud provides comprehensive support but involves a more complex deployment process due to its extensive features.

Pricing and ROI: Sprout Social offers a lower initial investment and faster ROI, appealing to budget-conscious businesses. Salesforce Marketing Cloud requires a higher setup cost but delivers substantial returns through its comprehensive feature set, benefiting companies focused on long-term growth.

To learn more, read our detailed Salesforce Marketing Cloud vs. Sprout Social Report (Updated: March 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Salesforce Marketing Cloud vs. Sprout Social

March 2026

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Helped 884,933 peers since 2012

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

Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Ranking in Social CRM

2nd

Ranking in Social Media Management Solutions

2nd

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Marketing Automation (1st), Marketing Management (1st)

Sprout Social

Ranking in Social CRM

6th

Ranking in Social Media Management Solutions

5th

Average Rating

8.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Social Media Analytics Software (2nd), AI Customer Experience Personalization (112th), AI Content Creation (66th)

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Social CRM category, the mindshare of Salesforce Marketing Cloud is 5.9%, down from 13.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sprout Social is 7.8%, down from 11.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Social CRM Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Salesforce Marketing Cloud	5.9%
Sprout Social	7.8%
Other	86.3%

Social CRM

Featured Reviews

GauravSingh2

Senior Consultant at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Targeted email journeys have boosted campaign insight and now need better data access and support

I feel that Salesforce Marketing Cloud can be improved in how the data views are accessed; it would be better to have something more physical. With data extensions, you can view them directly, but for data views, it is very difficult as you can only send it out or load it into data extensions. Improvements can also be made in the connections to different external tools such as Azure or AWS.Customer support can be improved in Salesforce Marketing Cloud, as sometimes it is not clear what the issue is or how to approach solving it, and it also takes time to resolve issues.

Read full review

Harrison Nganga

Human Resources Manager at Unilever Inc.

Team has streamlined daily social scheduling and has increased social reach with unified analytics

The best features Sprout Social offers are user-friendly tools, great customer support, and data collection and reporting. It allows you to see your full content calendar of what you planned. It allows us to see cross-posts on different platforms. It customizes the post's design for each social media. Tagging posts, comments, and inbox management are also very beneficial. Sprout Social has positively impacted my organization by saving us time and effort. We do not have to schedule all posting into each of our platforms; we just use Sprout Social to do it on all our platforms, saving a lot of effort and time. It allows us to work together without having to plan meetings. Also, it has been very helpful because in the past year, we have been able to increase our Instagram video views by 42.4%. We were able to increase our average reach and were also able to increase our average reach per post on TikTok by 146%. Sprout Social helped drive those increases in views and reach through both analytics and scheduling. Being consistent has helped us grow.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Marketing Cloud has improved our productivity and our team enjoy using it."

"The automation is great. It saves us a lot of time and it makes us move faster."

"You can schedule reports, there's a lot of supporting tools, and you have access to all that information."

"It is a great solution. I like its stability, scalability, and performance."

"We haven't had any issues with integration."

"Salesforce Marketing Cloud's integrations are seamless since it is a native application. It helps us with B2B and B2C send-outs and can handle large columns."

"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."

"Salesforce Marketing Cloud has positively impacted my organization by reducing costs while significantly increasing the return on investment."

More Salesforce Marketing Cloud pros

"Sprout Social has made a huge positive impact on my organization by centralizing social media efforts in a way that the central university relations team can have a better view on what's happening across the university to report off of, as well as creating more of a community space around social media marketing and best practices."

Cons

"The data extension tools are not very user-friendly."

"In terms of improvements, it would be beneficial to enhance the Copilot actions. The issue lies with the internal language setup."

"It should contain artificial intelligence, in my opinion."

"The general setup and understanding of how to use it can be improved. There should be easier self-service for setting up dashboards. Currently, we have someone setting them up for us. I wish it was easier."

"The solution can have a better UI. Salesforce Marketing Cloud should consider making its solution more robust for error handling."

"Salesforce Marketing Cloud should include more point-and-click functionality."

"This solution could be more user-friendly."

"Clarity around new features could be improved when they are released."

More Salesforce Marketing Cloud cons

"There were definitely a lot of issues with billing regarding how Sprout Social bills, and that actually is my biggest issue with the platform."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is expensive."

"On a scale where one is the lowest and ten is the most expensive, I rate the solution an eight out of ten."

"The solution is a bit expensive."

"It's normal pricing."

"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."

"This solution is priced in the medium to high price range."

"The licensing cost for the solution is on a yearly basis."

"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."

More Salesforce Marketing Cloud pricing and cost advice

Information not available

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

26%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Outsourcing Company

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	19
Midsize Enterprise	14
Large Enterprise	31

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	12

Questions from the Community

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.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Salesforce Marketing Cloud?

See all answers

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Comparisons

HubSpot Marketing Hub vs Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Compared 16% of the time

Marketo vs Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Compared 14% of the time

Oracle Eloqua vs Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Compared 10% of the time

Zeta Marketing Platform vs Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Compared 6% of the time

Adobe Campaign vs Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Compared 5% of the time

More Salesforce Marketing Cloud Competitors

HootSuite vs Sprout Social

Compared 19% of the time

Brandwatch vs Sprout Social

Compared 18% of the time

Emplifi Social Marketing Cloud vs Sprout Social

Compared 11% of the time

Sprinklr vs Sprout Social

Compared 10% of the time

Tracx vs Sprout Social

Compared 5% of the time

More Sprout Social Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Salesforce Marketing Cloud

February 2026

Download Salesforce Marketing Cloud product report

Buyer's Guide

Social CRM

March 2026

Download Sprout Social product report

Also Known As

ExactTarget

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Overview

Salesforce Marketing Cloud is a comprehensive marketing automation platform that enables businesses to create personalized and targeted marketing campaigns across multiple channels.

With its robust set of tools and features, marketers can easily manage and automate their email marketing, social media advertising, mobile messaging, and customer journey mapping.

The platform offers advanced segmentation capabilities, allowing marketers to segment their audience based on various criteria and deliver tailored messages to each segment.

Additionally, Salesforce Marketing Cloud provides powerful analytics and reporting features, enabling marketers to track the performance of their campaigns and make data-driven decisions.

With its user-friendly interface and seamless integration with other Salesforce products, Marketing Cloud offers a seamless and efficient marketing automation solution for businesses of all sizes.

Salesforce

Sprout Social is a comprehensive social media management platform that helps organizations streamline their social media presence. Its primary use case is to simplify the process of managing multiple social media accounts, scheduling posts, engaging with followers, and analyzing performance.

The most valuable functionality of Sprout Social is its unified Smart Inbox, which consolidates all social media messages, comments, and mentions into one place. This allows organizations to efficiently respond to customer inquiries, monitor brand mentions, and engage with their audience in real-time.

Sprout Social also offers robust scheduling capabilities, enabling users to plan and publish content across multiple social media platforms in advance. This feature saves time and ensures consistent messaging across channels.

Furthermore, Sprout Social provides in-depth analytics and reporting tools, allowing organizations to measure the impact of their social media efforts. Users can track key metrics, such as engagement, reach, and conversions, to gain insights and make data-driven decisions.

Sprout Social

Sample Customers

American Express, Financial Conduct Authority, KPN, Merck KGaA, Peterborough City Council, The Chapar, ADP, Financial Times, Stanley Black & Decker, SureFlap, Western Union, Philips

Hyatt, Stanford University, Coldwell Banker, Razorfish, UPS, Box, Zipcar, PepsiCo, YogurtLand, Dove, TechSmith

Buyer's Guide

Salesforce Marketing Cloud vs. Sprout Social

March 2026

Free Report: Salesforce Marketing Cloud vs. Sprout Social

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