Salesforce Marketing Cloud vs Sprout Social comparison

Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Read 17 Sprout Social reviews

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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: July 2026).

Salesforce Marketing Cloud vs. Sprout Social

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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

4th

Ranking in Social Media Management Solutions

3rd

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

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

Sprout Social

Ranking in Social CRM

3rd

Ranking in Social Media Management Solutions

4th

Average Rating

8.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Social Media Analytics Software (1st), AI Customer Experience Personalization (10th), AI Content Creation (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Social CRM category, the mindshare of Salesforce Marketing Cloud is 6.1%, down from 12.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sprout Social is 8.3%, down from 9.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Social CRM Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Sprout Social	8.3%
Salesforce Marketing Cloud	6.1%
Other	85.6%

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.

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Mirella Karpiesiuk

Social Engagement Manager at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees

Centralized social channels have transformed daily engagement and reporting workflows

Regarding how Sprout Social can be improved, these are very minor areas. Sometimes we have this metric called action rate, which reflects how fast a message has been touched in Sprout Social, whether that is the message being tagged, responded to, or closed out. Apparently, we cannot get a 100% action rate because some responses come in that are auto-replied to, and that action rate misses that. I think this is one thing that can be improved: figuring out how to count those auto-responded messages. This is a niche area. Outside of that, I do not have much advice for improvements in Sprout Social; I truly think it is a hub of value and provides a lot for us. The user interface is great; it is super friendly. For someone who has never touched it before, I knew where everything was and maneuvered through it within a week of using it. The integrations are seamless with all of our social media accounts: Reddit, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and all of that. We can also export data and PDF files, which helps us with other projects. I see very minimal improvements needed on my end; I think it is a very valuable program that we use.

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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

"The ability to automate processes is one of the most valuable features of Salesforce, which sets it apart from other systems, and we use the journey builder to design a fully automated journey."

"Its ability to integrate data and provide a comprehensive view of customer engagement sets it apart."

"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."

"What is most valuable is that you can schedule reports, there are a lot of supporting tools, and you have access to all that information."

"Email automation is most valuable."

"Salesforce Marketing Cloud integrates with multiple systems seamlessly, enabling effective lead management."

"I think the product's best feature is its analytics, as that's where customers derive value. The second thing is its ease of implementation."

"Salesforce Marketing Cloud is a fantastic solution, but be aware of its technicalities when installation."

More Salesforce Marketing Cloud pros

"Sprout Social has positively impacted my organization by allowing us to streamline the scheduling of content, get ahead of everything so we can focus on the present, and pivot when necessary based on what is happening or not happening."

"Sprout Social has positively impacted our organization by aligning with our team goals and being very efficient at scheduling, publishing, and pulling analytics."

"One of the biggest advantages of Sprout Social is its user-friendly dashboard and clear visual reports, which make it easy to interpret data and present insights to clients."

"Sprout Social has positively impacted my organization with enhanced engagements, enhanced reach for our social posts, and better ROI for our investment in our social channels."

"Sprout Social has saved us a lot of time, provided the convenience of a single login to multiple socials, and requires less time for training, making it very easy to use and start using it."

"Sprout Social has positively impacted the organizations that I have worked with by helping us to be more efficient and it was much easier to use rather than manually going into these social channels."

"My main use case for Sprout Social is enterprise-level social media management and analytics, and I use it for all my social media operations, from publishing, customer care, and social listening through one channel."

"Sprout Social has centralized all of our social media communications, saved us a lot of time, and allowed the team to be more organized and on top of what is going on in social."

More Sprout Social pros

Cons

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

"The query building's a bit weak if you want to build something new. It's a bit complicated."

"We need a development environment for Marketing Cloud. Currently, there is no development environment for this solution."

"Improvements can be made in the processing speed, how information displays, and options for scrolling."

"An additional feature needed for the next release of Marketing Cloud would be better capacity for personalization."

"In terms of marketing, I don't think Salesforce invests the same level of intensity in promoting Marketing Cloud...Pricing is a concern and needs improvement, as some customers find the product a bit too expensive."

"The UA could be better designed for a mobile connection."

"There could be easier tools to configure the product and to create landing pages to better handle large data sets."

More Salesforce Marketing Cloud cons

"There is a limitation for us with Sprout Social in publishing boosted content within LinkedIn, and we would appreciate that to be improved."

"As of now, I have been using Sprout Social for almost two years, but there are some glitches in the back-end; sometimes the posts are not integrated or do not come with the proper details, proper dates, or proper content."

"Currently, in the pilots that I have done, I have not found it to be very highly accurate, so there is a felt need to get improvements in those areas."

"It is not perfect. Sometimes its information or its syncing to platforms is clunky, so you end up having slightly wrong information or data."

"Sprout Social can be improved because the user experience of having hundreds of channels to navigate can be quite fiddly, especially when trying to bulk post."

"My advice to others considering Sprout Social is that I believe it is a good platform to use temporarily for some clients, but it does not scale well for growth."

"Realistically, I find the pricing quite high."

"I know Sprout Social is expensive; it is on the higher side."

More Sprout Social cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This is a low cost solution suited to larger organizations."

"Its licensing is on an annual basis. Customers are okay with its licensing cost, and they don't find it expensive."

"Salesforce has different versions of the solution and some are more suitable for smaller clients. However, Salesforce is expensive."

"I don't know if my company pays for Salesforce Marketing Cloud monthly or yearly. It's a SaaS, so it's a recurring cost, but I have no information on its price."

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

"It is a license per user."

"The solution is paid for monthly."

"Salesforce Marketing Cloud is a highly expensive solution, it needs to be less expensive. We are on an annual license to use the solution."

More Salesforce Marketing Cloud pricing and cost advice

Information not available

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

17%

Construction Company

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

17%

Manufacturing Company

10%

University

10%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	20
Midsize Enterprise	15
Large Enterprise	34

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	18

Questions from the Community

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?

Regarding areas for improvement, the realization of value from Salesforce Einstein's predictive AI features is a notable challenge. Although the implementation partner highlighted these capabilitie...

What is your primary use case for Salesforce Marketing Cloud?

As a consultant, I partner with organizations to optimize their use of Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC). My engagement often begins pre-implementation, where I lead the requirements gathering proc...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sprout Social?

We do not mind the setup cost because the organization provides whatever we are asking for, and we are just working on it. We do not know much about pricing and setup costs as we have a separate te...

What needs improvement with Sprout Social?

For me, I am open to suggestions, but currently, I do not think that it needs improvement or anything that needs to be changed or anything that needs to be added. For me, it is perfect at the moment.

What is your primary use case for Sprout Social?

The main use for Sprout Social in my field is that I sum up all the brands of the agency in it, and I take the comments, take the messages, and reply to the community messages. This is the main and...

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Product Reports

Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Download Salesforce Marketing Cloud product report

Download Sprout Social product report

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Overview

Salesforce Marketing Cloud offers robust tools for content management, customer engagement, and multi-channel campaigns, enhancing personalization and communication with insightful analytics.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud integrates CRM functions, supporting automation and scalability while providing real-time notifications. It enables effective marketing campaigns through features like Content Builder and Journey Builder. Its AI-powered tools streamline data management and enhance productivity, though improvements in interfaces, third-party integrations, and development environments are needed. Companies benefit from email marketing capabilities and leverage the platform for lead generation and sales management.

What are the key features of Salesforce Marketing Cloud?

Content Builder: Streamlines content management for effective campaigns.
Advertising Studio: Engages customers across multiple platforms.
Journey Builder: Manages multi-channel marketing campaigns with ease.
Automation and Integration: Supports CRM functions, enhancing personalization and analytics.

What benefits or ROI should be considered in evaluations?

Ease of Use: User-friendly interface improves marketing efficiency.
Scalability: Adapts to growing marketing needs of companies.
Real-Time Notifications: Keeps users informed for timely actions.
AI-Powered Tools: Enhances productivity and strategy optimization.

Industries implement Salesforce Marketing Cloud for diverse applications such as email marketing, campaign management, and customer engagement, leveraging CRM capabilities for enhanced sales strategies. Organizations use it for integrating advertising, direct communication, and automation, targeting improved customer interactions and increased outreach.

Salesforce

Sprout Social provides social media management solutions with strengths in scheduling, analytics, and audience insights, assisting businesses in refining strategies.

Known for its intuitive interface and unified platform, Sprout Social supports efficient management across networks like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. It facilitates campaign coordination, communication centralization, and derives insightful reports on audience interactions. The platform’s social listening aids in tracking mentions and engaging with followers. Despite acclaim for its features, challenges include high pricing and a learning curve due to feature complexity. Feedback calls for improved data customization, image support, and third-party integrations.

What are the key features of Sprout Social?

Post Scheduling: Efficiently plan and automate posts across multiple accounts.
Smart Inbox: Centralizes messages from all social networks for streamlined communication.
Advanced Analytics: Offers comprehensive insights into audience engagement and performance metrics.
Social Listening: Monitors brand mentions for improved interaction and responsiveness.
Content Planning: Supports structured scheduling and publication to maintain brand consistency.

What benefits or ROI should users look for?

Time-Saving: Features like bulk scheduling enhance productivity and efficiency.
Audience Engagement: Detailed analytics help improve strategies and increase interaction rates.
Campaign Coordination: Centralized communication simplifies cross-platform management.
Brand Consistency: Ensures uniform messaging and adherence to brand guidelines.

In healthcare, there is a need for more tailored tools and templates. The industry seeks enhancements in analytics, scheduling, and integration capabilities. Non-marketing teams require simplified access to analytics and smoother integration with a broad range of social networks, including TikTok.

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

Salesforce Marketing Cloud vs. Sprout Social