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Salesforce Marketing Cloud vs SugarCRM Platform comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 6, 2025

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 Marketing Automation
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
Social CRM (4th), Marketing Management (1st), Social Media Management Solutions (3rd)
SugarCRM Platform
Ranking in Marketing Automation
16th
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
CRM Customer Engagement Centers (11th), CRM (29th), Sales Force Automation (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Marketing Automation category, the mindshare of Salesforce Marketing Cloud is 10.5%, down from 22.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SugarCRM Platform is 2.0%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Marketing Automation Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Salesforce Marketing Cloud10.5%
SugarCRM Platform2.0%
Other87.5%
Marketing Automation
 

Featured Reviews

GauravSingh2 - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
reviewer1345677 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager / IT Planning & Architecture Services at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
Easily customizable, automation enhances the marketing campaigns but support is the main hiccup for us
It has been effective in managing customer relationships. It has sales email campaigns, plus integration with Active Directory. And there are centralized reports for the CEO and the general managers. We work with automation for these marketing and email campaigns. It sends out emails to prospective customers related to sales offers automatically. And it copies the sales team so that they can follow up. They are tracking the sales leads. So, the automation within SugarCRM enhances the marketing campaigns. For now, my work is done because I am the IT strategy and planning manager. I just try to deliver the solution according to the requirements of the business. From my side, it's implemented already, the requirement related to the sales funnel. But if they have any other requirement from the business side, they will submit it to me, and then I will look for a suitable solution.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Email Studio is one of the core parts of Salesforce Marketing Cloud."
"The most valuable features of Salesforce are the automation and the ability to create dashboards which provide a wider picture of what is going on."
"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."
"The user interface is easy to use, especially for my staff who use assistive technology."
"We use it to communicate with our customers, look at the reports to see the communication engagement, and then do sequencing to make sure that there are continuous touchpoints with the client."
"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."
"The tool is flexible and helps us with insights and reports. Salesforce Marketing Cloud has improved our organizational functions by creating an environment where clients and internal staff can access information about various solutions. For instance, clients can apply for different projects, and internal staff can approve them based on donor requirements. This simplifies communication between clients, donors, and our company,"
"The Salesforce ecosystem is more powerful than Siebel.Salesforce is fully integrated."
"The most valuable features of the SugarCRM platform include its flexibility in customizing fields, layouts, and dashboards."
"My advice to others is this is a good solution for importing or exporting any graphics."
"Saying that, it has a small server footprint and is easy to set up."
"The most valuable features of Sugar Enterprise are the exports of graphics, statuses, complaints, and tasks."
"By default, it comes with a really good model where you can start working with it without having a lot of developers in your team."
"Affordable and commercial open source solution is good for organizations with budget constraints."
"It works well with Jira. You can customize it to fit your needs."
"Available source code, good documentation, training programs, and a relatively active community, provide the hallmarks for a successful open source effort."
 

Cons

"There is a lot of room for improvement in Salesforce Marketing Cloud's dashboards and the visualization of information in each journey."
"The data extension tools are not very user-friendly."
"Salesforce Marketing Cloud should be linked to an email ID, so the features after 15 days can update on the opportunity. You should not have to update them manually to the next step."
"We'd like to see more integrations with third-party products."
"Marketing Cloud should change the script language that it uses because it's not good. It's tricky and difficult to develop."
"Salesforce Marketing Cloud should provide some debugging facilities for every user."
"In the SMS area, it is not up to the mark, compared to what has been developed for email."
"The pricing is a bit high."
"At the moment, there is a complicated flow in regards to the user's permissions and what they can see."
"I would appreciate it if SugarCRM could support us in on-premise implementation."
"In the next release, I would like to see personalization of information about customers or specific businesses or opportunities."
"Pipelines, forecasts, and reporting in general, are not that good in the free version."
"Putting so many things into SugarCRM became a much-hated task, mainly because of the horrible UI."
"I would like to see more integration on a mobile platform in the next release."
"The interface could be more user-friendly."
"It lacks customization, and this is the main reason that we are switching to a different solution."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Salesforce Marketing Cloud is affordable, considering the significant improvements it brings to our campaign results."
"Salesforce Marketing Cloud is a highly expensive solution, it needs to be less expensive. We are on an annual license to use the solution."
"The price is expensive."
"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
"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 paid for monthly."
"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."
"Salesforce is an expensive solution."
"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Construction Company
15%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Engineering Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise34
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise3
 

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...
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Also Known As

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Overview

 

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
Redglaze Group, TengoInternet, Hilco, Bancvue, Vet Adivsor
Find out what your peers are saying about Salesforce Marketing Cloud vs. SugarCRM Platform and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
914,109 professionals have used our research since 2012.