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Salesforce Marketing Cloud vs SugarCRM Platform comparison

 

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
7.4
Number of Reviews
58
Ranking in other categories
Social CRM (2nd), Marketing Management (1st), Social Media Management Solutions (2nd)
SugarCRM Platform
Ranking in Marketing Automation
7th
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
CRM Customer Engagement Centers (8th), CRM (24th), Sales Force Automation (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Marketing Automation category, the mindshare of Salesforce Marketing Cloud is 22.0%, down from 24.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SugarCRM Platform is 0.4%, down from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Marketing Automation
 

Featured Reviews

ADAIR WATHIER - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides efficient data integration features and good technical support services
Our primary use cases for the product include website personalization and email campaign evaluation The platform has significantly expedited our campaign implementation process and provided centralized control over operations. The platform's most valuable features include ease of implementation…
Styliana Araouzou - PeerSpot reviewer
Customizable, easy to configure, and reliable
My company is considered a customer and an end-user. I'm not sure which version of the solution we're using right now. It's a company that offers lots of user manuals and you can find most of your stuff there before starting development. I'd advise potential new users to go through everything. I would rate the solution an eight out of ten. 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. It's a system that includes everything related to the client and you can see everything under one screen without having a different product or system. It's been great, for the most part.

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 of Salesforce Marketing Cloud is the reporting engine. Reports are very good and easy to build."
"Email Studio is one of the core parts of Salesforce Marketing Cloud."
"The ability to automate processes is one of the most valuable features of Salesforce. This sets it part from other systems. We use the journey builder to design a fully automated journey."
"Salesforce Marketing Cloud's journey builder is very easy to handle and quickly sets up a journey for clients who use a lot of communication."
"It has excellent lead and opportunity tracking."
"The most valuable of Salesforce Marketing Cloud is seeing the customer's journey."
"The solution is very, very scalable."
"I like the user interface it has a nice look and feel."
"The most valuable aspect of this solution is its low cost."
"The most valuable features of Sugar Enterprise are the exports of graphics, statuses, complaints, and tasks."
"It has sales email campaigns, plus integration with Active Directory."
"The most valuable features of the SugarCRM platform include its flexibility in customizing fields, layouts, and dashboards."
"It works well with Jira. You can customize it to fit your needs."
"The most valuable feature is relation capability, which allows us to relay customers with invoice orders."
 

Cons

"I've noticed on one-to-one leads, the customer objection option is not available."
"Marketing Cloud should change the script language that it uses because it's not good. It's tricky and difficult to develop."
"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."
"We'd like to see more integrations with third-party products."
"I found that the tool is more complex than expected. It requires a deeper understanding to utilize its capabilities thoroughly."
"The processing speed, the way information displays, and scrolling options can be improved."
"The main action I want to do in Salesforce Marketing Cloud is to export data into Excel and use it. My company may have that feature locked down, or if the Excel data exporting function still isn't available in Salesforce Marketing Cloud, that's the feature I want."
"The solution can be difficult to set up for non-technical individuals."
"I would appreciate it if SugarCRM could support us in on-premise implementation."
"I would like to see more integration on a mobile platform in the next release."
"While it is already user-friendly, a slight enhancement in UI design, especially in terms of color combinations, could make the platform more visually appealing and comfortable to use."
"You cannot include all your entities under one instance at the moment."
"In the next release, I would like to see personalization of information about customers or specific businesses or opportunities."
"It lacks customization, and this is the main reason that we are switching to a different solution."
"Sugar Enterprise could improve by removing bugs and glitches. For example, a comment was made but in the comment section, it was never displayed. However, the problems we faced might not be the fault of the solution."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Salesforce has different versions of the solution and some are more suitable for smaller clients. However, Salesforce is expensive."
"This is a low cost solution suited to larger organizations."
"My company pays to use this solution."
"It's not cheap, which is why I recommend that you use Marketing Cloud to create automated journeys. If you plan to use Marketing Cloud just to send emails, use another tool."
"Salesforce Marketing Cloud is affordable, considering the significant improvements it brings to our campaign results."
"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."
"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."
"The solution's pricing is very high and should be more flexible for smaller companies."
"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
43%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Educational Organization
18%
Engineering Company
17%
Computer Software Company
14%
Real Estate/Law Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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.
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?
In terms of improvements, it would be beneficial to enhance the Copilot actions. The issue lies with the internal language setup. It takes the default language and doesn't accept custom language sp...
What do you like most about Sugar Enterprise?
The most valuable features of the SugarCRM platform include its flexibility in customizing fields, layouts, and dashboards.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sugar Enterprise?
All are almost the same pricing. Maybe the cheapest is Salesforce, I believe.
What needs improvement with Sugar Enterprise?
The only challenge was that we implemented it in our on-premise data center instead of using it in the cloud. That was a little bit of a challenge. But it was overcome with the help of SugarCRM com...
 

Also Known As

ExactTarget
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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: June 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.