SAP CRM vs Salesforce Sales Cloud comparison

Salesforce and SAP are both solutions in the CRM category. Salesforce is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.2, while SAP is ranked #3 with an average rating of 7.8. Salesforce holds a 8.6% mindshare in CRM, compared to SAP’s 10.7% mindshare. Additionally, 94% of Salesforce users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 83% of SAP users who would recommend it.

Salesforce Sales Cloud

Read 114 Salesforce Sales Cloud reviews

5,511 Views
2,933 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

SAP CRM

Read 43 SAP CRM reviews

3,697 Views
3,245 Comparison Views

83% willing to recommend

Salesforce Sales Cloud

SAP CRM

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 20, 2025

Salesforce Sales Cloud and SAP CRM compete in the customer relationship management sector, each offering unique benefits. Salesforce holds an advantage with its customization and integration flexibility, while SAP CRM is seamlessly integrated with SAP ERP systems.

Features: Salesforce Sales Cloud offers extensive customization capabilities, ease of integration, and cloud-based deployment for scalability. SAP CRM seamlessly integrates with SAP ERP modules, provides strong lead management features, and offers a cohesive ecosystem for existing SAP users.

Room for Improvement: Salesforce Sales Cloud needs enhancements in user-friendliness, performance, and cost efficiency. SAP CRM could improve ease of integration with non-SAP solutions, user interface modernization, and overall user-friendliness.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Salesforce Sales Cloud provides flexible cloud deployment options and efficient customer service, with community support enhancing technical assistance. SAP CRM typically relies on on-premise deployment, with satisfactory but less celebrated customer service compared to Salesforce.

Pricing and ROI: Salesforce Sales Cloud is premium-priced, offering high ROI for businesses leveraging its functionalities. SAP CRM commands a high price, but its value can decrease without seamless integration and flexible customization, impacting cost-effectiveness for smaller enterprises.

To learn more, read our detailed SAP CRM vs. Salesforce Sales Cloud Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

SAP CRM vs. Salesforce Sales Cloud

April 2025

Download the complete report

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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 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)

SAP CRM

Ranking in CRM

3rd

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Local Government CRM (2nd), Marketing Management (3rd)

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the CRM category, the mindshare of Salesforce Sales Cloud is 8.6%, down from 10.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP CRM is 10.7%, up from 10.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

CRM

Q&A Highlights

it_user735081

Works at a energy/utilities company with 10,001+ employees

Oct 03, 2017

Cost Comparison between using CRM SAP vs Salesforce vs Pega

Hi thanks for your request. Each of the ERP CRM listed above has certain functionalities in common and comparing the cost between them will completely depends upon the need. Overall Salesforce and SAP CRM has CRM functionality and it is Tier 1 CRM product. Pega is not a CRM product and it specializes in BPM ( Business Process Management). Please email me and I can discuss over the phone with you for further details.

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Featured Reviews

Richard Mottershead

Enterprise Architect at a non-profit with 501-1,000 employees

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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GodfreyNoel

Distribution Cordinator at Unilever Inc.

Excellent user experience with ease of use and reliable technical support

When SAP CRM does the maintenance, it can take a long time, which can impact business continuity because we have to wait for the maintenance team to finish their work. Maybe if SAP could establish how you can access the tool using a cloud-based environment that would be virtualization, that would be better.

Read full review

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 Sales Cloud is for teams the ability to do marketing on our page and to manage their marketing leads. You are able to close a deal and do the renewal. For the life cycle management for customer management, we use Salesforce Sales Cloud. The performance of the solution is good."

"Salesforce Sales Cloud is very user-friendly, and simple to create dashboards and extract the reports. Additionally, it integrates well with other applications."

"I've found lead management to be the most valuable feature of Salesforce Sales Cloud. It helps capture, track, and manage leads throughout the sales process. The tool is easy to learn."

"This product is lightweight."

"There are many extremely useful features."

"Salesforce is a very powerful tool which helps us to build that through tools like Process Builder or Flows, or even write code to achieve these scenarios."

"Contact records are most valuable."

"You can capture all the contacts that relate to an account or business, including personal details."

More Salesforce Sales Cloud pros

"The features that are used most are the lead model and the opportunity model. We can create many different pipelines with many phases. These features improved our process in the States very well."

"Its scalability is good."

"The solution is highly scalable."

"From the bank perspective, it's user-friendly and simple to develop something specific for a certain customer. It allows customization for individual customers rather than applying a one-size-fits-all approach."

"SAP CRM's most valuable at a branch level."

"SAP CRM integrates well with SAP ERP which is useful."

"The most important factor for recommending SAP CRM is its integration with the core SAP platform. Globally, most enterprises are using SAP as an ERP platform to manage their key business functions. SAP CRM has out-of-the-box integration with the core SAP platform. You can integrate your pre-sales and post-sales into the single platform on the SAP CRM very easily, and you can extend that CRM to your customers who can actually see what is happening to their orders—such as whether it is dispatched or not dispatched or at what stage it is—simply by logging onto the CRM platform."

"The user interface is excellent."

More SAP CRM pros

Cons

"One consistent comment about the product internally is that it has a steep learning curve, especially for some sales executives. Simplifying the interface would be a big leap forward. Like a chatbot, fewer clicks and more direct AI interaction could help. A simplified interface with AI support would make things much easier. We need an AI feature like ChatGPT that helps us to hold conversations."

"I would like to see licensing fees reduced in the next release."

"The solution's design could be improved."

"The connectivity has some latency. It could be more responsive."

"The licensing price could be cheaper."

"It could have a more user-friendly interface."

"The setup of Salesforce Sales Cloud is complex. You need specialists in that area to be able to have a good setup. Once it's set up properly, running it is seamless. That's the most beautiful thing about Salesforce Sales Cloud."

"The reporting formats could be better."

More Salesforce Sales Cloud cons

"There is no scope for integration because SAP does not allow any personal integration."

"SAP CRM could improve by being easier to use and customer-friendly."

"The product's pricing could be better."

"There are quite a lot of missing parts in SAP CRM, which is why we do a lot of customization. Not everything is there, and some things need custom coding to cater to specific needs. It is not a plug-and-play solution with standard features, and we have to customize quite a lot."

"We would like the coding system within this solution to be more straightforward when carrying out general entry tasks."

"The B2C features of SAP are strong, but they are not very known to the public and companies. They must make it more known for B2C applications or B2C use cases."

"They have recently updated their user interface but they should continue to improve upon it in the future. Additionally, overall performance or speed of response times could be better."

"It can be a bit more user friendly, to be honest. Sometimes there are too many apps options. It should offer better UX (user experience) to make it easier to navigate and easier to use."

More SAP CRM cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The main thing is it is costly. Salesforce it is not cheap, it's costly. Some of our customers say it is a costly solution. So, we have lost some sale opportunities regarding the high price. This is the main thing that we are facing. It is sales per user and the user price is about $150 per month, per user for the Enterprise Edition. The other edition is less than this, but it is costly. A company that has 70 or 80 users would pay more than $8,000 USD yearly because it is cloud based."

"It is a premium product, so it is not the cheapest solution. I think if it's implemented well, and you're getting the soft cost benefits, the efficiencies, it's justified. But not if you're looking at just apples for apples as a subscription, without the complexity that you can achieve. It can deal with complex business requirements. Some other CRMs can't. But you certainly pay, so it's a premium-charged solution. It's one of the more expensive ones."

"The tool's pricing is based on the number of users. It has a different pricing for 0-100 and another for 100-500 users."

"The price of the product is very high. I rate the product price a ten on a scale of one to ten, where one means low price, and ten means expensive."

"Being license based, the license varies by type. The pricing is considered average."

"You need to pay for the license per user per month. For example, you need to pay $100 per user. If you have 200 users using your Salesforce, that would be multiplied by a hundred, that's $20,000 per month and a quarter million per year."

"We have a yearly license, and there are no hidden costs. Considering the Indian market, the pricing is reasonable. I don't consider it to be on the high side."

"The price is fair."

More Salesforce Sales Cloud pricing and cost advice

"SAP CRM is an expensive product."

"We pay for the license yearly."

"The company has seen an increase in revenue."

"Every user needs to have a license."

"The product is costly."

"SAP CRM is not suitable for smaller businesses because it is expensive. The larger businesses would be able to handle the cost."

"As for the product licensing, we pay an annual fee. It's important to consider setup costs and licensing based on your organization's budget and needs."

"From the maintenance perspective, SAP CRM is quite expensive compared to cloud services because the current solution they're using is managed by us and we are hosting it on servers. There is the cost of hosting, and managing servers and applications. The overhead is substantial, but this solution is a legacy system. It will take some time for the customer to migrate out of it."

More SAP CRM pricing and cost advice

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Answers from the Community

it_user735081

Works at a energy/utilities company with 10,001+ employees

Oct 3, 2017

Cost Comparison between using CRM SAP vs Salesforce vs Pega

See 2 answers

it_user70698

Works at Cognizant Technology Solutions

Oct 3, 2017

Read full answer

it_user747921

Vice President, CRM Product Marketing at Pegasystems

Oct 3, 2017

My advice is to compare the full investment of the CRM implementation - software, cloud and services - as from a general perspective, all top level "costs" are generally comparable. It is the cost-to-value ratio that you will want to focus upon. Also, you’ll want to assess whether you will be looking to deploy AI or not, as some vendors’ offerings are not quite as real and ready-to-deploy as others. Note that I am biased, as I am with Pega, running their CRM practice. With this said -- in terms of unbiased independent reviews, Gartner's latest Magic Quadrant for the CRM Customer Engagement Center for 2017, cites “Reference customers gave Pegasystems' overall package the best cost-to-value rating of any solution assessed for vendors in the Leaders quadrant.” A free copy of Gartner's report may be downloaded here: https://www.pega.com/gartner-crm-cec-2017 Best of luck in your research. Just let me know if I can be of any further assistance. Regards, Jeff Nicholson

Read full answer

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

73%

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What do you like most about SAP CRM?

Getting the right information at the right time across different programs is important. These programs lack interaction between them. IPA is a good option to bring them together.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAP CRM?

Every user needs to have a license.

See all answers

What needs improvement with SAP CRM?

One area for improvement is the security model, especially regarding records management retention and the audit and legal holds. Since we're in the middle of a cloud digital transformation, it's es...

See all answers

Comparisons

Microsoft Dynamics CRM vs Salesforce Sales Cloud

Compared 29% of the time

Oracle CX Sales vs Salesforce Sales Cloud

Compared 6% of the time

Siebel CRM vs Salesforce Sales Cloud

Compared 4% of the time

Camunda vs Salesforce Sales Cloud

Compared 4% of the time

Oracle CRM vs Salesforce Sales Cloud

Compared 4% of the time

More Salesforce Sales Cloud Competitors

Microsoft Dynamics CRM vs SAP CRM

Compared 33% of the time

Zoho CRM vs SAP CRM

Compared 13% of the time

Siebel CRM vs SAP CRM

Compared 10% of the time

Oracle CRM vs SAP CRM

Compared 10% of the time

monday.com vs SAP CRM

Compared 5% of the time

More SAP CRM Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Salesforce Sales Cloud

April 2025

Download Salesforce Sales Cloud product report

Buyer's Guide

SAP CRM

April 2025

Download SAP CRM product report

Also Known As

Sales Cloud, SFDC, Salesforce

No data available

Overview

Salesforce Sales Cloud is a comprehensive CRM platform designed for efficient lead management, sales forecasting, and customer engagement, offering extensive customization and cloud-based accessibility.

Aimed at enhancing business efficiency, Salesforce Sales Cloud supports core business processes like CRM, lead and opportunity management, sales forecasting, and customer engagement. Its robust integration capabilities allow seamless connectivity with ERP systems and various applications. The platform offers pipeline tracking, process automation, and advanced sales cycle management. Users appreciate its cloud-based accessibility, allowing teams to operate remotely and manage sales operations effectively. However, users highlight concerns about its complexity, cost, and the need for a more intuitive interface.

What features does Salesforce Sales Cloud offer?

Customization: Tailor the CRM to meet specific business requirements.
Robust Reporting: Comprehensive analytics and data insights.
Lead Management: Efficiently manage and convert leads.
API Integration: Seamless connectivity with multiple applications.
Cloud Accessibility: Work from anywhere with cloud-based access.

What benefits should be evaluated in Salesforce Sales Cloud reviews?

Enhanced Productivity: Streamline sales processes with automation.
Improved Collaboration: Facilitate team coordination and client engagement.
Accurate Forecasting: Make informed decisions with reliable sales forecasts.
Flexibility: Accommodate diverse industry needs with ease.
Legacy System Integration: Efficiently update and integrate with existing systems.

Salesforce Sales Cloud is widely implemented across industries such as finance, healthcare, and retail, supporting sales teams in tracking and managing sales operations. Its use extends to reporting, collaboration, and enhancing client interactions, allowing companies to tailor Salesforce to meet industry-specific requirements efficiently.

Salesforce

SAP CRM is a comprehensive customer relationship management solution that helps businesses streamline their sales, marketing, and service processes. It offers a range of features including lead management, opportunity management, campaign management, and customer service management. With SAP CRM, businesses can effectively manage their customer interactions, improve customer satisfaction, and drive revenue growth.

The solution integrates with other SAP modules, allowing for seamless data exchange and real-time insights. It also offers mobile access, enabling sales and service teams to access critical information on the go.

SAP CRM is a powerful tool for businesses looking to enhance their customer relationships and drive business success.

SAP

Sample Customers

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

Brau Union Osterreich AG, Nu Skin Enterprises Inc., AOK Bundesverband, RAK Ceramics, NHS 24, Wholesale Sports Outdoor Outfitters, FC Bayern Munchen AG, Tumi, The Kellogg Company, MVV Energie AG, Anglian Water Services, German Football Association (DFB), Nebraska Book Company Inc.

Buyer's Guide

SAP CRM vs. Salesforce Sales Cloud

April 2025

Free Report: SAP CRM vs. Salesforce Sales Cloud

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