Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

SAP CRM vs SAP Marketing Cloud comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

SAP CRM
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
CRM (3rd), Local Government CRM (2nd), Marketing Management (3rd)
SAP Marketing Cloud
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Marketing Resource Management (1st), Marketing Automation (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Marketing Applications solutions, they serve different purposes. SAP CRM is designed for CRM and holds a mindshare of 9.1%, down 10.8% compared to last year.
SAP Marketing Cloud, on the other hand, focuses on Marketing Resource Management, holds 10.2% mindshare, up 9.3% since last year.
CRM
Marketing Resource Management
 

Featured Reviews

ToniaSpight-Sokoya - PeerSpot reviewer
A CRM system that helps you automate and integrate your customer data and customer facing-activities: sales, marketing, service, and e-commerce
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 essential to ensure the system flags documents properly according to global retention policies. We need to address bugs and make sure our system fully aligns with our procedures and policies. This is crucial to prevent breaches, especially in a time when breaches are becoming more common. For instance, my personal identity was compromised four months ago when my mortgage company had a breach, and I’m still working with the FTC to clean up the damage. In my work in mortgage and financial services, I’m focused on preventing this kind of issue for our consumers and clients.
Srini-Dhanaraj - PeerSpot reviewer
Used for customer segmentation and campaign management but have slow email response
Deployment is not complex and takes six to eight weeks. You need to understand what exactly it entails. The customer is the client, the business that will use and benefit from the software. We need to understand their business processes, particularly how they want to build the customer profile. Once we understand that, we may need to integrate with various source systems where interactions occur. For example, a customer may purchase many products through Amazon, and the client may want to integrate data from these Amazon transactions to understand the customer's buying patterns. This is a typical e-commerce scenario, not limited to Amazon. So, you connect to a third-party system to extract data and capture it in the Marketing Cloud. You create a customer profile to analyze behavior, such as if a person buys expensive items when they get their salary or during promotional periods. Based on this profiling, you can push targeted marketing campaigns to customers, such as promotions during a long weekend or Easter holiday. Understanding the customer profile is crucial for effective marketing.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"When we are using SAP CRM we receive more accurate results than using any other CRM system."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"SAP CRM is a scalable solution."
"We are using the HANA Z database for CRM, which enhances the products we are currently using by making the system more efficient. Everything is connected to CRM, so we can use the data for analytics, sales forecasting, and data modeling."
"It provides innovative ideas for implementation."
"SAP CRM has a good performance."
"Segmentation and campaigning are very important features."
 

Cons

"As SAP CRM is still in its pilot version in my company, and my team is still experimenting on it, there's little room for exploration, but its setup is not as straightforward, so this could be an area for improvement."
"The product's pricing could be better."
"The tool's installation on the cloud takes time, but it should be easier. One transaction takes around one to one and a half hours."
"SAP CRM should create a more user-friendly graphical user interface (GUI)."
"Previously, the SAP CRM used to use simple servers, but now SAP uses HANA. The problem with the HANA databases is their interoperability with other solutions. SAP CRM could improve by working better with other solutions."
"What I see as a challenge against our competitor is that Salesforce comes with more flexibility, for enhancement purposes, whereas the SAP CRM Cloud is more robust and rigid. It's not flexible to implement any bespoke solution."
"When features do get added, we would like the product to notify us in a timely way."
"The interface could be improved."
"Email response could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"SAP CRM is an expensive product."
"There is a license required to use SAP CRM."
"Its price is reasonable. As compared to other CRMs, this CRM is competitively priced. They have multiple flavors with different sets of functionality. Pricing is based on the flavor that suits your requirement. If you have more users, the cost will come down."
"Every user needs to have a license."
"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."
"We have to pay a yearly licensing fee for SAP CRM, which is expensive."
"The licensing model for SAP CRM is customer-based."
"The company has seen an increase in revenue."
Information not available
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which CRM solutions are best for your needs.
864,155 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
11%
University
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Healthcare Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAP CRM?
SAP CRM is not suitable for small companies because of the cost. It is suitable for medium and large enterprise companies.
What needs improvement with SAP CRM?
Recently, the price of SAP CRM has increased, which is one concern. Another issue is that sometimes we experience slow performance. Reports in SAP CRM itself can become very slow. Other than that, ...
What needs improvement with SAP Marketing Cloud?
Email response could be improved. SAP Marketing Cloud may be difficult to sell to a sports club. Sports fans can be numerous, often in the millions or even billions. If you want to reach them, this...
What is your primary use case for SAP Marketing Cloud?
We use the solution for customer segmentation and campaign management. It allows us to capture customer information in a single system.
 

Also Known As

No data available
SAP Hybris Marketing Cloud
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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.
PT XL Axiata Tbk, Lenovo, Molson Coors Brewing Company, Sailing Team Germany, CHIO Aachen, Danone, Evoshield, Mohawk Industries, FC Bayern Munchen AG, D. SWAROVSKI KG, WeissBeerger, Groupe SAMSE, Cox Communications Inc.
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Salesforce, SAP and others in CRM. Updated: July 2025.
864,155 professionals have used our research since 2012.