
Salesforce is a well-liked cloud-based buyer relationship administration software program that unites advertising and marketing, gross sales and repair options inside a single utility. It provides superior AI-powered instruments and may be scaled up or down to fulfill the distinctive wants of any enterprise. Whereas it may possibly present a mixture of core options and superior technical choices, it’s comprehensible to wish to see the way it compares to its rivals or options earlier than committing to a premium subscription.
Prime Salesforce rivals and options: Comparability desk
To grasp how Salesforce compares to its prime rivals, it’s necessary to try Salesforce capabilities. Due to this, I thought-about Salesforce’s standout options equivalent to its capability for personalization, AI-powered instruments, integrations and its aggressive free trial size. Under, I evaluate prime options, together with HubSpot, Pipedrive, monday gross sales CRM and Much less Annoying CRM to present you a chicken’s eye view of how every supplier strains up.
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*Worth when billed yearly.
PREMIUM: Selecting the best CRM in your group.
HubSpot: Greatest free Salesforce various
HubSpot provides one of many prime free CRM options out there. Its platform can be utilized by gross sales leaders, salespeople, entrepreneurs, customer support groups, operation managers and enterprise homeowners. The free tier can enable as much as 2,500 customers, which is above the {industry} common and comes with options equivalent to e-mail templates, dwell chat software program, deal pipeline monitoring and fundamental reporting. If the free tier is just too restricted, HubSpot does supply enterprise options inside its premium tiers.
Pricing
- Free CRM: Free for as much as 2,500 customers with contact administration, quotes, dwell chat and extra.
- Gross sales Hub Starter: $15 per seat per thirty days, billed yearly, or $20 when billed month-to-month. The Starter plan contains all instruments within the free plan plus easy automation, e-signature, dialog routing and extra.
- Gross sales Hub Skilled: $90 per seat per thirty days, billed yearly, or $100 when billed month-to-month and a one-time $1,500 onboarding charge. This plan contains all Starter options and prospecting workspace, playbooks, forecasting and extra.
- Gross sales Hub Enterprise: $150 per seat per thirty days, with an annual dedication and one-time $3,500 onboarding charge. Customers of this plan obtain all Skilled instruments plus superior permissions, predictive lead scoring, dialog intelligence and lead type routing.
Options
- Assembly scheduler: Set up and schedule conferences shortly by letting leads e book a time that works for everybody with added Google Calendar and Workplace 365 Calendar integrations.
- Firm insights: Routinely populate lead information with firm particulars imported from HubSpot’s B2B database with greater than 20 million companies.
- AI content material author: Generate gross sales outreach emails and e-mail advertising and marketing campaigns in a fraction of the time with AI-generated content material.

HubSpot execs and cons
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Why we selected HubSpot
HubSpot and Salesforce are extraordinarily comparable for his or her scalability, AI instruments, integrations, premium pricing and extra. HubSpot does supply a free model of its resolution, whereas Salesforce doesn’t. Salesforce does, nonetheless, supply a little bit extra customization alternative than HubSpot.
To study extra about this various, try our HubSpot evaluate.
Pipedrive: Greatest for industry-specific options
Pipedrive has greater than 100,000 shoppers that serve quite a lot of industries. Pipedrive supplies distinctive options for a large number of industries, together with automotive gross sales, banking, occasion administration, name facilities, authorities, greater schooling, manufacturing and lots of extra. Every resolution provides traits and core options that align with the enterprise targets of the {industry}. For instance, the nonprofit resolution particularly helps organizations entice donors and have interaction long-term supporters.
Pricing
- Important: $14 per person per thirty days, billed yearly, or $24 per person when billed month-to-month. The Important plan contains folks and group administration, product catalog, gross sales assistant and extra.
- Superior: $29 per person per thirty days, billed yearly, or $39 per person when billed month-to-month. The Superior plan provides all Important plan options plus automations, two-way e-mail sync, group emailing and extra.
- Skilled: $49 per person per thirty days, billed yearly, or $64 per person when billed month-to-month. This tier helps all Superior options and contacts timeline, free Good Docs add-on, computerized task and extra. The AI-powered assistant turns into out there on this plan.
- Energy: $64 per person per thirty days, billed yearly, or $79 per person when billed month-to-month. The Energy plan contains all Skilled plan choices plus cellphone help, 500 customized fields and extra.
- Enterprise: $99 per person per thirty days, billed yearly, or $129 per person when billed month-to-month. This tier provides all options talked about above plus as much as 180 energetic automations, limitless groups and limitless customized permissions.
*These costs mirror Pipedrive’s premium plan construction for the US of America. Costs are topic to vary relying on geographical location.
Options
- Inside chat integration: Assign chat requests from shoppers in your web site to gross sales reps in actual time.
- Recurring income: Observe all of your subscriptions and repeat prospects to take care of help and buyer satisfaction.
- Visibility and login safety: Handle person entry to create data hierarchies that shield your organization knowledge.

Pipedrive execs and cons
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Why we selected Pipedrive
Just like HubSpot, Pipedrive is similar to Salesforce for its AI-powered assistant. I’ll level out that Pipedrive’s visible pipelines make it simple to handle your prospects’ journeys, however Salesforce’s scalability is way more strong for bigger shoppers.
Head over to our Pipedrive evaluate for extra particulars.
Zoho CRM: Greatest for omnichannel communication
Zoho CRM permits customers to attach with their prospects via a number of channels, all whereas organizing, monitoring and centralizing knowledge. Since that is such a digital age, it’s necessary for companies to fulfill their prospects the place they’re. Whether or not it’s via e-mail, cellphone, social media, SMS, dwell chat, WhatsApp or webforms, Zoho CRM can combine with all of the instruments that assist reps serve shoppers in actual time.
Pricing
- Free CRM: Free for as much as three customers and comes with lead and doc administration and a cell app.
- Normal: $14 per person per thirty days, billed yearly, or $20 per person when billed month-to-month. Customers can entry e-mail insights, gross sales forecasting and a number of currencies.
- Skilled: $23 per person per thirty days, billed yearly, or $35 per person when billed month-to-month. This tier contains all Normal options, plus task guidelines and limitless customized studies and dashboards.
- Enterprise: $40 per person per thirty days, billed yearly, or $50 per person when billed month-to-month. This plan contains all AI-powered instruments, plus e-mail segmentation, auto-response and extra.
- Final: $52 per person per thirty days, billed yearly, or $65 per person when billed month-to-month. The Final plan grants customers entry to all Zoho CRM options plus entry to Zoho Analytics.
Options
- Territory administration: Categorize prospects primarily based on related standards to make sure they’re assigned to the precise gross sales rep.
- Social integration: Monitor what customers and shoppers are saying about your small business on-line and mechanically seize new leads from social media.
- Blueprint gross sales course of: Outline each stage of your gross sales course of, together with on and offline levels, and execute them in a scientific method.

Zoho CRM execs and cons
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Why we selected Zoho CRM
Each Zoho CRM and Salesforce are enterprise CRM. Zoho CRM is a extra inexpensive choice to Salesforce, making it nice for organizations wanting an enterprise-level resolution with simple dashboards and fewer complexity in comparison with Salesforce.
To know extra about this supplier’s prime options and extra, learn our Zoho CRM evaluate.
Monday CRM: Greatest various for challenge administration
Monday CRM provides superior challenge administration instruments that may assist companies cowl all pre-sales to post-sales duties and actions in a single place. By centralizing consumer communication and offering automations that save time, monday CRM provides an intuitive and versatile platform. With a cell app and customized dashboards that report on the spot deal progress and gross sales figures, customers have elevated visibility to efficiency.
Pricing
- Free model: Primary CRM choices solely out there for college students and nonprofit organizations after submitting an utility.
- Primary CRM: $12 per person, per thirty days when billed yearly, or $15 when billed month-to-month. This tier provides limitless pipelines, boards and contacts, in addition to templates for lead, contact and deal administration.
- Normal CRM: $17 per person, per thirty days when billed yearly, or $20 when billed month-to-month. This tier contains superior account, contact and deal administration, two-way e-mail integration with Gmail and Outlook and an AI e-mail generator.
- Professional CRM: $28 per person, per thirty days when billed yearly, or $33 when billed month-to-month. This tier contains Gross sales forecasting, e-mail templates with customized parameters, mass emails and added integrations.
- Enterprise CRM: Contact monday.com for a quote. This stage of help provides lead scoring, crew targets and superior analytics.
Options
- Name logging: Log all gross sales and consumer calls via an automatic abstract display screen.
- Lead capturing: Seize new leads by including a type to your organization web site that may instantly import their data into the CRM.
- Cellular app: Handle your gross sales course of and all consumer communication on the undergo the monday CRM cell app.

Monday CRM execs and cons
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Why we selected monday CRM
Whereas monday CRM is a extremely customizable and scalable device, Salesforce and others on this record supply extra integrations. That is necessary you probably have present instruments in your gross sales tech stack that should be capable of combine together with your subsequent CRM. For a Salesforce various with many integration capabilities, I recommend contemplating Much less Annoying CRM or HubSpot.
For extra data, learn our detailed monday gross sales CRM evaluate.
Much less Annoying CRM: Greatest for small companies
Much less Annoying CRM particularly provides options to small companies. CRMs for small companies are scalable for progress however sometimes prioritize affordability, help and ease of use. Much less Annoying CRM prides itself on not being a spin-off of different large CRM suppliers or offering a lite model of a dearer system; as an alternative, the corporate provides one low flat price for its total platform with no upcharges or costly add-ons.
Pricing
- Much less Annoying CRM: $15 per person, per thirty days. This single fundamental plan contains limitless contacts and corporations, limitless pipelines, process administration and entry to all Much less Annoying options.
- Customized quote: Free personalised quote if your small business expects to have greater than 10 customers on the CRM.
Options
- Entry administration: Add a vast variety of customers for the flat price of $15 per person, per thirty days and create distinctive entry controls for every.
- Comply with up reminder: Set reminders via the platform that may notify you when it’s essentially the most supreme time to achieve out to a lead.
- Job administration: Obtain automated reminders, day by day digests and even process prioritization via a cohesive process dashboard.

Much less Annoying CRM execs and cons
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Why we selected Much less Annoying CRM
Salesforce is a extra strong CRM choice in comparison with Much less Annoying CRM; Salesforce has an in depth function catalog that features alternative administration, quote and bill monitoring and Einstein AI. However for those who’re a small enterprise needing a simplified model of Salesforce at a flat, simple value, I’d recommend contemplating Much less Annoying CRM.
ActiveCampaign: Greatest for e-mail advertising and marketing
ActiveCampaign provides superior automations for e-mail advertising and marketing and gross sales engagement. Customers can enhance consumer engagement by delivering personalised emails, SMS and digital campaigns. After creating a really perfect buyer profile, goal these leads with clever advertising and marketing automation and deploy partaking emails for energetic lead era.
Pricing
- Gross sales Plus: $19 per person per thirty days, when billed yearly, or $23 per thirty days billed month-to-month. This plan provides gross sales automation, lead scoring, personalised chat, e-mail help and extra.
- Gross sales Skilled: $49 per person per thirty days, when billed yearly, or $59 per thirty days billed month-to-month. This tier provides all Gross sales Plus options plus gross sales engagement automation, AI sentiment evaluation and win chance.
- Gross sales Enterprise: $99 per person per thirty days, when billed yearly, or $119 per thirty days billed month-to-month. Gross sales Enterprise contains all Skilled options plus customized reporting and objects, single sign-on, uptime SLA and extra.
- Bundle Plus: $93 per thirty days billed yearly or $116 per thirty days billed month-to-month. This providing is a bundle of promoting automation and gross sales CRM for five customers and contains 1,000 advertising and marketing contacts.
- Bundle Skilled: $386 per thirty days, when billed yearly, or $482 per thirty days billed month-to-month. This plan helps 10 customers, 2,500 advertising and marketing contacts and extra.
- Bundle Enterprise: $734 per thirty days, when billed yearly, or $918 per thirty days billed month-to-month. This bundle contains 15 customers, customized reporting, HIPAA help and extra.
Options
- Reporting and analytics: Uncover knowledge round website and occasion monitoring, deliverability, break up testing, win chance and extra.
- Segmentation: Set up contacts by {industry}, job title, quiz outcomes, buy historical past and a lot extra.
- Lead scoring: Determine high-value contacts and alternatives via predetermined indicators and scores.

ActiveCampaign execs and cons
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Why we selected ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign provides core advertising and marketing options at a excessive value in comparison with the {industry} normal. Salesforce has comparable pricing however much more advertising and marketing options that embrace e-mail and cell promoting, B2B advertising and marketing automation, advertising and marketing AI, advertising and marketing analytics and even buyer loyalty marketing campaign administration.
Do you want a substitute for Salesforce?
Some notable drawbacks to Salesforce embrace how costly it may be for startups or small companies, its intensive catalog of options could make it a fancy platform and customers report a steep studying curve implementing the software program.
I steered first understanding how CRM pricing works, what the {industry} requirements are and your actual funds and want for a CRM device. Secondly, following CRM greatest practices will make sure the implementation course of and ongoing help units up your small business for actual long-term success.
When you’re wanting a deeper understanding of what Salesforce can supply, head over to our unbiased Salesforce evaluate.
Overview methodology
I reviewed and scored every CRM software program that may be thought-about a prime various to Salesfroce in opposition to an inhouse rubric. That rubric is printed with standards and subcategories of ordinary CRM options and choices. Utilizing that rubric and algorithm to find out an general star ranking, I then recognized a really perfect use case for every supplier that summarizes the product’s greatest choices.
Here’s a breakdown of the scoring standards I adopted when reviewing Salesforce options:
- Price: Weighted 25% of the entire rating.
- Core options: Weighted 25% of the entire rating.
- Customizations: Weighted 15% of the entire rating.
- Integrations: Weighted 15% of the entire rating.
- Ease of use: Weighted 10% of the entire rating.
- Buyer help: Weighted 10% of the entire rating.
Ceaselessly requested questions (FAQs)
Who’s Salesforce’s essential competitor?
HubSpot, Pipedrive and Zoho CRM are all stand out rivals of Salesforce when evaluating worth, prime core options, superior AI instruments and customization. Every competitor is a generalized CRM supplier that gives a mixture of advertising and marketing, gross sales and buyer help options that may be catered to firms of all sizes and quite a lot of industries.
Is Salesforce the most important CRM?
Salesforce is undoubtedly a extremely popular CRM software program utilized by companies the world over, identified for its extremely technical options, scalability and {industry} specialization. The Worldwide Knowledge Company ranked Salesforce because the #1 CRM supplier for an eleventh consecutive 12 months. Some notable shoppers of Salesforce embrace Gucci, Turtle Bay, Baptist Well being South Florida and Air India.
Why select Salesforce over different CRMs?
When it comes right down to it, Salesforce is an especially versatile CRM supplier. When you’re within the monetary providers, retail, healthcare, manufacturing, vitality or media industries, Salesforce provides you an industry-specific resolution of its platform. If inexpensive, Salesforce can modernize your small business, save time on mundane advertising and marketing and gross sales taks, and create a tighter pipeline between you and your prospects.