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

HootSuite vs Salesforce Marketing Cloud comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 2, 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

HootSuite
Ranking in Social CRM
4th
Ranking in Social Media Management Solutions
3rd
Average Rating
7.8
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Social Media Analytics Software (1st)
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Ranking in Social CRM
2nd
Ranking in Social Media Management Solutions
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
62
Ranking in other categories
Marketing Automation (1st), Marketing Management (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Social CRM category, the mindshare of HootSuite is 7.5%, down from 8.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Salesforce Marketing Cloud is 5.7%, down from 12.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Social CRM Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Salesforce Marketing Cloud5.7%
HootSuite7.5%
Other86.8%
Social CRM
 

Featured Reviews

Anish Bajracharya - PeerSpot reviewer
Postgraduate at a educational organization with 1,001-5,000 employees
Efficient management of social media campaigns while noting pricing challenges
If you are into social media marketing or any other digital media, then you should have knowledge of HootSuite because it is the industry standard that has been helping industry professionals. It makes life easier and somehow lowers stress, which is why I would recommend HootSuite It saves me…
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The main improvement HootSuite offers is allowing my organization to run social media campaigns."
"If you are into social media marketing or any other digital media, then you should have knowledge of HootSuite because it is the industry standard that has been helping industry professionals."
"Hootsuite feels like an all-in-one tool; I can publish content on Hootsuite and then answer comments, which is what I do for my customers."
"HootSuite has an AI engine to suggest trending topics related to our business. The engine works really well and comes up with excellent suggestions for more posts."
"It has a social media presence outside of the hours people are able to devote to an organization."
"It is easy to use."
"The most valuable part of the solution are the selling features."
"It makes it easy for a business to use any module based on their preference."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to get quotes out in a timely manner."
"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,"
"In Salesforce Marketing Cloud, the ability to send emails effectively is very valuable."
"The Journey and CloudPages and automation are all great."
"The most valuable feature of Salesforce Marketing Cloud is the reporting engine. Reports are very good and easy to build."
 

Cons

"Last I checked, you can't schedule Twitter threads where each tweet is a reply to a previous tweet."
"The company should reduce the pricing to make it easier for companies to deploy to larger social teams."
"The quality of support for this solution has been decreasing over time and the support team are sometimes more focused on closing tickets that resolving issues. Often the support team is not well trained or aware of the new features or products released by Salesforce."
"Technical support is good but could be faster, maybe more knowledgeable, and more customer friendly."
"User management could be better."
"Salesforce Marketing Cloud could improve by having more graphical options because a lot of tables are now only numbers and percentages and data. I prefer graphs, lines, and pie charts. I know there are ways to receive this from Salesforce Marketing Cloud. It doesn't play a huge role in my daily work to invest the time to figure it out. I feel that it would be time wasted. They could make the graphical options easier to find and use in the future."
"In a future release it would be great to have the ability to connect the data from social media and email marketing and have it in one dashboard."
"If you want to use advanced features in Salesforce Marketing Cloud, they are extremely difficult to use."
"We have struggled to get resolution of support tickets from the Salesforce team."
"I've noticed on one-to-one leads, the customer objection option is not available."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"​I have only used the free versions.​"
"The licensing cost for the solution is on a yearly basis."
"This solution is priced in the medium to high price range."
"The solution's pricing is very high and should be more flexible for smaller companies."
"It is a license per user."
"Salesforce Marketing Cloud is affordable, considering the significant improvements it brings to our campaign results."
"We have two types of licensing. We have a yearly license for end users and we have a concurrent login for selling."
"Salesforce has different versions of the solution and some are more suitable for smaller clients. However, Salesforce is expensive."
"Salesforce is an expensive solution."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Social CRM solutions are best for your needs.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
University
12%
Retailer
12%
Media Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Healthcare Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise2
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise31
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with HootSuite?
HootSuite is very seamless. I'm sure there might be more functionality that HootSuite offers, but I've only used it for basic social media posting. I can't really think of anything to improve on.
What is your primary use case for HootSuite?
My main use case for HootSuite is scheduling social media posts across various social media platforms. In the past we've had campaigns for various things, but I use HootSuite because it's really ni...
What advice do you have for others considering HootSuite?
I don't use it for reporting; it's mainly for analytics. You're able to get a dashboard of analytics from posts. If you post on LinkedIn, Facebook, or X, you're able to see everything all in one sp...
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?
I would recommend that Salesforce Marketing Cloud improve on three-dimensional or 360-degree reporting, as I feel that is something missing. Salesforce Marketing Cloud is expensive; it can be more ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
ExactTarget
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Vega, TicketLeap, Radio Italia, The PureMatter Agency, Kiva, The Vancouver Canucks
American Express, Financial Conduct Authority, KPN, Merck KGaA, Peterborough City Council, The Chapar, ADP, Financial Times, Stanley Black & Decker, SureFlap, Western Union, Philips
Find out what your peers are saying about HootSuite vs. Salesforce Marketing Cloud and other solutions. Updated: January 2026.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.