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HootSuite vs Salesforce Marketing Cloud comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 20, 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
4th
Average Rating
7.6
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Social Media Analytics Software (2nd)
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Ranking in Social CRM
2nd
Ranking in Social Media Management Solutions
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
58
Ranking in other categories
Marketing Automation (1st), Marketing Management (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Social CRM category, the mindshare of HootSuite is 11.4%, up from 10.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Salesforce Marketing Cloud is 12.4%, up from 10.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Social CRM
 

Featured Reviews

Kapil Rampal - PeerSpot reviewer
Good customization and social media management with helpful AI capabilities
It has made access control very easy. We don't need to share the actual account credentials with any employee. They can work through HootSuite. We can also manage all our social media in one interface with personalization. It has improved efficiency and security and has delivered significant cost savings. In the enterprise edition, there is also an option to manage user access, and you can limit or grant access, depending on the business needs. For example, marketing can be given access to analytics, customer support to messages, and social teams to the postings. Also, you can have levels for approvals.
SantoshKrishna - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to deploy, stable, and scalable
The encryption and decryption have room for improvement. We need to be confident that the customer's data is secure when shared outside of the organization. I would like to request additional mobile app features that go beyond push notifications. As the mobile development industry continues to advance with new technologies, such as AI components, it is important to consider these advancements when setting up campaigns. Currently, campaigns are scheduled to be sent to customers at a prescribed time, but they may not be relevant to the customer unless they see them as valuable. For example, if I want to run a campaign offering loans, I would need to consider the customer's needs and balance. In the future, I hope Salesforce can incorporate an AI component that utilizes the shared data, rather than just scheduling campaigns.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It has a social media presence outside of the hours people are able to devote to an organization."
"The main improvement HootSuite offers is allowing my organization to run social media campaigns."
"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."
"You can schedule reports, there's a lot of supporting tools, and you have access to all that information."
"Email Studio is one of the core parts of Salesforce Marketing Cloud."
"It is a great solution. I like its stability, scalability, and performance."
"Overall, I would rate Salesforce Marketing Cloud a nine out of 10."
"It is easy to send emails and SMS's."
"It is easy to use."
"The solution is user-friendly."
"Its ability to integrate data and provide a comprehensive view of customer engagement sets it apart."
 

Cons

"The company should reduce the pricing to make it easier for companies to deploy to larger social teams."
"Last I checked, you can't schedule Twitter threads where each tweet is a reply to a previous tweet."
"Salesforce could benefit by implementing further integration with more platforms."
"The product could use a little bit of BI in the sense of rule-based building."
"There could be easier tools to configure the product and to create landing pages to better handle large data sets."
"The majority of my clients are happy, but when it comes to the CDP of Salesforce, the client gets confused. They have no clue that Salesforce has a CDP platform too. If my clients want to go ahead with the same vendor, Salesforce, they get confused about the different marketing suites which are available. There is no clear marketing done for the suites available for the clients, this is where the client is facing the real challenges."
"The UA could be better designed for a mobile connection."
"Query Studio in Salesforce Marketing Cloud needs to be improved because not all queries are supported and we cannot debug the AM Script or SSJS code, which makes code debugging manual."
"Salesforce Marketing Cloud should be linked to an email ID, so the features after 15 days can update on the opportunity. You should not have to update them manually to the next step."
"The solution can be difficult to set up for non-technical individuals."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"​I have only used the free versions.​"
"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."
"The solution is a bit expensive."
"The solution's pricing is very high and should be more flexible for smaller companies."
"This is a low cost solution suited to larger organizations."
"Salesforce Marketing Cloud is a highly expensive solution, it needs to be less expensive. We are on an annual license to use the solution."
"On a scale where one is the lowest and ten is the most expensive, I rate the solution an eight out of ten."
"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 is paid for monthly."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
15%
University
12%
Educational Organization
10%
Educational Organization
54%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Manufacturing Company
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about HootSuite?
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.
What needs improvement with HootSuite?
Hootsuite has a lot to improve, particularly the user interface, which feels dated and like an old product. I am not quite happy with the service and am looking to replace it.
What is your primary use case for HootSuite?
I am using Hootsuite to manage my customers' LinkedIn pages. I manage about ten customers.
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...
 

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: May 2025.
851,604 professionals have used our research since 2012.