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Salesforce Marketing Cloud vs SugarCRM Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 6, 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

Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Ranking in Marketing Automation
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
Social CRM (4th), Marketing Management (1st), Social Media Management Solutions (3rd)
SugarCRM Platform
Ranking in Marketing Automation
11th
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
CRM Customer Engagement Centers (9th), CRM (23rd), Sales Force Automation (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Marketing Automation category, the mindshare of Salesforce Marketing Cloud is 11.1%, down from 22.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SugarCRM Platform is 2.0%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Marketing Automation Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Salesforce Marketing Cloud11.1%
SugarCRM Platform2.0%
Other86.9%
Marketing Automation
 

Featured Reviews

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.
reviewer1345677 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager / IT Planning & Architecture Services at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
Easily customizable, automation enhances the marketing campaigns but support is the main hiccup for us
It has been effective in managing customer relationships. It has sales email campaigns, plus integration with Active Directory. And there are centralized reports for the CEO and the general managers. We work with automation for these marketing and email campaigns. It sends out emails to prospective customers related to sales offers automatically. And it copies the sales team so that they can follow up. They are tracking the sales leads. So, the automation within SugarCRM enhances the marketing campaigns. For now, my work is done because I am the IT strategy and planning manager. I just try to deliver the solution according to the requirements of the business. From my side, it's implemented already, the requirement related to the sales funnel. But if they have any other requirement from the business side, they will submit it to me, and then I will look for a suitable solution.

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 is the ability to get quotes out in a timely manner."
"It is a great solution. I like its stability, scalability, and performance."
"The solution is completely scalable, the sky really is the limit, and if a company needs to expand it, it can do so as much as it wants."
"Salesforce Marketing Cloud has positively impacted my organization by reducing costs while significantly increasing the return on investment."
"It is straightforward to set up."
"The Salesforce ecosystem is more powerful than Siebel.Salesforce is fully integrated."
"Salesforce is an excellent choice."
"We are satisfied with the Salesforce Marketing Cloud products, which is why we have extended and acquired the Data Cloud as integration."
"The performance and stability are fine."
"Saying that, it has a small server footprint and is easy to set up."
"The most valuable aspect of this solution is its low cost, and it works well."
"This solution's stability is very good, it runs almost without effort, and we don't have any support issues with it."
"Good, basic out-of-the-box solution, however, in my estimation not a long term play as the design flow and user interface make it a true chore to enter data."
"The most valuable features of the SugarCRM platform include its flexibility in customizing fields, layouts, and dashboards."
"It has sales email campaigns, plus integration with Active Directory."
"The most valuable feature is relation capability, which allows us to relay customers with invoice orders."
 

Cons

"We would like an improvement to the 'Einstein Engagement Frequency'; the optimal range of emails that our subscribers will engage with."
"The product could use a little bit of BI in the sense of rule-based building."
"I found that the tool is more complex than expected. It requires a deeper understanding to utilize its capabilities thoroughly."
"I think it's not easy and it's expensive."
"The response from the customer service team could be faster and the agents could be more knowledgeable."
"In the SMS area, it is not up to the mark, compared to what has been developed for email."
"User management could be better."
"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."
"Functionality and features are well suited for small business companies only."
"Putting so many things into SugarCRM became a much-hated task, mainly because of the horrible UI."
"I would like to see more integration on a mobile platform in the next release."
"Sugar Enterprise could improve by removing bugs and glitches. For example, a comment was made but in the comment section, it was never displayed. However, the problems we faced might not be the fault of the solution."
"I would appreciate it if SugarCRM could support us in on-premise implementation."
"You cannot include all your entities under one instance at the moment."
"In the next release, I would like to see personalization of information about customers or specific businesses or opportunities."
"The interface could be more user-friendly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have two types of licensing. We have a yearly license for end users and we have a concurrent login for selling."
"It is a license per user."
"On a scale where one is the lowest and ten is the most expensive, I rate the solution an eight out of ten."
"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
"The licensing cost for the solution is on a yearly basis."
"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."
"This solution is priced in the medium to high price range."
"My company pays to use this solution."
"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Construction Company
16%
Engineering Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise34
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise3
 

Questions from the Community

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?
Regarding areas for improvement, the realization of value from Salesforce Einstein's predictive AI features is a notable challenge. Although the implementation partner highlighted these capabilitie...
What is your primary use case for Salesforce Marketing Cloud?
As a consultant, I partner with organizations to optimize their use of Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC). My engagement often begins pre-implementation, where I lead the requirements gathering proc...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sugar Enterprise?
All are almost the same pricing. Maybe the cheapest is Salesforce, I believe.
What needs improvement with Sugar Enterprise?
The only challenge was that we implemented it in our on-premise data center instead of using it in the cloud. That was a little bit of a challenge. But it was overcome with the help of SugarCRM com...
What advice do you have for others considering Sugar Enterprise?
To start with, SugarCRM is a very good platform. It's easy to implement and easily customizable. Might be later when you want to scale, then I would recommend Salesforce. Overall, I would rate it a...
 

Also Known As

ExactTarget
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Overview

 

Sample Customers

American Express, Financial Conduct Authority, KPN, Merck KGaA, Peterborough City Council, The Chapar, ADP, Financial Times, Stanley Black & Decker, SureFlap, Western Union, Philips
Redglaze Group, TengoInternet, Hilco, Bancvue, Vet Adivsor
Find out what your peers are saying about Salesforce Marketing Cloud vs. SugarCRM Platform and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.