Salesforce Marketing Cloud vs SugarCRM Platform comparison

Salesforce and SugarCRM are both solutions in the Marketing Automation category. Salesforce is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.6, while SugarCRM is ranked #10 with an average rating of 7.0. Salesforce holds a 12.6% mindshare in MA, compared to SugarCRM’s 1.7% mindshare. Additionally, 98% of Salesforce users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 50% of SugarCRM users who would recommend it.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Read 62 Salesforce Marketing Cloud reviews

4,072 Views
2,810 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

SugarCRM Platform

Read 12 SugarCRM Platform reviews

1,298 Views
260 Comparison Views

50% willing to recommend

Salesforce Marketing Cloud

SugarCRM Platform

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 6, 2025

SugarCRM Platform and Salesforce Marketing Cloud compete in the CRM and marketing automation sectors. Salesforce Marketing Cloud has the upper hand in features, offering a comprehensive set of tools that justify its higher price.

Features: SugarCRM provides contact management, sales automation, and analytics capabilities, suited for small businesses needing cost-effective solutions. Salesforce Marketing Cloud offers advanced marketing automation, data-driven personalization, and AI insights.

Room for Improvement: SugarCRM could enhance its marketing automation and data insights to match larger competitors. It may also benefit from expanding third-party integrations. Salesforce Marketing Cloud can improve its simplicity and lower entry costs. It could provide more straightforward options for small businesses and develop user-friendly interfaces for easier navigation.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SugarCRM offers an easy setup with responsive support, ideal for businesses with limited IT resources. Salesforce Marketing Cloud requires a more complex deployment but offers extensive documentation and training resources, catering to larger enterprises.

Pricing and ROI: SugarCRM is known for lower setup costs and solid ROI, especially for small to mid-sized companies. Salesforce Marketing Cloud demands a higher initial investment but offers significant long-term ROI through enhanced marketing features.

To learn more, read our detailed Salesforce Marketing Cloud vs. SugarCRM Platform Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Salesforce Marketing Cloud vs. SugarCRM Platform

December 2025

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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

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Social CRM (2nd), Marketing Management (1st), Social Media Management Solutions (2nd)

SugarCRM Platform

Ranking in Marketing Automation

10th

Average Rating

7.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

CRM Customer Engagement Centers (11th), CRM (25th), Sales Force Automation (6th)

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Marketing Automation category, the mindshare of Salesforce Marketing Cloud is 12.6%, down from 22.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SugarCRM Platform is 1.7%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Marketing Automation Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Salesforce Marketing Cloud	12.6%
SugarCRM Platform	1.7%
Other	85.7%

Marketing Automation

Featured Reviews

GauravSingh2

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.

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reviewer1345677

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.

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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 part of the solution are the selling features."

"Salesforce Marketing Cloud provides an edge for my organization by tracking the budget, how it is spent, where we stand, and how many cold calls or nurtured calls have been converted into sales."

"Email Studio is one of the core parts of Salesforce Marketing Cloud."

"It is easy to use."

"The tool's most valuable feature is its automation. We can integrate data with the Salesforce hub. Its Einstein feature tells us whether our campaigns are on the right track. It also helps with ideas."

"The user interface is easy to use, especially for my staff who use assistive technology."

"Its ability to integrate data and provide a comprehensive view of customer engagement sets it apart."

"Marketing Cloud has improved our productivity and our team enjoy using it."

More Salesforce Marketing Cloud pros

"It has sales email campaigns, plus integration with Active Directory."

"It works well with Jira. You can customize it to fit your needs."

"The most valuable feature is relation capability, which allows us to relay customers with invoice orders."

"The most valuable features of Sugar Enterprise are the exports of graphics, statuses, complaints, and tasks."

"The most valuable aspect of this solution is its low cost."

"The most valuable features of the SugarCRM platform include its flexibility in customizing fields, layouts, and dashboards."

Cons

"The pricing is a bit high."

"In a future release, adding end-user personalization would be a benefit."

"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."

"In terms of improvements, it would be beneficial to enhance the Copilot actions. The issue lies with the internal language setup."

"The performance is sometimes sluggish, but I think that's to be expected with a heavy CRM tool because they're running reports in real-time on the data that you have entered."

"The general setup and understanding of how to use it can be improved. There should be easier self-service for setting up dashboards. Currently, we have someone setting them up for us. I wish it was easier."

"The data extension tools are not very user-friendly."

"I would like to see more ways to accomplish specific tasks."

More Salesforce Marketing Cloud cons

"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 like to see more integration on a mobile platform in the next release."

"It lacks customization, and this is the main reason that we are switching to a different solution."

"I would appreciate it if SugarCRM could support us in on-premise implementation."

"While it is already user-friendly, a slight enhancement in UI design, especially in terms of color combinations, could make the platform more visually appealing and comfortable to use."

"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."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This solution is priced in the medium to high price range."

"Its licensing is on an annual basis. Customers are okay with its licensing cost, and they don't find it expensive."

"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."

"It's not cheap, which is why I recommend that you use Marketing Cloud to create automated journeys. If you plan to use Marketing Cloud just to send emails, use another tool."

"Salesforce has different versions of the solution and some are more suitable for smaller clients. However, Salesforce is expensive."

"My company pays to use this solution."

"The solution is a bit expensive."

"Salesforce is an expensive solution."

More Salesforce Marketing Cloud pricing and cost advice

"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Healthcare Company

Engineering Company

16%

Manufacturing Company

13%

Computer Software Company

10%

Retailer

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	19
Midsize Enterprise	14
Large Enterprise	31

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	9
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	3

Questions from the Community

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.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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 ...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sugar Enterprise?

All are almost the same pricing. Maybe the cheapest is Salesforce, I believe.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

Comparisons

HubSpot Marketing Hub vs Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Compared 19% of the time

Marketo vs Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Compared 13% of the time

Adobe Campaign vs Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Compared 6% of the time

Zeta Marketing Platform vs Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Compared 5% of the time

Oracle Eloqua vs Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Compared 5% of the time

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Vtiger CRM vs SugarCRM Platform

Compared 15% of the time

Oracle CRM vs SugarCRM Platform

Compared 13% of the time

Microsoft Dynamics CRM vs SugarCRM Platform

Compared 12% of the time

Zoho CRM vs SugarCRM Platform

Compared 11% of the time

Salesforce Sales Cloud vs SugarCRM Platform

Compared 8% of the time

More SugarCRM Platform Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Salesforce Marketing Cloud

January 2026

Download Salesforce Marketing Cloud product report

Buyer's Guide

SugarCRM Platform

January 2026

Download SugarCRM Platform product report

Also Known As

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Overview

Salesforce Marketing Cloud is a comprehensive marketing automation platform that enables businesses to create personalized and targeted marketing campaigns across multiple channels.

With its robust set of tools and features, marketers can easily manage and automate their email marketing, social media advertising, mobile messaging, and customer journey mapping.

The platform offers advanced segmentation capabilities, allowing marketers to segment their audience based on various criteria and deliver tailored messages to each segment.

Additionally, Salesforce Marketing Cloud provides powerful analytics and reporting features, enabling marketers to track the performance of their campaigns and make data-driven decisions.

With its user-friendly interface and seamless integration with other Salesforce products, Marketing Cloud offers a seamless and efficient marketing automation solution for businesses of all sizes.

Salesforce

SugarCRM is a versatile CRM solution that facilitates communication and organization within a company. Its primary use case includes call and comment logging, account relation, customer detail storage, verification handling, transaction tracking, marketing material management, and payment transaction handling. The most valuable functionalities include customizable exports of graphics, statuses, complaints, and tasks, as well as its scalability, stability, and low cost. It integrates well with Jira and can be easily configured. The platform improves efficiency, productivity, collaboration, communication, and coordination within organizations, while also providing valuable insights and data analytics for informed decision-making.

SugarCRM

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

Buyer's Guide

Salesforce Marketing Cloud vs. SugarCRM Platform

December 2025

Free Report: Salesforce Marketing Cloud vs. SugarCRM Platform

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