No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud vs SugarCRM Platform comparison

Why PeerSpot?
 

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 (3rd), Marketing Management (1st), Social Media Management Solutions (2nd)
SugarCRM Platform
Ranking in Marketing Automation
16th
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
CRM Customer Engagement Centers (11th), CRM (27th), Sales Force Automation (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Marketing Automation category, the mindshare of Salesforce Marketing Cloud is 10.7%, down from 18.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SugarCRM Platform is 2.1%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Marketing Automation Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Salesforce Marketing Cloud10.7%
SugarCRM Platform2.1%
Other87.2%
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 user interface is easy to use, especially for my staff who use assistive technology."
"The most valuable part of the solution are the selling features."
"Salesforce Marketing Cloud is a stable solution."
"Marketing Cloud has improved our productivity and our team enjoy using it."
"The most valuable features of Salesforce Marketing Cloud are that it performs well and gives me what I need. It's the most friendly interface system for CRM I've worked with. Additionally, it integrates fairly well with different kinds of AI and ML to allow you to receive more out of your application."
"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."
"The most valuable feature of Salesforce Marketing Cloud is the ability to sell the products we have made to customers, and overall the solution is very useful for business."
"Offers many great features and is intuitive."
"It has sales email campaigns, plus integration with Active Directory."
"The most valuable features of Sugar Enterprise are the exports of graphics, statuses, complaints, and tasks."
"By default, it comes with a really good model where you can start working with it without having a lot of developers in your team."
"The most valuable features of the SugarCRM platform include its flexibility in customizing fields, layouts, and dashboards."
"The most valuable feature is relation capability, which allows us to relay customers with invoice orders."
"My advice to others is this is a good solution for importing or exporting any graphics."
"This solution's stability is very good, it runs almost without effort, and we don't have any support issues with it."
"The most valuable aspect of this solution is its low cost, and it works well."
 

Cons

"The dashboards should be more intuitive, as there are far too many items on them. You're not always sure what you're looking for."
"They can perhaps simplify the dashboards. In my opinion as an end-user, reports could also be simplified, but it also depends on how your company is set up. It depends on how the processes are set up within your company natively. It is linked to the way you do business. So, it varies."
"User management could be better."
"There could be easier tools to configure the product and to create landing pages to better handle large data sets."
"The main action I want to do in Salesforce Marketing Cloud is to export data into Excel and use it. My company may have that feature locked down, or if the Excel data exporting function still isn't available in Salesforce Marketing Cloud, that's the feature I want."
"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."
"It should contain artificial intelligence, in my opinion."
"If you want to use advanced features in Salesforce Marketing Cloud, they are extremely difficult to use."
"Pipelines, forecasts, and reporting in general, are not that good in the free version."
"The interface could be more user-friendly."
"I would appreciate it if SugarCRM could support us in on-premise implementation."
"Functionality and features are well suited for small business companies only."
"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."
"In the next release, I would like to see personalization of information about customers or specific businesses or opportunities."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This solution is priced in the medium to high price range."
"My company pays to use this solution."
"Its licensing is on an annual basis. Customers are okay with its licensing cost, and they don't find it expensive."
"Salesforce Marketing Cloud is affordable, considering the significant improvements it brings to our campaign results."
"The solution's pricing is very high and should be more flexible for smaller companies."
"It's normal pricing."
"This is a low cost solution suited to larger organizations."
"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."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Marketing Automation solutions are best for your needs.
920,929 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Construction Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
10%
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...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

ExactTarget
No data available
 

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: September 2026.
920,929 professionals have used our research since 2012.