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SAP CRM vs Salesforce Sales Cloud comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 27, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
6.7
Salesforce Sales Cloud boosts data visibility, efficiency, team collaboration, and productivity, enhancing nonprofits' fundraising and grant competitiveness.
Sentiment score
6.6
Sales and revenue increased; operational efficiency justifies costs, but Salesforce suits large organizations more than smaller ones long-term.
Many first-time CRM users are unaware of all features and best practices, so we guide them with use cases, sample work, or sometimes create a POC to show them how their system will look and the expected outcomes.
Salesforce Sales Cloud is a fantastic tool but requires disciplined data entry by sales personnel and operations teams to maintain data quality.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.0
Salesforce Sales Cloud's support is efficient and helpful when paid, but free support is slow and basic.
Sentiment score
7.0
Customer service is responsive and reliable, with 24/7 support, although customization and response times can vary.
Support requires a subscription and when taken, the service is pretty nice.
I am satisfied with their response time and quality.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
Salesforce Sales Cloud is scalable and adaptable across organizations but faces challenges with performance and licensing impact on scalability.
Sentiment score
8.1
SAP CRM excels in scalability, efficiently supporting numerous users and large data volumes while integrating various business functions.
Salesforce Sales Cloud is totally cloud native, requiring no additional effort for scalability.
Salesforce is highly scalable and operates efficiently.
We handle a huge amount of data in our CRM without any problems.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.1
Salesforce Sales Cloud is stable and reliable, with high ratings, minor issues from configuration, and occasional performance slowdowns with large datasets.
Sentiment score
8.1
SAP CRM is stable and reliable, with occasional issues, but generally offers smooth operation and minimal downtime.
Salesforce Sales Cloud is very stable.
I have not experienced any degradation in Salesforce's performance.
 

Room For Improvement

Salesforce Sales Cloud is complex and expensive, with user interface, integration, scalability, and customization challenges impacting usability.
SAP CRM requires UI enhancements, better integration, real-time analytics, increased flexibility, and modern tech adoption for future growth.
Compared to AWS, it is slower, which could be a hindrance.
With today's generative AI capabilities like ChatGPT, it should be possible to directly communicate with the software rather than navigating through the entire system manually.
I am happy with SAP CRM because whenever we have requirements for changes or customization as per our needs, we get them, and the downtime is minimal.
 

Setup Cost

Salesforce Sales Cloud is costly but valued for ROI, with pricing varying by edition and negotiable for discounts.
SAP CRM is costly, targeting large enterprises, with high setup costs but competitive features; price cuts could increase appeal.
This happened for the first time because of the new CEO, Arundhati, who revolutionized pricing strategies, allowing discounts of 60-70% for Salesforce Sales Cloud in India.
Without negotiation, costs can become expensive.
I would rate the price for Salesforce Sales Cloud as a three, where one is a high price.
SAP CRM is not suitable for small companies because of the cost.
 

Valuable Features

Salesforce Sales Cloud enhances sales efficiency with customization, integration, automation, and analytics, appealing to organizations seeking seamless processes.
SAP CRM provides customizable reporting, seamless ERP integration, real-time data, enhancing customer management and improving business processes globally.
Its easy-to-navigate interface aids in delivering clear vision and organization, especially for sales and business management.
The Einstein Analytics and the inbuilt reporting are very useful for keeping track of pipeline movement.
The biggest benefit of the Salesforce Sales Cloud is a centralized point, a centralized source of truth for customer-related information; you centralize all the information in a single database, and that's the biggest benefit.
If there is any error in our machine, a log is automatically generated, and from SAP CRM, we can see that the machine has problems.
 

Categories and Ranking

Salesforce Sales Cloud
Ranking in CRM
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
117
Ranking in other categories
Opportunity Management (1st), Sales Force Automation (2nd), Conversation Intelligence Software (3rd)
SAP CRM
Ranking in CRM
3rd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
Local Government CRM (2nd), Marketing Management (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the CRM category, the mindshare of Salesforce Sales Cloud is 8.1%, down from 10.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP CRM is 9.1%, down from 10.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
CRM
 

Q&A Highlights

it_user735081 - PeerSpot reviewer
Oct 03, 2017
 

Featured Reviews

Kamal Deep - PeerSpot reviewer
Experience exceptional project enhancements and seamless automation integration
Salesforce Sales Cloud itself is a wonderful solution, and there are two different versions: Lightning and classic. The Lightning version is a new generation version compatible with any mobile device, whether it's a phone, iPad, or any size of screen. The reporting and analytics functionalities, especially with the Einstein feature, are wonderful because it allows for analysis of data regarding your opportunity pipeline, giving insight into how long it will take to close deals. This gives a great understanding of running different levels of campaigns and defining smart workflows, where if one task is done, the other task can automatically get created and assigned to different team members. This flexibility is a key benefit of Salesforce Sales Cloud. Lead management is a great feature in Salesforce Sales Cloud because if you go for enterprise and above licenses, you can define different record types. For example, if one company is into two different businesses such as real estate and car reselling, both being opposite, this can be defined in Salesforce Sales Cloud, allowing for different workflows, fields, and mechanisms that do not affect each other's operations. The predictive insight feature known as forecasting is a very old feature of Salesforce Sales Cloud, giving predictions based on your pipeline and previous opportunity closings. The new Einstein analytics feature is more advanced and is enabled with AI, providing better forecasting based on your current pipeline. Salesforce Sales Cloud is working smartly with AI to help close more deals based on opportunity stages, trends, and industries, advising on the steps to take next. Lead generation is the most important thing because every sale starts from the lead. At the lead level, different stages and resources can be defined. You can capture leads from various resources, with Salesforce Sales Cloud offering a web-to-lead feature and integrations with LinkedIn to fetch data. Once a lead is qualified and converted into opportunities, there are stages with percentages, and workflows can help in easily closing deals.
ToniaSpight-Sokoya - PeerSpot reviewer
A CRM system that helps you automate and integrate your customer data and customer facing-activities: sales, marketing, service, and e-commerce
One area for improvement is the security model, especially regarding records management retention and the audit and legal holds. Since we're in the middle of a cloud digital transformation, it's essential to ensure the system flags documents properly according to global retention policies. We need to address bugs and make sure our system fully aligns with our procedures and policies. This is crucial to prevent breaches, especially in a time when breaches are becoming more common. For instance, my personal identity was compromised four months ago when my mortgage company had a breach, and I’m still working with the FTC to clean up the damage. In my work in mortgage and financial services, I’m focused on preventing this kind of issue for our consumers and clients.
report
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Answers from the Community

it_user735081 - PeerSpot reviewer
Oct 3, 2017
Oct 3, 2017
My advice is to compare the full investment of the CRM implementation - software, cloud and services - as from a general perspective, all top level "costs" are generally comparable. It is the cost-to-value ratio that you will want to focus upon. Also, you’ll want to assess whether you will be looking to deploy AI or not, as some vendors’ offerings are not quite as real and ready-to-deploy as ot...
See 2 answers
it_user70698 - PeerSpot reviewer
Oct 3, 2017
Hi thanks for your request. Each of the ERP CRM listed above has certain functionalities in common and comparing the cost between them will completely depends upon the need. Overall Salesforce and SAP CRM has CRM functionality and it is Tier 1 CRM product. Pega is not a CRM product and it specializes in BPM ( Business Process Management). Please email me and I can discuss over the phone with you for further details.
it_user747921 - PeerSpot reviewer
Oct 3, 2017
My advice is to compare the full investment of the CRM implementation - software, cloud and services - as from a general perspective, all top level "costs" are generally comparable. It is the cost-to-value ratio that you will want to focus upon. Also, you’ll want to assess whether you will be looking to deploy AI or not, as some vendors’ offerings are not quite as real and ready-to-deploy as others. Note that I am biased, as I am with Pega, running their CRM practice. With this said -- in terms of unbiased independent reviews, Gartner's latest Magic Quadrant for the CRM Customer Engagement Center for 2017, cites “Reference customers gave Pegasystems' overall package the best cost-to-value rating of any solution assessed for vendors in the Leaders quadrant.” A free copy of Gartner's report may be downloaded here: https://www.pega.com/gartner-crm-cec-2017 Best of luck in your research. Just let me know if I can be of any further assistance. Regards, Jeff Nicholson
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
University
6%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
9%
University
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Salesforce Sales Cloud?
The features of Sales Cloud most useful for testing and running email campaigns are highly valuable.
What needs improvement with Salesforce Sales Cloud?
With today's generative AI capabilities like ChatGPT ( /products/chatgpt-reviews ), it should be possible to directly communicate with the software rather than navigating through the entire system ...
What is your primary use case for Salesforce Sales Cloud?
I generally use Salesforce Sales Cloud ( /products/salesforce-sales-cloud-reviews ) for our sales process, setting up the entire opportunity lifecycle from lead generation to contract closure. It h...
What do you like most about SAP CRM?
Getting the right information at the right time across different programs is important. These programs lack interaction between them. IPA is a good option to bring them together.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAP CRM?
SAP CRM is not suitable for small companies because of the cost. It is suitable for medium and large enterprise companies.
What needs improvement with SAP CRM?
Recently, the price of SAP CRM has increased, which is one concern. Another issue is that sometimes we experience slow performance. Reports in SAP CRM itself can become very slow. Other than that, ...
 

Also Known As

Sales Cloud, SFDC, Salesforce
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Coca-Cola Enterprises, Kuoni Global Travel Services, Financial Times, Just Eat, Jobsite, H.R. Owen, PlayerLayer, O2, DMGT, Philips, Xtreme.ie, Business Stream, Remote Asset Management, Dialogue Group
Brau Union Osterreich AG, Nu Skin Enterprises Inc., AOK Bundesverband, RAK Ceramics, NHS 24, Wholesale Sports Outdoor Outfitters, FC Bayern Munchen AG, Tumi, The Kellogg Company, MVV Energie AG, Anglian Water Services, German Football Association (DFB), Nebraska Book Company Inc.
Find out what your peers are saying about SAP CRM vs. Salesforce Sales Cloud and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,164 professionals have used our research since 2012.