Marketing is one of the most critical aspects of growing a business, and having the right tools can make a huge difference. Salesforce Marketing Cloud is a popular choice, but it’s not the only option. Various businesses avoid utilizing Salesforce Marketing Cloud either because it proves confusing or its price point is too high or because the system does not provide a suitable solution.
Several companies seek alternative solutions from Salesforce Marketing Cloud because they need better pricing together with different functionalities and simplified user interfaces.
Top 15 Competitors and Alternatives to SalesForce
Many businesses seek alternatives to Salesforce Marketing Cloud due to cost or complexity. below are the top 15 options offer diverse features and user experiences.
1. Centripe
Sometimes, the big competitors like Salesforce Marketing Cloud are just too much. Too complex, too pricey, or frankly, they miss the mark on delivering practical results. It’s built for those who want the power of sophisticated marketing automation by keeping it simple to use.
Centripe is a full funnel marketing CRM platform designed to help businesses streamline their marketing efforts while enhancing customer engagement. Known for its built-in interface and powerful AI-powered automation, Centripe provides businesses with tools to create personalized, data-driven campaigns across multiple channels.
Unlike Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Centripe prioritizes simplicity and cost-effectiveness while offering deep insights into customer behavior to improve ROI.
Key Features
- Multi-Channel Marketing – Engage audiences seamlessly through email, SMS, push notifications, and social media.
- Advanced Customer Segmentation – Target the right audience with AI-powered segmentation based on behavior, demographics, and preferences.
- User-Friendly Interface: Centripe’s in-built design ensures your team can get up and running quickly.
Pricing
Essentia: $99 per month
Unlimited: $299 per month
2. HubSpot
The inbound marketing and sales world relies heavily on HubSpot as its major force. The Marketing Hub section from HubSpot delivers a complete range of automation CRM and additional tools. It’s particularly strong for businesses focused on attracting and engaging customers through valuable content.
HubSpot shines with its user-friendly interface and extensive educational resources, making it a great choice for teams of all sizes. Small businesses can use its free CRM function as an excellent entry point.
Key Features
- AI Chatbots: The usage of AI Chatbots allows visitors to receive immediate engagement and lead qualification assistance while your staff members are not present.
- AI Copilot: Generate content ideas, draft emails, and more with AI assistance.
- Workflow Automation: It automates recurring operations while improving marketing efficiency.
- Pre-Built and Customized Dashboards: Dashboards come ready-made and customizable to monitor your marketing key performance indicators alongside custom dashboard creations.
- Out-of-the-Box Apps and Integrations: Connect HubSpot with your other favorite tools.
Pricing
HubSpot offers a free plan with limited tools. Paid plans start at $15 per user per month, billed annually. The pricing scales with the number of contacts and features you need.
3. Marketo Engage
Marketo Engage presents B2B companies with a powerful marketing automation solution designed specifically for B2B requirements. This platform specializes in creating qualified prospects while developing customer relationships which leads to revenue growth for businesses.
Marketo has become famous for delivering sophisticated automation features that enable complex and customized marketing campaigns. Marketo Engage helps businesses stay ahead in the Salesforce competition by offering targeted customer interactions and advanced analytics.
Key Features
- Email Marketing Automation: The automation system enables you to personalize your email marketing and automate your email sending.
- Account Based Marketing (ABM): It minimizes its focus on advertising to individual accounts through marketing information that adapts to their needs.
- Website Personalization: Customize your website content based on visitor behavior.
- Integration with Adobe Experience Cloud: Connect with other Adobe marketing and analytics tools.
- Advanced Analytics and Reporting: Use advanced analytics combined with reporting tools to monitor marketing performance as well as retrieve useful insights.
Pricing
Marketo Engage’s pricing is customized based on your specific needs and the size of your database. You’ll need to contact their sales team for a quote.
4. Adobe Campaign
Adobe Campaign takes its place as part of the Adobe Experience Cloud while serving as one of the top alternatives to Salesforce Marketing Cloud. As a powerful tool, it helps organizations manage advertising activities across multiple channels.
Businesses requiring clear & personalized interactions at all digital and physical points should consider using Adobe Campaign as their solution.
Key Features
- AI-Powered Predictive Analytics – Helps forecast customer behaviors.
- Lead Nurturing & Scoring – Identifies and prioritizes potential leads.
- Multi-Touch Attribution – Provides insights into campaign performance.
- Sales & Marketing Alignment – Syncs with CRMs for smooth sales interactions.
- Dynamic Personalization – Tailor’s content based on customer engagement.
Pricing
Custom pricing based on business needs (typically starts at $1,250/month)
5. Braze
Braze operates as a customer engagement platform which enables businesses to develop and optimize their cross-channel marketing activities. The main advantage of this solution benefits organizations which target mobile customers by developing their personal engagement applications.
As a Salesforce competitor, Braze delivers top-quality real-time personalization while providing organizations with numerous capabilities to interact with customers through multiple devices.
Key Features
- A/B Testing: Your marketing campaigns will achieve better optimization through testing multiple marketing messages using A/B testing methods.
- Real-Time Data: Use real-time data to personalize your marketing messages.
- Personalized Messaging: A customized messaging system sends messages to users based on their specific behaviors and personal selection choices.
- Multi-Channel Engagement: Engage customers across mobile, web, and email.
- Analytics & Reporting: Your campaign data becomes available for tracking through the analytics reporting system.
Pricing
Braze’s pricing is customized based on your specific needs. You’ll need to contact their sales team for a quote.
6. Act-On
The marketing automation platform Act-On emphasizes user-friendly design which appeals to organizations with small marketing departments or organizations that need marketing automation software learning. The marketing solution offers several features including email campaigns and lead ratings while it brings easy functionality through its user-friendly interface.
The platform includes superior customer support which enables businesses to maximize their usage of Act-On. Marketers should evaluate Act-On because it provides robust functional capabilities alongside user-friendly aspects.
Key Features
- Marketing Automation: The system of Marketing Automation enables you to automate various marketing operations and processes.
- Lead Scoring: It allows your organization to identify top leads among potential prospects for better focus.
- Website Tracking: Your website monitoring system tracks the ways visitors behave while using your site.
- Social Media Marketing: You can use Social Media Marketing features for monitoring social platform activities and measuring their performance outcomes.
- Reporting and Analytics: The reporting and analytics features comprising analytics tools enable businesses to track marketing performance data and extract meaningful business insights.
Pricing
The price plans from Act-On depend on the total number of contacts in in your database. Reaching out to their sales representatives is essential to receive a quotation.
7. Emarsys
Emarsys serves as an advanced alternative to Salesforce, focusing on AI-driven customer engagement and omnichannel marketing. Through AI technology the system examines consumer information to forecast their future actions thus helping marketers create highly specific promotional content.
Emarsys stands out as a potent solution for e-commerce companies through its features that generate personal product suggestions while reminding customers about abandoned cart items. Businesses that want to enhance customer loyalty combined with increased sales can depend on the valuable Emarsys platform.
Key Features
- Omnichannel Marketing: Engage customers across email, mobile, social, and web.
- Personalization: The system delivers customized experiences to customers by processing their collected data.
- AI-Powered Optimization: Artificial intelligence drives your campaign optimization process through AI-Powered Optimization.
- Predictive Analytics: Your marketing process achieves accurate customer behavioral predictions through predictive analysis which enables personalized marketing strategies.
- Loyalty Management: Build and manage customer loyalty programs.
Pricing
Emarsys’s pricing is customized based on your specific needs. You’ll need to contact their sales team for a quote.
8. Mo Engage
The mobile-first marketing approach of MoEngage makes this platform excel as a customer engagement platform. Mobile app users get tailored experiences under this platform through features such as personalized push notifications and in-app messages alongside recommendation validations.
Through its analytics suite, MoEngage enables marketers to evaluate user behavior which helps them optimize their mobile marketing efforts. A business that relies on mobile will find MoEngage essential for its operations.
Key Features
- Personalized Push Notification: User behavior patterns trigger customized push notifications through the Personalized Push Notifications feature.
- In-App Messaging: Engage users with personalized messages within your app.
- Email Marketing: The Email Marketing tool lets users design customized email communications.
- Customer Segmentation: The customers need segmentation according to behavior patterns and demographic characteristics.
- Analytics & Reporting: Track your campaign performance and gain insights
Pricing
MoEngage’s pricing is based on the number of monthly active users (MAU). You’ll need to contact their sales team for a quote.
9. Zoho CRM
Zoho CRM is a user-friendly and in-built customer relationship management solution that’s perfect for businesses of all sizes, especially those with smaller teams. The tool provides comprehensive capabilities consisting of sales force automation marketing automation and advanced analytics.
Zoho CRM operates as a unified platform by allowing complete integration among all Zoho business applications. Its affordable price together with its user-friendly interface positions Zoho CRM among the most competitive choices against Salesforce Marketing Cloud solutions.
Key Features
- Salesforce Automation: Salesforce Automation within Zoho CRM permits users to automate various time-consuming processes which include sending notifications along with follow-up messages and scheduling meetings while tracking contact data and field updates.
- Marketing Automation: The system allows you to segment leads properly so sales personnel can receive qualified opportunities while making proper deal priority decisions.
- Advanced Analytics: Zoho CRM advanced analytics helps you track your leads, deals, activities, emails, and other marketing and sales processes.
- Customization: You can create customized fields along with layouts which enables you to handle customer information and separate leads and enhance data entry through customizable form options. This helps you capture the right leads, irrespective of the location, language, currency, or industry.
Pricing
Zoho CRM has 4 major pricing plans that cover all features. It has a 15-day free trial that lets you use all features before choosing the most suitable plan. All plans are per user per month, with monthly and annual (34% off) billing options. The pricing plans include:
- Standard – $18 (monthly) and $12 (annually)
- Professional – $30 (monthly) and $20 (annually)
- Enterprise – $45 (monthly) and $35 (annually)
- Ultimate – $55 (monthly) and $45 (annually)
10. Oracle Eloqua
The marketing automation platform Oracle Eloqua works as an industry leader in delivering its services to B2B marketing organizations. This marketing system demonstrates extraordinary capabilities in identifying valuable clients through lead management features that enable business engagement activities.
Eloqua is one of the top Salesforce CRM competitors for organizations needing extensive automation capabilities.
Key Features
- Campaign Management: Your marketing campaigns follow a structured approach where you design, carry out, and monitor their execution.
- Website Personalization: Your website content becomes personalized through Website Personalization based on how visitors behave.
- Email Marketing: Create and send personalized email campaigns.
- Integration with Oracle Marketing Cloud: Connect with other Oracle marketing and analytics tools.
- Advanced Analytics and Reporting: The system’s advanced analytical capabilities together with its reporting functions enable customers to monitor marketing outcomes for better understanding of strategic development.
Pricing
Each client receives unique pricing from Oracle Eloqua which depends on their specific requirements together with their database size. The sales team needs to be contacted for obtaining a price quotation.
11. Dot Digital Engagement Cloud
Dotdigital Engagement Cloud is an omnichannel Salesforce alternative, offering personalized marketing automation, SMS marketing, and AI-powered segmentation. The platform presents many capabilities which encompass email marketing together with SMS marketing and social media marketing capabilities. It competes with companies similar to Salesforce by providing detailed analytics and customer engagement insights.
The analytical tools at Dotdigital offer marketers complete visibility into campaign results so they can enhance their marketing methods. Companies seeking to engage their customers through every communication channel should consider Dotdigital Engagement Cloud as an ideal solution.
Key Features
- SMS Marketing: Your marketing strategy includes SMS Messaging to reach potential consumers through mobile messages.
- Social Media Marketing: Itallows you to oversee your accounts while monitoring their performance metrics.
- Live Chat: Provide real-time support to your customers.
- Automation: Automation enables marketing teams to run their tasks and workplace activities through automated routines.
- Personalization: Deliver personalized experiences based on customer data.
Pricing
Dotdigital Engagement Cloud’s pricing is based on the number of contacts in your database and the features you need. You’ll need to contact their sales team for a quote.
12. Keap
As an all-in-one sales and marketing automation platform Keap (formerly known as Infusionsoft) provides optimal solutions for small business operations. Through one integrated system, small businesses gain access to CRM functionality and marketing automation alongside e-commerce features which simplifies their sales and marketing management.
Keap stands out among similar options because of its user-friendly interface and budget-friendly rates which appeal to small companies.
Key Features
- Client Management Software: The client management system offered by Keap enables users to maintain lead connections together with improving customer relationships.
- Sales & Marketing Automation: Your ability to convert leads into deals increases while building relationships strengthens through tailored computerized follow-up sequences.
- Analytics & Reporting: Current data from Keap CRM provides organizations with visual sales and marketing process tracking capabilities along with detailed system tracking. The tracking systems allow you to monitor payments revenue and transactions for effective forecasting.
- Invoice & payments: Keap helps online business operations through its e-commerce capabilities which combine payment processing with the CRM while eliminating the need for unrelated third-party applications.
Pricing
Keap has 3 major pricing plans to cover all major products’ features with a free trial period of 14 days. Billings are monthly or annually (20% off).
- Pro – $169 (monthly) and $129 (annually) for 2 users and 1,500 contacts
- Max – $249 (monthly) and $100 (annually) for 3 users and 2,500 contacts
- Max classic – you’d have to contact the sales team
13. Microsoft Dynamics 365
The Microsoft Dynamics 365 business application platform consists of two major components which are CRM and ERP alongside multiple business management solutions. Dynamics 365 provides tools to handle sales and marketing operations and customer service functions which deliver complete customer visibility to users through its CRM feature set.
The smooth integration between Microsoft Dynamics 365 and its entire product family makes it an optimal selection for organizations that use Microsoft programs extensively.
Key Features
- Marketing Feature: Continuous engagement with customers becomes possible through the marketing features that guide leads through attraction and active relationship development.
- Customer Service Feature: The system enables quality service delivery through AI-controlled virtual assistants that interact with customers via chatbots.
- Advanced Analytics & Reporting: The system uses dynamic dashboards to monitor performance metrics between sales and marketing activities.
- Microsoft integration: The product integrates smoothly through its Microsoft Office 365, Outlook, and OneNote capabilities.
Pricing
There are 2 major pricing plans and they are based on contacts and interactions. Both plans offer 10,000 contacts, 100,000 interactions, and 1,000 SMS messages. They include:
- Dynamic 365 marketing – $1,500 per tenant/month
- Dynamic 365 marketing Attach – $750 per tenant/month
Customer service pricing
- Professional – $50 per user/month
- Enterprise – $95 per user/month
14. Klaviyo
Klaviyo is a marketing automation platform specifically built for e-commerce businesses. It excels at email marketing and personalization, helping businesses create targeted campaigns that drive sales. Klaviyo integrates with popular e-commerce platforms like Shopify and Magento.
Key Features
- Segmentation: SMS Marketing enables businesses to contact their customers through text messages for engagement purposes.
- Automation: Under segmentation, you should divide your customers into groups based on their buying patterns and purchase records they have made.
- SMS Marketing: SMS Marketing enables businesses to contact their customers through text messages for engagement purposes.
- Personalization: Your solutions must provide personalized content that uses customer information.
- Reporting and Analytics: Through their analytics tools you can monitor campaign performance together with receiving useful information.
Pricing
Klaviyo’s pricing is based on the number of contacts in your database and the number of emails and SMS messages you send. They offer a free plan for up to 250 contacts and 500 emails. Paid plans start at $20 per month.
15. PipeDrive
Pipedrive is a cloud-based CRM solution designed with a focus on sales pipeline management. Its visual sales pipeline helps businesses track leads and streamline their sales workflow. Pipedrive also offers email marketing and automation features to support sales efforts.
Key Features
- Sales Pipeline Management: A visual sales pipeline enables users to observe deals along with their sales advancement.
- Automation & AI: The implementation of automation together with artificial intelligence should be used for repetitive task automation and workflow improvement.
- Email & Communication Tracking: The system tracks email communications and conversation messages and provides lead follow-up capabilities.
- Lead & Contact Management: The system maintains customer information in a single platform for complete management of lead and contact data.
- Reporting & Analytics: The system provides customizable dashboard features that help users track their sales performance metrics.
Pricing
Pipedrive has 4 major pricing plans with a 14-day free trial period. All plans are per user per month and billing is either monthly or annually (17% off). The pricing tiers include:
- Essential – $11.90 (monthly) and $9.90 (annually)
- Advanced – $24.90 (monthly) and $19.90 (annually)
- Professional – $49.90 (monthly) and $39.90 (annually)
- Enterprise – $74.90 (monthly) and $59.90 (annually)
Conclusion
Choosing the right marketing automation platform is a crucial decision for any business. While Salesforce Marketing Cloud is a powerful option, it’s essential to explore Salesforce Marketing Cloud competitors to find the best fit for your unique needs and budget. Each of the 15 alternatives we’ve discussed offers its own strengths and features.
Whether you’re looking for a budget-friendly solution like Mailchimp, an e-commerce-focused platform like Klaviyo, or a comprehensive suite like HubSpot, there are plenty of companies like Salesforce offering competitive alternatives. Take the time to research your options, consider your specific requirements, and choose the platform that will empower you to build stronger customer relationships and drive business growth.
FAQs
1. What is the best free alternative to Salesforce Marketing Cloud?
The free CRM service from HubSpot delivers basic marketing automation functions appropriate for small companies that need economical solutions.
2. Which Salesforce Marketing Cloud alternative is best for B2B marketing?
The B2B market finds suitable alternatives in Marketo Engage and Oracle Eloqua because of their strong capabilities in lead nurturing and automation alongside account-based marketing features.
3. Can we integrate Salesforce competitors with our existing CRM?
All major CRM alternatives such as HubSpot, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Pipedrive, and others enable connectivity to Salesforce systems through their data synchronization capabilities.
4. Which alternative is best for e-commerce businesses?
Organizations that handle e-commerce find Klaviyo to be their preferred option because it enables personalized email and SMS marketing automation alongside deep platform integrations with Shopify and Magento.
5. Do these alternatives support omnichannel marketing?
The tools Braze, MoEngage, and Emarsys assist companies in omnichannel marketing by allowing them to reach customers through email SMS social media, and push notifications.
