Salesforce is the top customer relationship management (CRM) choice for large businesses seeking robust AI automation thanks to its Agentforce platform, according to our research of 11 CRM software providers.
While potentially expensive for small businesses, Salesforce offers a free plan and a $25 per user, per month, Starter Suite.
Why Trust Us? Our Research Methodology
We take our impartial research and analysis seriously, so you can have complete confidence that we’re giving you the clearest, most useful product recommendations.
Here’s how our CRM research came about, by the numbers:
- More than 100 hours
- Six categories of investigation
- 14 sub categories
- 66 individual evaluations
The primary categories of investigation included pricing (20%), customization (20%), features (10%), team infrastructure (10%), customer support (20%), and scalability (20%).
For Salesforce, we got hands-on with the free trial of the Starter Suite, so we were able to test out the sales, service, and marketing features for ourselves.
Pros
- Free forever plan
- Vast data collection combined with customizable reporting tools
- Helpful customer support pop-ups throughout the platform with 24/7 live support
- Varied pricing plans and industry-specific "Clouds" make it very scalable
Cons
- More expensive than industry average of $15/user/month
- 24/7 support will cost extra, adding to price
- Robust analytics probably aren't necessary for smaller businesses
- Starter Suite: $25/user/month
- Pro Suite: $100/user/month
- Enterprise: $175/user/month
- Unlimited: $350/user/month
- Agentforce 1 Sales: $550/user/month
- 30-day free trial
Key Takeaways
- Salesforce costs $25 per user, per month, for the Starter Suite, with more expensive plans costing as much as $550 per user, per month.
- Salesforce offers a free forever plan for up to two users, with basic features like lead management, account tracking, and opportunity management.
- Salesforce is better for larger businesses, because it offers advanced agentic tools and robust analytics tools, but it’s a bit expensive for small teams.
- Agentforce is the agentic AI tool from Salesforce, and it provides robust automation for your business, but it costs $125 per user, per month, as an add-on, or $550 per user, per month, as a standalone plan.
Key Salesforce Features: Agentforce, Data 360, Slack Integration
Salesforce offers a wide range of features for sales, service, marketing, and commerce industries through its many Cloud platforms, which means the CRM offers features for businesses of all types. There are some standout features that make it a clear choice above other platforms on the market.
- Data 360: Formerly Cloud Data, this feature allows users to access sales, service, and marketing data in one place to empower workflows and agents more effectively.
- Flow Builder: This feature allows you to create low-code automated workflows with simple clicks to streamline your business, without a lot of technical to-do.
- Slack integration: Salesforce owns Slack, which means the business communication tool is deeply integrated with the CRM, allowing you to search and share seamlessly between the two.
- AgentExchange: Formerly AppExchange, the third-party marketplace provides access to over 1,000 pre-built AI agents, skills, and apps.
- Agentforce: The agentic AI platform allows users to build, customize, and deploy autonomous AI agents to improve productivity.
Some of these feature do cost extra, like AgentForce and Data 360, while others are included in most pricing plans from Salesforce, like the Slack integration and access to AgentExchange.
The Salesforce AgentExchange allows users to access more than 1,000 pre-built agents and apps. Source: Tech.co testing
What's new with Salesforce?
In the Spring 2026 update, Salesforce announced that its Agentforce Voice tool, which can automate your call center functionality to provide 24/7 coverage, is not globally available to businesses, no matter what country they are in.
What Is Agentforce? Agentic AI Explained
Agentforce is the agentic AI solution from Salesforce aimed at enterprise-level businesses that want to automate operations to improve productivity.
Powered by Salesforce’s Atlas Reasoning Engine, Agentforce autonomously performs tasks, including:
- Qualify leads
- Retrieve real-time data
- Answer user questions
- Resolve service requests
- Send personalized emails
- Handle warranty claims
- Coach sales professionals
Additionally, Agentforce allows users to more thoroughly customize the platform through low-code tools, including Flow, Prompt, Templates, and Apex.
Agentforce can answer questions about data and provide strategies based on that data. Source: Salesforce demo
Salesforce Pricing and Plans 2026
Salesforce is a premium CRM with a starting price of $25 per user, per month. That’s higher than the $15 per user, per month, industry average, but justified by its superior analytics and customization.
Salesforce Sales Cloud is the most popular version for everyday users.
| Plan | Price Billed annually | Users | Lead scoring | API | Advanced forecasting | Mobile app | Offline mobile access | Agentforce AI | Key features | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Free Suite | Starter Suite | Pro Suite | Enterprise | Unlimited | Agentforce 1 Sales | |||||
| Free | $25/user/month | $100/user/month | $175/user/month | $350/user/month | $550/user/month | |||||
| 2 | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | |||||
| | | | Paid add-on | | | |||||
| | | $25/user/month | | | | |||||
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| | | | $125/user/month | $125/user/month | | |||||
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Our breakdown of plan costs:
- Starter Suite: $25 per user, per month
- Pro Suite: $100 per user, per month
- Enterprise: $175 per user, per month
- Unlimited: $350 per user, per month
- Agentforce 1 Sales: $550 per user, per month
For more information, read our Salesforce pricing guide.
Does Salesforce have a free plan?
Salesforce does offer a free plan for up to two users with basic sales and customer service features, including:
- Pipeline tools
- Case resolution functionality
- Customizable home dashboard
- Analytic reporting tools
The paid plans also have a 30-day free trial, so you can test advanced features, like marketing automation, before committing to a monthly or yearly subscription.
Check out our full Salesforce free plan review.
The Salesforce sales pipeline tracks a contact from lead to conversion, and it’s available with the free plan. Source: Tech.co testing
Who Is Salesforce Best For?
Salesforce is best for large businesses with a big budget, operations requiring advanced automation, and teams already using Slack to communicate with their team.
- Larger businesses with a big budget: Salesforce provides a lot of advanced automation and analytics that are typically more valuable for larger businesses. Plus, all that functionality costs extra, which means you’ll need the resources to afford it.
- Operations in need of automation: The Agentforce platform provides a lot of automation potential, so if your team needs to streamline operations, Salesforce is the right fit.
- Businesses that use Slack: Salesforce owns Slack, which means that the two platforms integrate seamlessly to make communication and customer relationship management easier.
If you’re a smaller businesses that’s just getting started with CRM platforms, Salesforce is probably too expensive and too advanced for your particular needs.
We accessed both sales and customer service functionality seamlessly. Source: Tech.co testing
How Does Salesforce Compare With Other CRMs?
Salesforce is a popular CRM, but that doesn’t mean it’s right for your business. We’ve tested some of the best Salesforce alternatives to help you find the CRM that fits your particular needs.
- HubSpot: HubSpot is a clear Salesforce alternative, offering a more affordable starting price, industry-specific Hubs for sales, service, and marketing, as well as similarly powerful AI tools, thanks to Breeze AI.
- Zoho CRM: Zoho CRM is another good Salesforce alternative, offering very competitive prices and an intuitive interface that is easy for beginners.
- Freshsales: Freshsales is a sales-focused CRM with built-in AI features, thanks to a native integration with Fireflies.ai.
Here’s a more in-depth look at some Salesforce alternatives, comparing them on price and available AI features.
| Starting price | Most expensive plan | Free plan | Free trial | Verdict | AI features | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Salesforce | HubSpot | Freshsales CRM | Microsoft Dynamics 365 | Zoho CRM | |||
| $25/user/month | $9/user/month | $9/user/month | $65/user/month | $14/user/month | |||
| $550/user/month | $3,600/user/month | $59/user/month | $150/user/month | $52/user/month | |||
| | | | | | |||
| 30 days | Unlimited | 21 days | 30 days | 30 days | |||
| An incredibly popular and customizable CRM for all businesses, with excellent communication tools | An easy-to-use and highly scalable platform ideal for growing businesses, with an excellent free plan | A highly intuitive CRM that is packed with plenty of features and even has a free plan option | A robust CRM platform that embeds brilliantly with Microsoft products | An attractive option, with lots of features for a low price | |||
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CRM Research Methodology
Our main testing categories for CRM systems are:
- Features (10%): The functionalities and capabilities provided by the CRM software, such as contact management, lead and opportunity tracking, and task and activity management.
- Help and support (20%): The resources and assistance available to users when they encounter issues or require guidance while using the CRM software.
- Customization (20%): The ability to tailor the CRM software to suit the specific needs and processes of the organization, e.g. customizing fields, layouts, and workflows.
- Scalability (20%): The ability of the CRM software to accommodate the growth and changing needs of the organization, such as the capacity to handle a growing customer database.
- Price (20%): The cost associated with using the CRM software. It includes factors such as licensing fees, subscription plans, and additional charges for add-on modules or features.
- Team infrastructure (10%): Determining if a platform makes it easier to manage large sales teams, including team dashboards, team hierarchies, and team inboxes.
At Tech.co, we have a number of full-time in-house researchers, who re-run this testing process regularly, to ensure our results remain reflective of the present day.
Verdict: Is Salesforce a Good Choice?
Salesforce is a good choice for larger businesses that want to prioritize automation, although it is more expensive and complex than other providers.
The Agentforce platform alone makes Salesforce a clear choice for AI-focused businesses, because it can streamline operations across your business with simple, no-code prompts.
Additionally, Salesforce offers thorough analytical tools, customizability in its dashboards, and competitive small business options with its Suite plans that start at $25 per user, per month.
Salesforce is objectively more expensive than other CRM platforms on the market, and its vast functionality can be intimidating for beginners. Still, if you plan to scale, Salesforce is built to grow with your business.
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