Based on our in-depth research of 11 customer relationship management (CRM) software providers, Salesforce is a top choice for larger businesses, offering robust agentic AI functionality through its Agentforce platform.
Salesforce can be too expensive for smaller businesses, although it does offer a free forever plan and the $25 per user, per month Starter Suite, which provides sales, service, and marketing tools.
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 per user, per 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
- Price: Salesforce costs $25 per user, per month for the Starter Suite, with more expensive plans costing as much as $550 per user, per month.
- Free plan: Salesforce offers a free forever plan for up to two users, with basic features like lead management, account tracking, and opportunity management.
- Best for: Salesforce is better for larger businesses, because it offers advanced agentic tools and robust analytics tools, but its a bit expensive for small teams.
- AI features: 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.
What Features Are Available With Salesforce?
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 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
Is Salesforce a Good Value for Its Cost?
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 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 the minimum one-year contract Salesforce requires.
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 financial services businesses that require a lot of reporting, and other large organizations that require scalability and customizability to manage enterprise-level workflows.
Based on our testing, Salesforce is also one of the best CRMs for sales teams, due to its analytics features, like custom reports and an in-depth dashboard.
Salesforce stands out for customer support, a top CRM benefit, thanks to phone, email, and live chat support. The Guidance Center also provides a vast selection of self-service support options.
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.
| Starting price | Most expensive plan | Free plan | Free trial | Verdict | AI features | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |  |  |  |  |  | ||
| Salesforce | HubSpot | Freshsales CRM | Microsoft Dynamics 365 | SugarAI | Zoho CRM | ||
| $25/user/month | $9/user/month | $9/user/month | $65/user/month | Custom | $14/user/month | ||
| $550/user/month | $3,600/user/month | $59/user/month | $150/user/month | Custom | $52/user/month | ||
| | | | | | | ||
| 30 days | Unlimited | 21 days | 30 days | 7 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 | A great all-round CRM with a great, easy to understand dashboard | An attractive option, with lots of features for a low price | ||
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HubSpot vs Salesforce
If the robust analytics and scalability of Salesforce attracted you, but the entry price was too high, HubSpot might be a better fit. The CRM offers a similarly enterprise-level solution and has excellent 24/7 customer support.
Perhaps most importantly, HubSpot pricing starts at only $15 per user, per month. Compared with the $25 per user, per month, starting option for Salesforce, HubSpot is all about affordability.
HubSpot made managing tickets easy. Source: Tech.co testing
monday CRM vs Salesforce
monday CRM is a customizable alternative to Salesforce, with a wide range of customizable data dashboards for clear and efficient insights.
The monday CRM starting price is only $12 per user, per month, and the most expensive plan is only $28 per user, per month. However, monday CRM is exclusively a sales CRM, so you won’t have any customer service functionality, to say nothing of Salesforce’s time-saving AI functions for quickly logging calls or segmenting leads.
monday CRM lets you view your sales data through a wide variety of interactive, customizable charts. Source: Tech.co testing
How Do We Evaluate CRM Platforms like Salesforce?
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?
If you need a CRM with a robust set of analytical tools, a top-tier customer service experience, or a scalable platform to grow with your business, Salesforce might be the perfect fit.
Its strong customizability allows for in-depth insights for your sales team, and easy-to-reach support reps will help you solve problems quickly and efficiently.
Salesforce isn’t perfect, though. It lacks lead communication and lead capture features, and the high price of all its plans makes it less accessible to small businesses. Still, if analytics and customizability are important to you, it’s hard not to recommend Salesforce for your business.
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