Top 12 Salesforce CRM Alternatives and Competitors

In today’s business world, having a solid and efficient Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system is crucial for building long-lasting customer relationships. With so many options out there, choosing the right CRM solution can be a bit tricky. While Salesforce is a big name in the CRM game, there are some top-notch alternatives worth checking out. In this article, we’ll dive into the best Salesforce CRM alternatives, showcasing their standout features and business perks. Find out how these CRM contenders stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the industry giant and can help drive your organisation's success.

What is Salesforce?

Salesforce, a top player in the CRM systems market, delivers a full range of cloud-based solutions. These tools are crafted to simplify and automate marketing, sales, service, and other key  business processes. Known for its mature and feature-packed products, Salesforce caters to a wide array of organisational needs. It’s the go-to-choice across various industries, helping businesses everywhere boost customer engagement and drive solid growth.

Why Consider Alternatives to Salesforce?

There are plenty of good reasons to check out alternatives to Salesforce. Common gripes include pricey and complicated customisation, a tricky interface that’s a bit difficult to get the hang of, and expensive licences with hidden costs. These issues can be especially rough for small and medium-sized organisations, making it smart to explore other CRM options.

These days, many affordable alternatives match Salesforce in terms of tech maturity. But when you’re considering a CRM replacement, it’s important to weigh all the factors to ensure the new system fits your organisation's needs, keeps disruptions to a minimum, and ultimately boosts your long-term business goals.

What Should You Look for in a Salesforce Alternative?

To pick a Salesforce CRM alternative that stacks up in terms of tech maturity and business value, consider these criteria carefully:

• Functional scope: Make sure the solution has all the features and tools your business needs. There’s no point paying extra for stuff you won’t use or understand.
• Customisation capabilities: Go for a solution that is flexible and easy to customise, so even non-technical users can make adjustments without needing heaps of IT help.
• Ease of use: Choose a CRM with a user-friendly, modern interface. A clean design boosts productivity and makes it easier for employees to get the most out of the CRM.
• Integration capabilities: Since a CRM is just one piece of your IT puzzle, the chosen solution should seamlessly share data with your other systems. Integration should be simple, without significant development costs.
• Deployment options: While plenty of CRM solutions are cloud-based, some organisations prefer on-premises deployment due to data security concerns. Pick a CRM that fits your specific deployment needs.
• Scalability: Look for a CRM system that can grow with your business. This way, you won’t have to deal with the hassle of switching to a new solution as your organisation expands.
• Post-sales services: Make sure there are good training resources to help your team use the CRM effectively, and that customer support is responsive for troubleshooting and ongoing optimisation.
• Pricing: Consider the total cost of ownership, including initial licence fees, ongoing expenses, and hidden charges. Make sure the pricing fits your budget.

By weighing up these factors, you can confidently choose a Salesforce CRM alternative that matches its tech maturity and fits your specific business needs, ensuring a smooth transition and long-term success.

Best 12 Salesforce Alternatives to Choose in 2024

Creatio

Creatio is a top-notch alternative to Salesforce, offering premium CRM and workflow automation features all in a unified, no-code platform. With its standout customisation and configuration options, underpinned by a no-code approach and innovative composable architecture, Creatio can easily adapt to various industries, workflows, and use cases. Plus, its fully transparent, composable pricing model lets users add specific capabilities and apps as needed without inflating the total cost of ownership. Creatio is a great pick for medium to large organisations, and its recognition by key industry analysts highlights its quality and performance. This makes Creatio a strong choice for businesses after a flexible, efficient, and cost-effective CRM solution.

Zoho CRM

Zoho CRM is a great alternative to Salesforce CRM, providing a unified, cloud-based platform to handle sales, marketing, and support functions. With its extensive capabilities - like salesforce automation, robust analytics, AI-driven insights, and intuitive customisation - Zoho caters to businesses of all sizes. Small and midsize enterprises, in particular, will love the cost-effective pricing options, ranging from $14 to $52 per user per month. Zoho offers a free version for up to three users. Zoho CRM's flexibility with plan upgrades and add-ons means it can scale as your business grows. With its range of features and affordability, Zoho CRM is an ideal choice for anyone after a powerful, budget-friendly CRM solution.

HubSpot

HubSpot CRM is an attractive competitor to Salesforce CRM, especially for small to mid-sized businesses wanting an all-in-one CRM solution. HubSpot offers a range of cloud-based tools that make it easy to capture leads, manage customer interactions, automate processes, and close deals. The introduction of Operations Hub takes the CRM platform up a notch by automating processes, unifying data, and streamlining interactions. HubSpot’s strengths include digital sales capabilities, support for various channels, predictive lead scoring, easy deployment, and a free CRM option with no limits on contacts or users. With prices starting at $30, HubSpot CRM is a great pick for smaller teams looking to streamline marketing and sales processes.

Freshworks

Freshworks CRM is a cracking alternative to Salesforce CRM, perfect for rapid-growing businesses with expanding sales and marketing automation needs. Freshworks' cloud-based suite seamlessly integrates Freshmarketer, Freshsales, Freshdesk, and Freshchat, providing modern, user-friendly experiences for managing customer data and coordinating teams. Its strengths shine in digital sales and service capabilities, backing modern messaging channels and automating actions and engagement sequences. Starting at $15, with free versions available for each product, Freshworks is spot-on for small teams after an easy-to-deploy, user-friendly CRM solution that ticks all the boxes.

Microsoft Dynamics 365

Microsoft Dynamics 365 stands as a robust contender to Salesforce CRM, offering a solid platform with heaps of benefits. It packs in Dynamics 365 Marketing, Sales, Customer Service, Commerce, and Customer Insights, all with top-notch AI (Artificial Intelligence), business intelligence, and low-code features. Dynamics 365 shines with its wide range of tools, seamless integration with Microsoft products, on-premises solutions, and a robust ecosystem of marketplace applications. However, some users find the licensing rules and product complexity a bit tricky. While Microsoft's prices can be higher than some competitors, they’re still a better choice compared to Salesforce. This makes it an ideal option for medium to large enterprises, especially those already using Microsoft products or needing a solid on-premises solution.

SugarCRM

SugarCRM is  a strong alternative to Salesforce CRM, designed especially for mid-market businesses keen on top-notch customer experience management. Its suite, with Sugar Market, Sell, and Serve, packs a punch with solid data analytics, integration, workflow automation, and predictive AI capabilities, ensuring smooth operations and a full view of your customers. SugarCRM shines with its deep feature lineup and top-notch process automation, backed by no-code tools. Despite being high-priced, starting at $49 per user per month, SugarCRM still comes in cheaper than Salesforce, making it an excellent pick for midsize organisations looking for user-friendly, top-notch CRM functionality.

Oracle CX Cloud

Oracle CX stands a robust alternative to Salesforce CRM, positioning itself as a leading player in the industry with its extensive product offerings. Oracle CX, part of Oracle's extensive cloud product range, provides a complete suite of customer experience solutions to improve multi-touchpoint engagements. Its strengths lie in the depth of its products, robust analytics capabilities, and enterprise-level scalability, although some users find it heavy on customisation. Although it comes at a higher price, starting at $65 per user per month, Oracle CX is a feature-rich CRM solution ideal for mid-market to enterprise-level organisations looking to modernise their complex sales and service workflows.

SAP

SAP CRM is a strong competitor to Salesforce CRM with its wide array of dependable, enterprise-level apps. A standout feature is its seamless integration with SAP ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), providing a unified view of customer and financial data. It excels in sales operations with robust functions like pipeline management, forecasting, quoting, and order capture, tailored for large and mid-sized enterprises. While it may lag in modern channel support and AI capabilities, SAP CRM remains an attractive option for businesses seeking integrated and scalable CRM solutions.

Pegasystems

Pegasystems CRM stands as a robust substitute for Salesforce CRM, especially for large enterprises managing high-complexity processes. Pegasystems' strength lies in its real-time decisioning engine, powering a suite of process-centric applications spanning marketing, sales, and service. While acknowledged for configurability and robust process automation capabilities, the learning curve may be steep. Although pricing may be on the higher side, starting at $140 per user per month, it is a worthy investment for companies requiring sophisticated, adaptable CRM solutions tailored to dynamic industries like healthcare, insurance, and financial services.

Zendesk

Zendesk provides a compelling option to Salesforce CRM, especially for businesses aiming for efficient customer service and sales automation. It stands out in digital engagement, supporting various channels like modern messaging and rule-driven chatbots, which benefits companies with high lead and inquiry volumes. Zendesk's CRM is user-friendly and intuitive, making it accessible to a broad user base. While it excels in several areas, improving real-time intelligence and process management. Priced from $19 per user per month, Zendeskis an attractive choice for midsize and large companies handling significant interaction volumes and maintaining a robust digital presence.

Insightly

Insightly CRM is an attractive competitor to Salesforce CRM, especially suited for small and medium-sized enterprises looking for cost-effective and robust CRM solutions. Its cloud-based platform seamlessly integrates contact and lead management, project management, and workflow automation in one user-friendly package. It boosts sales and marketing initiatives, centralises customer data, and streamlines project management, thereby improving overall operational efficiency. Key strengths include its intuitive interface, reporting tools, and integration features. Priced from $29 per month, Insightly is a budget-friendly option for businesses aiming to optimise their CRM processes without breaking the bank.

Monday.com

Monday.com offers a flexible and versatile alternative to Salesforce CRM. Though it’s not strictly a CRM, its cloud-based work management platform lets users customise boards and workflows for customer-related activities. It’s great for adaptability, fitting various workflows, including CRM, project management, and software development. Plus, Monday.com has a dedicated sales platform, Monday Sales CRM, starting with $10 per user per month. It is an ideal choice for small and mid-sized businesses and for those who like using Kanban boards for organising info. Monday stands out as a top alternative to traditional CRM solutions.

Conclusion

Choosing the right CRM system is crucial for building lasting relationships with customers in today’s ever-changing business world. While Salesforce has long been the top player in CRM, there are plenty of strong competitors worth checking out. These alternatives boast impressive features and business benefits, with the potential to rival the CRM giant in driving your organisation's success. Take Creatio, for example, one such contender, offering top-tier CRM and workflow automation capabilities with a no-code approach and an innovative pricing model. These alternatives can help you align your CRM needs with your business goals, ensuring a smooth transition and long-term success.

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