Salesforce is one of the leading cloud computing Service as a Software (SaaS) companies specializing in Customer Relationship Management (CRM). With Salesforce services, organizations can connect with customers, improving customer satisfaction and engagement, and provides valuable data and insights that help businesses track customers, partners, prospective sales, and market services.
Why CRM?
With any organization, the customer should always be the prime focus. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) has three essential components:
- Retain: Keeping current customers engaged, happy, and confident with your services is vital to maintaining revenue’s lifeblood.
- Acquire: New customers are where growth happens.
- Extend: New products bring in new customers and keep current customers engaged.
CRM creates an exchange of information across customer channels and gives real-time access to customer information which informs decision making. Also, CRM’s provide personalized products and services based on customer data which keeps customers happy by creating a relationship with the customer.
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Salesforce as Your Solution
As cloud-based software, Salesforce helps organizations connect with customers. With real-time analytics, you can track customer successes and complaints, manage customer support, track sales, spending, and performance, and gain marketing and sales strategies insights.
Salesforce hosts various cloud platforms- a service cloud, health cloud, commerce cloud, IoT cloud, marketing cloud, app cloud, commerce cloud, etc. – that allow organizations to connect with their customers. Through these services, businesses can manage their customer experience.
Some of the key features Salesforce offers are:
- Cloud-Based CRM Platform: no software to install, and it is easily accessible from a variety of devices
- Affordable: from small companies to large organizations, there are pricing tiers and products that meet the needs of businesses of any size.
- Integration: Salesforce is easily integrated with third-party applications like Gmail.
- User-Friendly: the Salesforce interface is easy to use
Companies that use Salesforce have seen 36% more sales productivity, 26% more deals, 25% increase in sales revenue, and 38% better forecasting, according to Salesforce statistics based on their Customer Success Metrics Survey among 7000+ customers.
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Salesforce Services and Pricing Plans
With extensive offerings, Salesforce has various services that are called clouds.
- Sales Cloud has the basics for customer management, like client records, lead tracking, deals notes, and more. This cloud allows employees to manage accounts, contacts and leads from a single interface while streamlining and automating tasks.
- Service Cloud allows for online customer service and integrates service records with other Salesforce clouds. Customer data is readily available and will enable agents to access support tickets and interact with customer needs.
- Marketing Cloud creates marketing campaigns. The Marketing Cloud integrates with other Salesforce clouds, which gives organizations a complete and thorough understanding of their clients and their needs and wants. With this Salesforce platform, you can send marketing emails, advertise online, send mobile alerts, and ultimately encourage customers and potential customers to engage your business. This gives customers a more personalized experience which heightens customer satisfaction and retention.
- Commerce Cloud helps companies create online shops that target their ideal audience for consumer-facing (B2C Commerce) or business-facing (B2B Commerce). B2C Commerce offers specific tools and features that make sales and customer interaction streamlined, like one-touch payment, social integrations, merchandising and marketing tools, product management tools, pricing, and catalogs. B2B Commerce features focus on multi-account and contract orders, multiple payment offerings, customer and segment specs pricing, and real-time reports and dashboards. Volume and gross merchandising value determine pricing.
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Sales Cloud and Service Cloud Pricing
- Essentials – $25 per month per user. Salesforce Essential covers the basic CRM needs for up to five users. The Essentials package handles lead management, web-to-lead capture, configurable reports and dashboards, case management, has tools that help find and manage leads better, manage customer and sales details, and gives real-time insights.
- Professional – $75 per month per user. The Salesforce Professional package includes everything from the Essentials package plus more tools. The Professional package includes lead scoring, duplicate blocking, mass emails, campaign management, a sales app, lead registration, lightning sync, and a mobile forecasting app.
- Enterprise – $150 per month per user. The Enterprise package has a level of customization that makes CRM work best for your business. With everything offered from the Essential and Professional packages, the Enterprise level adds Einstein lead scoring, sales teams, custom opportunities fields in forecasting, advanced reporting features, the lightning platform, partial sandbox. A company can add the whole sandbox feature at this tier for an additional cost (the full sandbox features are available in the unlimited tier).
- Unlimited – $300 per month per user. With the Unlimited Package, a company has access to the best products that Salesforce offers. Added to all the other packages, the Unlimited level has the full sandbox feature, premier success resources, 24/7 toll-free support, developer support, configuration services, and access to accelerators.
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Marketing Cloud and Commerce Cloud Pricing
Salesforce Marketing Cloud and Commerce Cloud Pricing varies greatly on the functionality needed.
Pricing for these packages, which Salesforce calls Suites, depends on whether you need Email, Mobile, and Web marketing (price being dependant on message and contact volume), Social Media Marketing (ranging from basic to advanced), Advertising (price dependent on numbers of audience numbers and contacts), or for B2B Marketing Automation (ranging from basic to advanced).
For Commerce Plans, pricing depends on whether you need B2C Commerce or B2B2C Commerce. Pricing is dependent on Gross Merchandise Value.
Prices range from $300 a month per user to $4000 a month to $40,000 a month for Marketing Suites or by a percentage of gross merchandise value for Commerce Plans.
Customer service will help select and price the ideal Suite according to Marketing Cloud or Commerce Cloud needs.
| Sales Cloud | Service Cloud | Sales and Service Cloud | Marketing Cloud | |
| Essentials | $25 month/user | $25 month/user | N/A | $400 per month |
| Professional | $75 month/user | $75 month/user | $100 month/user | $1,250 per month |
| Enterprise | $150 month/user | $150 month/user | $175 month/user | $3,750 per month |
| Unlimited | $300 month/user | $300 month/user | $325 month/user | Contact for Quote |
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Add-Ons
Salesforce offers a dynamic list of add-ons that help drive growth and boost productivity. Should a company not need an unlimited plan but would like some of their tools and products offered, Salesforce offers these as add-ons to their lower-level tier products.
Some add-ons include field service, CPQ and Billing, Digital Engagement, Service Cloud Einstein, Pardot, High Velocity Sales, Salesforce Anywhere, MuleSoft Composer for Salesforce, Sales Dialer, etc. myTrailhead, Social Intelligence, and Salesforce Maps, to name a few.
Hidden Costs
Every tier has its limitations in the Salesforce clouds. When choosing a plan, it is essential to know the scope and scale of your company so that you do not run into overage fees or complications from not having enough services to match your demands.
- Data and File Storage: As the CRM system accumulates customer information, storage caps can quickly be reached. Businesses are faced with purging valuable information to stay within their data and storage capacities or purchase extra storage.
- Service and Support: Though Salesforce offers support as part of its services, it is a basic level of support. For businesses that are new to CRM’s or new to Salesforce, there is most likely a need to know how to implement and configure the Salesforce system and train staff. Often there is an ongoing need for IT support and consultations to ensure quality performance and team satisfaction.
- Mobile: Salesforce has an app builder, Salesforce All Cloud, which helps you build business apps that tailor the mobile experience for optimal performance. This extra cost is not included in any pricing plan and is an add-on feature that is generally considered vital in a growing, increasingly mobile world.
- API Call Limits: Depending on the size and demand of your CRM system, every request consumes an API call. API calls can add up quickly, and consumers can wait until the next day when their call limit refreshes, or they can purchase an upgrade.
- Renewal Fees: Pricing is not guaranteed. When contracts are up for renewal, promotional or one-time priced subscriptions are not guaranteed to continue, and pricing hikes without prior negotiation are typical.
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Competitor Pricing
| Pricing | Key Features | |
| Salesforce | $25 – $300 per month per user | Widest array of features at reasonable pricing |
| Keap | Basic: $79 Pro: $149 Enterprise: $199 | Ease of Use Automation Detailed client portals |
| Zoho CRM | Standard: $12 Professional: $20 | Good for small companies Largest integration fields |
| Less Annoying CRM | $15 per month per user | Every feature available to all users |
| Oracle CRM On Demand | Customized Plans | Custom Integrations will all Oracle products |
| Microsoft Dynamics 365 | Professional: $65 Enterprise: $95 Premium: $135 | Cloud, on-premise or hybrid solutions |
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Frequently Asked Questions
What companies use Salesforce?
Some prominent international companies that use Salesforce are Spotify, Amazon Web Services, U.S. Bank, Toyota, Macy’s, T-Mobile, Aldo, and The New York Post.
Is Salesforce for beginners?
Salesforce is considered to have a user-friendly interface, but it is an extensive platform with a lot to offer and a lot to learn. It is advisable to find training resources to help learn Salesforce so that you can get the most out of the innovative and powerful tool that Salesforce is. Many training resources are available that range from free, self-paced tutorials to paid programs that teach beginners how to use Salesforce.
Salesforce also offers training for implementing and learning the Salesforce platform at an additional price.
What does it cost to implement Salesforce?
Even though Salesforce is a SaaS (Software as a Service) product, the monthly or annual pricing does not cover everything a company will need to implement Salesforce into its operations. Additional costs for implementing Salesforce depends on the level of consults required, the data migration required if using a different CRM, and what customization is needed. Other factors include integration with third-party systems, user training, and after-launch support.
With all these factors combined, added to the annual subscription for an enterprise-level edition, a mid-sized company should estimate to spend $252,200.
Does Salesforce have a free version or a free trial?
Salesforce does not offer a free version of its services at this time.
For a free 14-day trial of their services, you can sign up on their website. The free trial includes sample data and various Salesforce features so that you can get a feel for what Salesforce offers before putting money down.