Salesforce vs. SugarCRM: Which Enterprise CRM Should You Choose?

When you Google the best CRM software, chances are that the first two options will be Salesforce and SugarCRM. So, which enterprise CRM should you choose?

‍The right customer relationship management (CRM) will increase sales, improve brand loyalty, and transform your business like never before.

Every business has only one (primary) goal: to increase its profits. It all comes down to how we manage our relationships with our customers and possible customers. We must be prompt to answer all their questions immediately, make them feel special, and especially remember their preferences. This is the answer to closing more deals and maintaining a great customer relationship.

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What is CRM?

Customer relationship management (CRM) is a tool that helps businesses stay connected with their customers at every stage of their journey – whether it is the first interaction with the sales team or feedback from customer service. For this reason, a CRM system is a solution that helps businesses with contact management, sales and marketing management, productivity, and so many other aspects.

So, which is the best CRM system for your business? Which one should you choose? Well, it all comes down to Salesforce and SugarCRM.

Read on to learn more about what is Salesforce, what is SugarCRM, what is the difference between Salesforce and SugarCRM and find out which one fits your needs.

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Salesforce vs SugarCRM – At a Glance

Salesforce and SugarCRM are both two advanced CRM companies with in-depth and powerful features. But while Salesforce is perfect for any type of business of all sizes, SugarCRM caters more to large enterprises with enough resources for a whole in-house development team and commitment to a subscription for an entire year.

What is Salesforce?

Salesforce is the giant of the sales industry and one of the most advanced CRM software tools. It is a cloud-based CRM system that boasts multiple features for connecting all your teams from anywhere – marketing, sales, IT, design, or service – all in one place. Salesforce offers solutions for companies of all sizes, from managing and analyzing customer data to creating personalized customer experiences. Salesforce Customer 360 contains all the features and integrations to support and sustain customer relationships across various industries.

Salesforce Services:

Sales Automation
Data Cloud
Marketing Automation
Customer Success
Commerce
Small Business

What is SugarCRM?

SugarCRM is an on-premise and cloud-based CRM platform that helps businesses to integrate and manage all their operations. SugarCRM started as an open-source platform that allows us to customize and personalize our actions. This CRM manager is more suitable for enterprise-level organizations rather than startups or small businesses. This is mainly because we would need an entire development team to take advantage of SugarCRM’s features.

SugarCRM Services:

Marketing Automation
Sales Automation
Customer Service
On-Premise CRM

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Salesforce vs SugarCRM – Feature Comparison

Here is a clear breakdown of the Salesforce features and SugarCRM features and the main difference between the two CRM systems.

Salesforce Features:

Contact and Pipeline Management: Manage contacts through customer list dashboards and full contact details, track all interactions and automated actions or reminders, manage pipelines, share contacts, import contacts, and reach more customers much easier and faster.
CRM Dashboards and Report: Track, view, monitor, and manage all essential details for your business – sales data, pipeline, KPIs, tasks, progress, and other customizable CRM metrics.
Marketing Automation: Campaign management dashboard, calendar, automated scheduling, analytics, reports, lead nurturing, and location-based marketing.
Forecasting: AI-powered automated alerts, trend identification, monitoring and forecasting, and representative performance tracking.
Einstein Analytics: Predictive analytics and backed-data exploration, automated data insights, and personalized recommendations through the integration of AI-powered algorithms.
Salesforce Customer 360: The digital platform comes with a feature that lets you see an overall view of the entire customer experience and journey. You will see all the details regarding a client or a customer, including their loyalty, and you will be offered an app that is suitable for you and your business. Slack, MuleSoft, and Heroku are just a few of the integrated apps you will find on the digital platform, tailoring the best experience for you.
Quotation Management: Faster generation of quotes and proposals for your orders through pre-programmed rules, considering the quantity, possible discounts, optional features, personalizations, and even incompatibilities.
Partner Relationship Management: Pre-approved branded and personalized marketing assets, opportunity management, partner onboarding, partner marketing automation, channel analytics, and automated lead routing.
Mobile CRM Applications: iOS and Android compatibility, possibility for browser-based, offline functionality, text and voice notes functionality, integrated maps, and mobile team collaboration.

SugarCRM Features:

AI-Powered Predictions: Improves opportunity management through AI-powered and data-backed predictive analytics.
CRM Dashboards and Report: Track, view, monitor, and manage all essential details for your business – sales data, pipeline, KPIs, tasks, progress, and other customizable CRM metrics.
Forecasting: Includes automated alerts, trend identification, monitoring, and forecast sting, and representative performance tracking.
Mobile CRM Applications: iOS and Android compatibility, possibility for browser-based, offline functionality, text and voice notes functionality, integrated maps, and mobile team collaboration.
Multilingual, Multi-currency, and Multi-modal Support: Superior platform for streamlining customer service. Automate all workflows, accelerate everything, and reduce customer churn by analyzing and understanding their tone through an AI-based algorithm for sentiment analysis.
Knowledge Base Management: Easily create, transfer, maintain, and share information and articles to internal and external sources through a powerful centralized hub. Search, tag, assign, and categorize your content to help team members find answers quickly.
Marketing Automation: Campaign management dashboard, calendar, automated scheduling, analytics, reports, and lead nurturing.
Team Management: Track your team tasks, monitor representatives' performance, and improve team collaboration.
Generative AI: Compose personalized sales pitches and marketing content, quickly find answers, summarize your data and information regarding a customer, and create personalized reports and workflows.

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Salesforce vs SugarCRM – Pricing Comparison

Getting a CRM system is a big commitment and a pretty huge investment – especially if you want to acquire a year-long subscription. So, which one fits both your financial and operational needs the most?

Salesforce Pricing Annually:

Starter Suite: $25 per user/month – simple setup and onboarding, contact management and opportunity management
Professional: $80 per user/month – forecast management, personalized and customizable CRM dashboards and reports, quoting management
Enterprise: $165 per user/month – forecast management, personalized and customizable CRM dashboards and reports, advanced pipeline management, workflow and approval automations, and territory management.
Unlimited: $330 per user/month – access to everything

SugarCRM Pricing Annually:

Essentials: $19 per user/month – basic sales automation for small teams for 3-5 seats
Advanced: $85 per user/month – sales automation with build-in AI and integrated with Mail and Calendar for a minimum of 10 users
Premier: $135 per user/month – comprehensive sales automation with AI-powered sales intelligence, advanced analytics and forecasting management, and productivity tools.

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Salesforce vs SugarCRM Compared – Which Is Better?

1. Platform

Salesforce is suitable for all types of businesses – including startups and small businesses, while SugarCRM is of better use for large enterprises with huge development teams.

2. Ease of Use

Power comes with a cost. Because both Salesforce and SugarCRM include complex and sophisticated CRM systems, this may initially seem complicated – especially for beginners.

However, Salesforce CRM is much easier to learn and understand the basic features of its CRM, but it’s challenging to master and navigate through all of its features. On the other hand, SugarCRM is designed for enterprise-level use, where an in-house development team is needed for personalization and integration. For this reason, it can be pretty tricky for beginners to use SugarCRM, as their CRM dashboards and user interface take more time to understand.

The good news is that both CRM systems offer a training platform where we can learn how to use each solution. We can learn Salesforce by attending Salesforce University and SugarCRM by attending Sugar University. Beware that while some introductory Sugar University courses are free, advanced courses for both platforms are paid.

3. Contact Management

Both CRM software tools offer extremely powerful contact management features. With robust CRM and contact list dashboards, you can track all interactions, manage pipelines, import contacts, and implement automated actions and reminders.

What’s different between SugarCRM and Salesforce is that while SugarCRM offers a simple database of contact and account information for each customer, Salesforce takes this to another level. Salesforce provides us with a complete view of our customer history – including interactions, account details, and other relevant information. However, SugarCRM also has other valuable features, like tracking customer interactions from email and social media.

4. Lead Management

Both enterprise CRM systems are titans regarding lead generation management, making it easy for all marketing and sales teams to communicate and keep track of their actions.

Salesforce gives users access to lead assignment, contact routing, automated blocking for duplicates, marketing campaign management, and even web-to-lead records. Even more so, their marketing automation tool is a powerful feature that can help marketing teams. But beware that this feature is only available for more expensive plans.

On the other hand, SugarCRM allows us to visualize all our leads by category and status and use AI-powered algorithms to identify potential contacts to help us convert leads into customers much more quickly. At the same time, SugarCRM’s marketing automation tool is available for all plans – but with certain restrictions.

5. Reporting and Analytics

Salesforce has focused on creating powerful analytics for sales and marketing activities. Its Einstein Analytics provides backed-data exploration, automated data insight, and personalized recommendations through the integration of AI-powered algorithms, as well as predictive analytics. However, although SugarCRM might not be as advanced, its analytics dashboard is easier to use and allows users to customize their widgets.

So, for enterprise CRM, Salesforce might be a better choice if your organization relies heavily on analytics. But if you’re a startup or an SME that prioritizes simplicity and does not need as much extensive data, SugarCRM can also be a fantastic option.

6. Mobile CRM

One of the most important aspects for sales teams is having a mobile app. Let’s face it: you can’t open your laptop every time you need to contact a lead.

Both CRM systems have an easy-to-use mobile CRM interface with powerful integrated features. Even more so, both are compatible with iOS and Android but offer the possibility for in-web browsing, offline functionality, team collaboration, and multi-modal channels. However, SugarCRM’s mobile app is better than Salesforce's as it is more user-friendly, accessible, and easy to use.

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So, Which One Is Better? Salesforce vs. SugarCRM?

Salesforce and SugarCRM are both two advanced CRM companies with in-depth and powerful features. But while Salesforce is perfect for any type of business of all sizes, SugarCRM caters more to large enterprises with enough resources for a whole in-house development team and commitment to a subscription for an entire year.

So, now it’s your turn to decide which is better for you. Is it the more advanced AI predictions and reporting analytics that SugarCRM offers? Is it the complete view of our customer history, including interactions, account details, and other relevant information that Salesforce has? Or is it the size of your business that helps you make the right decision? Either way, whether you choose Salesforce or SugarCRM, you best believe you’re in the right hands.

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