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Freshdesk vs Salesforce Marketing Cloud comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
6.1
Freshdesk boosts efficiency and customer service with Salesforce integration, cost-effectiveness, and detailed insights for improved operations.
Sentiment score
6.6
Salesforce Marketing Cloud boosts ROI with successful campaigns, valuable features, and enhanced marketing efficiency despite measurement challenges.
I have seen some return on investment with Salesforce Marketing Cloud through features such as reporting, automation, and Journey parts that save resources.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.3
Freshdesk's support is praised for responsiveness and efficiency, but some users report email integration challenges and response delays.
Sentiment score
6.6
Salesforce Marketing Cloud support is rated highly for Premium, less so for Standard, with noted improvement areas in speed and knowledge.
We have not needed to contact technical support, as Freshdesk has met our needs efficiently.
From my experience, once it is set up, we have never had problems.
The first-time response should be within 30 seconds.
Customer support could be improved, especially for new features.
Salesforce customer service is excellent.
I have communicated with the technical support of Salesforce Marketing Cloud and would give them a rating of 9.5 since they have resolved my issues most of the time and are quite responsive.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.8
Freshdesk offers scalable, cost-effective SaaS for growing companies with versatile features, though some note integration limitations.
Sentiment score
7.7
Salesforce Marketing Cloud effectively scales large data volumes, benefiting enterprises despite costs, with high user satisfaction and advancement capabilities.
Additional features like email, WhatsApp, and SMS ticketing, along with Slack integration, can be enabled as required.
In our environment, which is a fairly small company in one country, Freshdesk is easy to scale.
The scalability of Salesforce is very good.
On a scale of one to ten, I rate its scalability at 9.5.
Not everyone can use Salesforce Marketing Cloud unless they have some exposure to the platform and understand how it works, which informed my scalability rating.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.4
Freshdesk is stable and reliable with minor issues, praised for quick support, though connectivity and integration occasionally affect performance.
Sentiment score
8.1
Salesforce Marketing Cloud is stable and reliable, with occasional data issues, recommended for enterprise stability and security.
The goal is always to respond to customer tickets in a timely fashion, ensuring that customers feel seen and heard while also providing solutions.
After installation and continuous operation, I have encountered no problems.
Salesforce Marketing Cloud is highly stable.
The maximum downtime I faced was about two to three hours.
 

Room For Improvement

Freshdesk users seek improvements in automation, integrations, support, language options, workflows, and reporting to boost efficiency.
Salesforce Marketing Cloud users face challenges with interface changes, integration, customization, and desire improved workflows, security, and mobile enhancements.
Currently, some features like SMS or WhatsApp integration are only available to larger user groups, but even smaller teams should have access based on their specific needs.
The current integration is more complicated and doesn’t work as well.
More automation would be beneficial, as it could greatly improve our efficiency and reduce manual tasks.
It takes the default language and doesn't accept custom language specifications, which creates discomfort in certain scenarios.
There are inaccuracies in how AgentForce retrieves information or interprets data.
We cannot debug the AM Script or SSJS code, which makes code debugging manual.
 

Setup Cost

Freshdesk pricing is competitive at 79 Euros annually per agent, but additional features and costs may arise.
Salesforce Marketing Cloud, though costly, is a feature-rich solution favored by large enterprises requiring advanced marketing services.
Our organization pays about 200,000 Indian rupees per year for the license.
Pricing has always been handled by the company I work with, and even when I get in-house feedback, I have never had issues with pricing or complaints when compared to what others have outside.
The pricing is around $10,000 per annum per user.
 

Valuable Features

Freshdesk provides a user-friendly, scalable support platform with automation, integrations, and omnichannel capabilities to enhance customer service.
Salesforce Marketing Cloud excels with cross-channel management, automation, personalization, and integration, enhancing efficiency and customer engagement.
The auto-assignment feature is particularly valuable as it alleviates the administrative task of manually checking for available engineers to assign tickets.
These features are easy to use, and the filtering is really good, providing a good overview of active tickets and who's working on them.
Some of the best features of Freshdesk include automation, user-friendly interface, and comprehensive support options that enhance our workflow.
The feature of Salesforce Marketing Cloud that has had the largest impact on improving my campaign outcomes is the recent WhatsApp integration, which allows Salesforce to connect with subscribers through different channels such as SMS, email, or WhatsApp.
The most valuable features of Salesforce Marketing Cloud include the timely alerts and notification systems, which greatly enhance communication not only with customers but also within dealerships.
Salesforce Marketing Cloud integrates with multiple systems seamlessly, enabling effective lead management.
 

Categories and Ranking

Freshdesk
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
Customer Experience Management (4th), Field Service Management (3rd), Help Desk Software (5th), Knowledge Management Software (4th)
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
60
Ranking in other categories
Social CRM (2nd), Marketing Automation (1st), Marketing Management (1st), Social Media Management Solutions (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Customer Relationship Management solutions, they serve different purposes. Freshdesk is designed for Customer Experience Management and holds a mindshare of 3.0%, down 5.4% compared to last year.
Salesforce Marketing Cloud, on the other hand, focuses on Social CRM, holds 6.7% mindshare, down 10.7% since last year.
Customer Experience Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Freshdesk3.0%
Salesforce4.9%
Genesys Cloud CX4.1%
Other88.0%
Customer Experience Management
Social CRM Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Salesforce Marketing Cloud6.7%
Sprinklr8.8%
HootSuite7.7%
Other76.8%
Social CRM
 

Featured Reviews

Bharanidharan K - PeerSpot reviewer
User-friendly interface but needs enhancement in ticket tracking and response times
There is no room for improvement in Freshdesk. We can set a time period for particular employees as something that could be better. For example, if some new employees are unfamiliar with Freshdesk, it should be more user-friendly. They need to give shortcut keys to use the ticketing portal. If some users don't know how to generate a ticket, providing them with a help desk or tutorial portal would be useful for the end-user.
Napitch K - PeerSpot reviewer
Integration challenges impact workflow efficiency
The features of Salesforce Marketing Cloud that I have found most valuable are the Journey Builder and Flow. These capabilities are valuable because they make managing automation easy. Automating customer journeys saves time when scheduling content through every channel, and we can set the automation in advance when planning marketing content. The AI-powered tools such as Salesforce Datorama and Einstein save time and have an impact on marketing strategy decisions for my customers. I have noticed a positive impact from Salesforce Marketing Cloud through customer feedback. For example, a customer mentioned after project completion that it had a significant impact on their marketing team by eliminating the need to hire additional staff for marketing content and planning.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
23%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Educational Organization
6%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business21
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise28
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Freshdesk?
Freshdesk significantly improved our customer issue resolution process. We can now easily record and track all customer requests, ensuring that no tickets are lost.
What needs improvement with Freshdesk?
With the advancements in AI now, I will say Freshdesk should consider integrating more AI, but so far, I am satisfied with every single feature.
What is your primary use case for Freshdesk?
As a customer success manager for over six years, I can sum up the benefits I've seen from using Freshdesk: it has played a huge role in ensuring that my customers stay happy, and happiness means d...
What do you like most about Salesforce Marketing Cloud?
Datorama is part of Salesforce Marketing Cloud, which is quite a valuable feature that provides customer analytics.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Salesforce Marketing Cloud?
I did not work on any pricing or implementation aspects but learned on my own when dealing with Revenue Cloud products.
What needs improvement with Salesforce Marketing Cloud?
An area of Salesforce Marketing Cloud that could be improved is the connectivity between Sales Cloud and Marketing Cloud platforms. The issues with integration between different platforms arise bec...
 

Also Known As

No data available
ExactTarget
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Honda, 3M, Hugo Boss, Petronas, Sony Pictures, The Atlantic, goodreads, Clear Channel Radio, Penn University of Pennsylvania, unicef, Kuoni, Movember
American Express, Financial Conduct Authority, KPN, Merck KGaA, Peterborough City Council, The Chapar, ADP, Financial Times, Stanley Black & Decker, SureFlap, Western Union, Philips
Find out what your peers are saying about Salesforce, Qualtrics, ServiceNow and others in Customer Experience Management. Updated: August 2025.
867,370 professionals have used our research since 2012.