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Pardot vs Salesforce Marketing Cloud comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 6, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

Pardot
Ranking in Marketing Automation
6th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Ranking in Marketing Automation
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
62
Ranking in other categories
Social CRM (2nd), Marketing Management (1st), Social Media Management Solutions (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Marketing Automation category, the mindshare of Pardot is 3.0%, down from 3.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Salesforce Marketing Cloud is 11.6%, down from 22.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Marketing Automation Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Salesforce Marketing Cloud11.6%
Pardot3.0%
Other85.4%
Marketing Automation
 

Featured Reviews

Vikram Rawani - PeerSpot reviewer
Pardot Consultant at Target
Offers an easy initial setup phase and good ROI
With Pardot, users can do the segmentation based on their requirements. You can segment your prospects based on their interests, locations, companies, or the sales cycle. You can also use the engagement studio to create a journey for the people you have segmented with the help of automation feature of the tool. The aforementioned area consists of the most useful features I found in the tool apart from its out-of-the-box features. The integration between Pardot and Salesforce is beneficial if you know how to share the leads that a company finds useful so that they don't have to invest in manual work or do anything blindly to reach out to leads. Users can segment the leads using the features that the tool provides. I recommend the product to those who plan to use it. If a business is into B2B marketing and can afford to purchase Pardot, then they should buy it. If the product of a company is good, then Pardot can help multiply such an organization's ROI. Based on the product and how the sales and marketing team works, the tool can be useful. In short, the tool can be as good as the person who is using it. I rate the tool a nine out of ten.
GauravSingh2 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Consultant at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Targeted email journeys have boosted campaign insight and now need better data access and support
I feel that Salesforce Marketing Cloud can be improved in how the data views are accessed; it would be better to have something more physical. With data extensions, you can view them directly, but for data views, it is very difficult as you can only send it out or load it into data extensions. Improvements can also be made in the connections to different external tools such as Azure or AWS.Customer support can be improved in Salesforce Marketing Cloud, as sometimes it is not clear what the issue is or how to approach solving it, and it also takes time to resolve issues.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution can be easily integrated with Salesforce."
"The product is stable."
"The most valuable feature is the customization of the solution."
"Campaign tracking is a valuable feature."
"It has made email marketing quicker and easier."
"The tracking and automation of outbound messaging is the solution's most valuable aspect."
"It's easy to create email templates and landing pages."
"Pardot's most valuable feature is its B2B marketing capabilities."
"The tool is flexible and helps us with insights and reports. Salesforce Marketing Cloud has improved our organizational functions by creating an environment where clients and internal staff can access information about various solutions. For instance, clients can apply for different projects, and internal staff can approve them based on donor requirements. This simplifies communication between clients, donors, and our company,"
"If you want to be able to communicate with your client using email, WhatsApp, and push notifications, know if the client opened the communication or not, and create and automate their journey, Marketing Cloud is very good."
"Salesforce Marketing Cloud's integrations are seamless since it is a native application. It helps us with B2B and B2C send-outs and can handle large columns."
"It is a great solution. I like its stability, scalability, and performance."
"We have found the solution to be scalable."
"The tool's most valuable feature is its automation. We can integrate data with the Salesforce hub. Its Einstein feature tells us whether our campaigns are on the right track. It also helps with ideas."
"Marketing Cloud has improved our productivity and our team enjoy using it."
"It is easy to send emails and SMS's."
 

Cons

"Needs to improve list building."
"​Technical support has been quick and helpful every time."
"Lacks sufficient free custom fields."
"The solution lacks integration with Instagram, which is our top problem with the product."
"Pardot needs many improvements in terms of email design and design studio functionalities."
"Pardot must be synced with Salesforce."
"The user interface could be made more intuitive and user-friendly."
"When we compare it to other automation tools, in Pardot, I'm not able to see any drag-and-drop options. We have to work on an HTML template itself."
"There could be easier tools to configure the product and to create landing pages to better handle large data sets."
"This solution could be more user-friendly."
"The customization of Salesforce, a generic CRM software, has room for improvement."
"It should contain artificial intelligence, in my opinion."
"The general setup and understanding of how to use it can be improved. There should be easier self-service for setting up dashboards. Currently, we have someone setting them up for us. I wish it was easier."
"The encryption and decryption have room for improvement."
"Salesforce Marketing Cloud could improve by having more graphical options because a lot of tables are now only numbers and percentages and data. I prefer graphs, lines, and pie charts. I know there are ways to receive this from Salesforce Marketing Cloud. It doesn't play a huge role in my daily work to invest the time to figure it out. I feel that it would be time wasted. They could make the graphical options easier to find and use in the future."
"The majority of my clients are happy, but when it comes to the CDP of Salesforce, the client gets confused. They have no clue that Salesforce has a CDP platform too. If my clients want to go ahead with the same vendor, Salesforce, they get confused about the different marketing suites which are available. There is no clear marketing done for the suites available for the clients, this is where the client is facing the real challenges."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"In terms of pricing, Pardot is cheaper than Marketing Cloud."
"It is a competitively priced product, considering what it provides."
"The price of this solution is expensive. However, you are going to receive good value for money. They could improve by reducing the price."
"​Make sure you do not pay for features that you may not need​."
"We pay about $4000 a month."
"The licensing cost for the solution is on a yearly basis."
"We did a yearly license. We negotiated and got a great deal. I don't think we would have gotten far with the regular price, but they negotiated, so it was worth that."
"The solution is paid for monthly."
"It is a license per user."
"We have two types of licensing. We have a yearly license for end users and we have a concurrent login for selling."
"This solution is priced in the medium to high price range."
"Salesforce is an expensive solution."
"My company pays to use this solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Retailer
11%
Wholesaler/Distributor
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Healthcare Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise31
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Pardot?
It has no limit for sending marketing emails.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pardot?
Pardot was somewhat costly for our requirements, nonetheless, the capacities of the item were limited.
What needs improvement with Pardot?
Pardot needs many improvements in terms of email design and design studio functionalities. It lacks a robust design studio, limiting our ability to perform various design activities efficiently. Yo...
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?
I feel that Salesforce Marketing Cloud can be improved in how the data views are accessed; it would be better to have something more physical. With data extensions, you can view them directly, but ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
ExactTarget
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Arketi Group
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 Pardot vs. Salesforce Marketing Cloud and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
881,821 professionals have used our research since 2012.