Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

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
8.2
Freshdesk offers efficient customer service and time management, providing significant financial benefits and excellent return on investment.
Sentiment score
6.8
Salesforce Marketing Cloud ROI experiences vary; some see clear benefits, while others face measurement challenges across different user groups.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.2
Freshdesk's efficient support resolves issues quickly, though setup challenges and process delays occasionally occur; technical capabilities are highly rated.
Sentiment score
6.4
Salesforce Marketing Cloud support effectiveness varies by license, with premium rated highly and standard support often seen as lacking.
We have not needed to contact technical support, as Freshdesk has met our needs efficiently.
Customer support could be improved, especially for new features.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.8
Freshdesk is highly scalable, handling increased users and ticket volumes efficiently while facilitating easy growth for organizations.
Sentiment score
7.7
Salesforce Marketing Cloud offers scalable, highly rated solutions for medium to large enterprises with robust integration, but may be costly.
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.
When more branches are opened for a dealer, or when the vehicle manufacturing company implements the software nationwide, the application needs to handle many changes and business rules smoothly.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.2
Freshdesk is praised for its reliability with minimal downtime, efficient service recovery, despite occasional support concerns and related service issues.
Sentiment score
8.2
Salesforce Marketing Cloud is stable and reliable, with few bugs or crashes, handling large data volumes effectively.
I have never experienced any issues with stability, outages, or downtime.
 

Room For Improvement

Freshdesk requires enhancements in interface, customization, support, integration, and pricing, with opportunities in translation and asset management.
Salesforce Marketing Cloud improves user experience with enhanced security, analytics, integration, and mobile functionality amid pricing and data concerns.
The current integration is more complicated and doesn’t work as well.
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.
There are inaccuracies in how AgentForce retrieves information or interprets data.
 

Setup Cost

Freshdesk's pricing is flexible and affordable compared to Zendesk, with customization options and potential additional costs.
Salesforce Marketing Cloud is costly but valued for its robust capabilities, offering flexible pricing and negotiation options for enterprises.
Our organization pays about 200,000 Indian rupees per year for the license.
The pricing is around $10,000 per annum per user.
 

Valuable Features

Freshdesk enhances customer service efficiency with features like automation, scalable APIs, and seamless integration, supporting team collaboration and performance tracking.
Salesforce Marketing Cloud excels with its multi-channel campaign management, CRM integration, advanced analytics, and user-friendly interface.
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.
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.
 

Categories and Ranking

Freshdesk
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
Customer Experience Management (4th), Field Service Management (3rd), Help Desk Software (6th), Knowledge Management Software (5th)
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
56
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 5.0%, up 5.0% compared to last year.
Salesforce Marketing Cloud, on the other hand, focuses on Social CRM, holds 13.9% mindshare, up 10.9% since last year.
Customer Experience Management
Social CRM
 

Featured Reviews

Alexey Timchenko - PeerSpot reviewer
Incredibly user-friendly, flexible, and affordable
Automation and ticket routing rules in Freshdesk save us daily by streamlining routine tasks. We use reports to identify issues, allocate resources, and continuously improve our processes. It is a vital part of our daily operations, helping us stay proactive and efficient in handling various types of tickets. The reporting and analytics tools in Freshdesk are effective for measuring customer service performance. While our current subscription level has some limitations in terms of reporting, the next level provides more options. Budget constraints currently prevent us from upgrading, but the available reporting features still meet our basic needs. I highly recommend Freshdesk, especially for companies in their early stages. It is user-friendly, easy to configure, and great for those with a moderate volume of customer requests. The cost is reasonable, making it a quick and efficient solution to implement. Overall, I would rate Freshdesk as an eight out of ten.
SantoshKrishna - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to deploy, stable, and scalable
The encryption and decryption have room for improvement. We need to be confident that the customer's data is secure when shared outside of the organization. I would like to request additional mobile app features that go beyond push notifications. As the mobile development industry continues to advance with new technologies, such as AI components, it is important to consider these advancements when setting up campaigns. Currently, campaigns are scheduled to be sent to customers at a prescribed time, but they may not be relevant to the customer unless they see them as valuable. For example, if I want to run a campaign offering loans, I would need to consider the customer's needs and balance. In the future, I hope Salesforce can incorporate an AI component that utilizes the shared data, rather than just scheduling campaigns.
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Customer Experience Management solutions are best for your needs.
849,190 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
25%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Real Estate/Law Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Educational Organization
57%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
5%
Manufacturing Company
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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?
I would like a better integration towards Azure DevOps. The current integration is more complicated and doesn’t work as well. There's not a really good one for Jira, which we are also using.
What is your primary use case for Freshdesk?
I mainly use Freshdesk as a support system for our customers.
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 needs improvement with Salesforce Marketing Cloud?
In the SMS area, it is not up to the mark, compared to what has been developed for email.
 

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 Qualtrics, ServiceNow, Salesforce and others in Customer Experience Management. Updated: April 2025.
849,190 professionals have used our research since 2012.