Marketo vs SugarCRM Platform comparison

Adobe and SugarCRM are both solutions in the Marketing Automation category. Adobe is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.3, while SugarCRM is ranked #8 with an average rating of 8.5. Adobe holds a 14.4% mindshare in MA, compared to SugarCRM’s 0.4% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of Adobe users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 50% of SugarCRM users who would recommend it.

Marketo

Read 26 Marketo reviews

1,951 Views
1,554 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

SugarCRM Platform

Read 12 SugarCRM Platform reviews

95 Views
45 Comparison Views

50% willing to recommend

Marketo

SugarCRM Platform

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 6, 2025

SugarCRM and Marketo compete in the CRM and marketing automation space. SugarCRM has advantages in pricing and support, whereas Marketo stands out with comprehensive features.

Features: SugarCRM offers customizable CRM capabilities, advanced data management, and efficient sales automation. Marketo delivers robust marketing automation, advanced analytics, and seamless integrations.

Room for Improvement: SugarCRM could enhance its marketing automation and reporting depth. Marketo could improve its user interface scalability and reduce the complexity of its initial setup.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SugarCRM is noted for its straightforward deployment and reliable customer support, facilitating quick onboarding. Marketo, with its complex tools, requires more effort to deploy but offers dependable support once users adapt.

Pricing and ROI: SugarCRM is recognized for a budget-friendly setup cost, potentially offering a high ROI for budget-sensitive businesses. Marketo requires a higher initial investment, yet the ROI may be justified for those prioritizing advanced marketing capabilities.

To learn more, read our detailed Marketo vs. SugarCRM Platform Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Marketo vs. SugarCRM Platform

April 2025

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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

Marketo

Ranking in Marketing Automation

2nd

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Marketing Management (4th)

SugarCRM Platform

Ranking in Marketing Automation

8th

Average Rating

7.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

CRM Customer Engagement Centers (8th), CRM (24th), Sales Force Automation (9th)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Marketing Automation category, the mindshare of Marketo is 14.4%, down from 16.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SugarCRM Platform is 0.4%, down from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Marketing Automation

Featured Reviews

PradeepKumar25

Associate Manager at Tech Mahindra Limited

Useful for lead capture and engagement across social media platforms

Before Marketo, I worked on the Oracle Eloqua platform, both B2B-based. Currently, I'm working on Salesforce Marketing Cloud. So, these are the three platforms on which I have good hands-on expertise. One key reason platforms like Salesforce Marketing Cloud are gaining traction is that they invest in marketing campaigns. They conduct many virtual and live events, aggressively marketing their products. This strategy convinces C-suite executives to buy into and implement the Salesforce platform, something that other bigger platforms lack. Most companies are migrating to Salesforce. I've migrated one of my projects from Marketo to Salesforce and encountered many opportunities where companies want to migrate from Marketo, HubSpot, or Oracle Eloqua to Salesforce. I've worked on Oracle Eloqua, which is also a B2B platform, and I've also worked on Marketo. The lead scoring, table structure, and rules we apply are quite straightforward compared to Marketo. In Marketo, it's a bit clumsy. Regarding lead scoring or moving leads through the sales funnel, Oracle Eloqua is better, but it's a bit pricey. So, Marketo ranks second in lead scoring or managing leads, and it highly depends on the respective CRM. The tool tracks significant events, such as form fills on websites or social media handles. All this data is captured and stored in Marketo for analysis. Marketo Analytics is connected with Adobe Analytics. This integration offers detailed reports on total clicks, views, form fills, subscriptions, lead conversions, and more. It's straightforward compared to Oracle Eloqua, which has its own Oracle Business Intelligence suite.Marketo's reporting tools are easy to use, making it a plug-and-play solution for anyone.

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Styliana Araouzou

Senior Operations Analyst at Etoro

Customizable, easy to configure, and reliable

My company is considered a customer and an end-user. I'm not sure which version of the solution we're using right now. It's a company that offers lots of user manuals and you can find most of your stuff there before starting development. I'd advise potential new users to go through everything. I would rate the solution an eight out of ten. By default, it comes with a really good model where you can start working with it without having a lot of developers in your team. It's a system that includes everything related to the client and you can see everything under one screen without having a different product or system. It's been great, for the most part.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The valuable features are list uploads, email campaigns, generating reports,source tracking, and lead attribution."

"The product has been stable."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is Smart Campaigns."

"The most valuable features of Marketo are its ease of use and flexibility."

"We are scoring based on behavior without pressure, and it keeps producing excellent results."

"The smart campaign looks quite interesting and useful."

"It's pretty good at handling customization and templates. We can put in different variables, so even someone without coding knowledge can create and develop emails that look good on different browsers."

"I like that the solution is flexible."

More Marketo pros

"The most valuable feature is relation capability, which allows us to relay customers with invoice orders."

"The most valuable features of Sugar Enterprise are the exports of graphics, statuses, complaints, and tasks."

"The most valuable features of the SugarCRM platform include its flexibility in customizing fields, layouts, and dashboards."

"It has sales email campaigns, plus integration with Active Directory."

"It works well with Jira. You can customize it to fit your needs."

"The most valuable aspect of this solution is its low cost."

Cons

"Segmentation in Marketo is limited to a maximum of 20 segments. Depending on the company's specific needs, these segments can be based on various attributes such as company, industry, or other values. Sometimes, there's a lag when sending data from Marketo to any CRM. It can take around five to fifteen minutes for the report to sync."

"Customer support could be more helpful."

"I had an issue while integrating JavaScript with forms. When you embed JavaScript, you can either embed it in a landing page or some other self-contained management system like WordPress. Currently, it provides you access to CSS, where you can customize your form design, but there is no option for JavaScript modification for a particular form. This area needs to be improved where you can integrate JavaScript, and it has the JavaScript functions for that particular form. There are a lot of other areas of improvement. In the design area, they can give us more testing options instead of relying on email testing alone. It would be great if they can provide responsive testing where email clients can be tested within Marketo. It would be also helpful if they can implement some in-built options for users or forms for blocking a generic email ID such as Yahoo or Gmail. Similarly, it would be helpful to have JavaScript features and forms as well as the option to add Google analytics and a header and footer for the landing pages."

"Based on my clients ' comments, there is room for improvement in Marketo. For instance, Oracle's Eloqua had much larger databases than Marketo a few years ago, handling millions of records. Marketo has been catching up but doesn't hold the most extensive possible databases. This is less of an issue for B2B, but for B2C customers, who have millions of records, It also lacks features of HubSpot, which should be incorporated. Marketo could benefit from supporting more extensive databases and incorporating some of HubSpot's features. HubSpot is cheaper, and while Marketo is not the most expensive, it's not the least. They would be a better competitor to HubSpot if their pricing were lower. These products are typically priced per user per month."

"There is a bit of room for improvement in the level-one support team. It relies too much on documentation."

"Some modern Marketo features could be improved."

"Its APIs need to be more flexible because there are some things that are not available in the API."

"One limitation is the user limit. For bigger organizations with large audience sizes exceeding, let's say, 500k, the solution may not be as efficient as larger enterprise platforms like Salesforce or Oracle Eloqua. However, Marketo is one of the best platforms for mid-scale and small-scale organisations."

More Marketo cons

"I would like to see more integration on a mobile platform in the next release."

"In the next release, I would like to see personalization of information about customers or specific businesses or opportunities."

"While it is already user-friendly, a slight enhancement in UI design, especially in terms of color combinations, could make the platform more visually appealing and comfortable to use."

"Sugar Enterprise could improve by removing bugs and glitches. For example, a comment was made but in the comment section, it was never displayed. However, the problems we faced might not be the fault of the solution."

"I would appreciate it if SugarCRM could support us in on-premise implementation."

"It lacks customization, and this is the main reason that we are switching to a different solution."

"You cannot include all your entities under one instance at the moment."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is not cheap, but it's not that expensive either."

"Marketo is used a lot because it's cheaper and preferred by many firms."

"It is expensive. We have a yearly license."

"The fee for Marketo includes the number of users and the database size. If we ask for a unique feature, it will cost extra."

"The solution is expensive compared to others."

"I'm not sure about the cost because I don't get into this aspect. Clients normally take care of that. I only know that it is costly, and I don't think there are any additional costs to the licensing."

"The initial pricing was excellent, but the pricing for renewals is not as good."

"Marketo's pricing depends on the number of contacts and the level of features you need. Compared to other platforms like Oracle Eloqua and Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Marketo is generally more affordable. Like other platforms, it offers different packages based on your needs."

More Marketo pricing and cost advice

"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

21%

Financial Services Firm

14%

Manufacturing Company

Insurance Company

Educational Organization

30%

Engineering Company

15%

Computer Software Company

13%

Real Estate/Law Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Marketo?

One of the most important things about Marketo is its focus on GDPR compliance. It helps you follow GDPR and CAN-SPAM rules. For example, with Marketo, I won't accidentally target audiences without...

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What needs improvement with Marketo?

The user interface could be improved. I would like to see an updated UI for 2025.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Marketo?

As a seasoned Marketo Expert with a decade of experience and a deep understanding of Adobe's ecosystem, I can confidently say that the primary use case for Marketo lies in empowering businesses wit...

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What do you like most about Sugar Enterprise?

The most valuable features of the SugarCRM platform include its flexibility in customizing fields, layouts, and dashboards.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sugar Enterprise?

All are almost the same pricing. Maybe the cheapest is Salesforce, I believe.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Sugar Enterprise?

The only challenge was that we implemented it in our on-premise data center instead of using it in the cloud. That was a little bit of a challenge. But it was overcome with the help of SugarCRM com...

See all answers

Comparisons

Salesforce Marketing Cloud vs Marketo

Compared 35% of the time

HubSpot Marketing Hub vs Marketo

Compared 18% of the time

Oracle Eloqua vs Marketo

Compared 16% of the time

SAP Marketing Cloud vs Marketo

Compared 10% of the time

Microsoft Dynamics CRM vs Marketo

Compared 6% of the time

More Marketo Competitors

No data available

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Marketo

March 2025

Download Marketo product report

Buyer's Guide

SugarCRM Platform

March 2025

Download SugarCRM Platform product report

Overview

Marketo is an all-in-one marketing solution that was created by marketers for marketers. Founded in 2007, Marketo is branded as marketing software that is easy, powerful and complete.

Organizations have access to multiple marketing and sales tools when they use this solution, such as Marketing Automation, Consumer Engagement Marketing, Real-Time Personalization, and Marketing Management.

Adobe

SugarCRM is a versatile CRM solution that facilitates communication and organization within a company. Its primary use case includes call and comment logging, account relation, customer detail storage, verification handling, transaction tracking, marketing material management, and payment transaction handling. The most valuable functionalities include customizable exports of graphics, statuses, complaints, and tasks, as well as its scalability, stability, and low cost. It integrates well with Jira and can be easily configured. The platform improves efficiency, productivity, collaboration, communication, and coordination within organizations, while also providing valuable insights and data analytics for informed decision-making.

SugarCRM

Sample Customers

Marketo has a customer base of thousands of companies, including Sony, Citrix, BrightTALK, Curves International, HootSuite, Hyundai, SanDisk, and Samsung Electronics.

Redglaze Group, TengoInternet, Hilco, Bancvue, Vet Adivsor

Buyer's Guide

Marketo vs. SugarCRM Platform

April 2025

Free Report: Marketo vs. SugarCRM Platform

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