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Salesforce Marketing Cloud vs Sprout Social comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 8, 2026

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

Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Ranking in Social CRM
2nd
Ranking in Social Media Management Solutions
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
Marketing Automation (1st), Marketing Management (1st)
Sprout Social
Ranking in Social CRM
4th
Ranking in Social Media Management Solutions
4th
Average Rating
7.8
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
Social Media Analytics Software (2nd), AI Customer Experience Personalization (25th), AI Content Creation (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Social CRM category, the mindshare of Salesforce Marketing Cloud is 6.1%, down from 12.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sprout Social is 8.5%, down from 11.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Social CRM Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Salesforce Marketing Cloud6.1%
Sprout Social8.5%
Other85.4%
Social CRM
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Andriana Sophos - PeerSpot reviewer
Financial Analyst at Honeywell
Centralized social monitoring has unified our branding and drives data-driven engagement decisions
The best features Sprout Social offers include the compose tool for social posts, reporting and analytics, and content management.What I appreciate most about the compose tool and the reporting and analytics features is that it helps to track engagements and other analytics and track social campaigns so that we are able to make data-driven decisions easily. I would add that social listening and explaining the spikes and the drops, a friendly user interface and easy to understand, great customer care integration, and statistics for organic social are also important features. Sprout Social has positively impacted my organization by saving time and increasing engagement. We have definitely streamlined our output and allowed us to access metrics, content performance, and engagement all within a few clicks, which improved our productivity in my organization by 20%.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Salesforce Marketing Cloud has positively impacted my organization by reducing costs while significantly increasing the return on investment."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to get quotes out in a timely manner."
"The Salesforce ecosystem is more powerful than Siebel.Salesforce is fully integrated."
"The most valuable feature of Salesforce Marketing Cloud is the seamless conversion of lead to opportunity, in relation to orders is good."
"Marketing Cloud offers a 360 customers experience as it integrates with Service Cloud and Sales Cloud, the CRM portion of Salesforce."
"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."
"Allows organisations to engage customers with one integrated platform to unify sales, service, and marketing."
"The most valuable feature of Salesforce Marketing Cloud is the ability to sell the products we have made to customers. Overall the solution is very useful for business."
"In my experience, the best features Sprout Social offers are the ability to manage multiple campaigns."
"Sprout Social has saved us a lot of time, provided the convenience of a single login to multiple socials, and requires less time for training, making it very easy to use and start using it."
"Sprout Social is a really good, reliable tool for increasing our online presence and handling patient queries, messages, and comments all in one place without navigating through different social media accounts."
"Sprout Social is the best; it is very good, actually, because I have used Intercom and Zendesk, but when I look at the different software I have used as a customer service agent, I would go for Sprout Social as it is more complete and easy to navigate."
"One of the biggest advantages of Sprout Social is its user-friendly dashboard and clear visual reports, which make it easy to interpret data and present insights to clients."
 

Cons

"User management could be better."
"In the SMS area, it is not up to the mark, compared to what has been developed for email."
"Clarity around new features could be improved when they are released."
"The main action I want to do in Salesforce Marketing Cloud is to export data into Excel and use it. My company may have that feature locked down, or if the Excel data exporting function still isn't available in Salesforce Marketing Cloud, that's the feature I want."
"I would like to see more ways to accomplish specific tasks."
"The solution can be difficult to set up for non-technical individuals."
"Clarity around new features could be improved when they are released."
"Marketing Cloud's forecasting could be improved."
"As of now, I have been using Sprout Social for almost two years, but there are some glitches in the back-end; sometimes the posts are not integrated or do not come with the proper details, proper dates, or proper content."
"If you do not already have existing solutions and you are using the platform to help schedule out marketing campaigns, it will not be that helpful."
"Sprout Social can be improved because the user experience of having hundreds of channels to navigate can be quite fiddly, especially when trying to bulk post."
"Sprout Social can be improved by lowering the pricing."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is a license per user."
"This solution is priced in the medium to high price range."
"Salesforce Marketing Cloud is a highly expensive solution, it needs to be less expensive. We are on an annual license to use the solution."
"The solution's pricing is very high and should be more flexible for smaller companies."
"The price is expensive."
"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
"On a scale where one is the lowest and ten is the most expensive, I rate the solution an eight out of ten."
"Its licensing is on an annual basis. Customers are okay with its licensing cost, and they don't find it expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Financial Services Firm
23%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise31
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise11
 

Questions from the Community

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 ...
What is your primary use case for Salesforce Marketing Cloud?
The main use case for Salesforce Marketing Cloud is email marketing through Salesforce for the B2B segment on a day-to-day basis.For B2B email marketing using Salesforce Marketing Cloud, I can prov...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sprout Social?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that Sprout Social delivers good value for the price, making it very cost-effective.
What needs improvement with Sprout Social?
The scheduling feature became less handy for me due to the enhancement of the social media platforms themselves. One limitation I have experienced with the features is that I cannot make custom mes...
What is your primary use case for Sprout Social?
My main use case for Sprout Social is scheduling out the calendar, social media campaigns, and then I use it for tagging those campaigns and reporting those metrics to funders. I use the tagging an...
 

Also Known As

ExactTarget
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

American Express, Financial Conduct Authority, KPN, Merck KGaA, Peterborough City Council, The Chapar, ADP, Financial Times, Stanley Black & Decker, SureFlap, Western Union, Philips
Hyatt, Stanford University, Coldwell Banker, Razorfish, UPS, Box, Zipcar, PepsiCo, YogurtLand, Dove, TechSmith
Find out what your peers are saying about Salesforce Marketing Cloud vs. Sprout Social and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
892,868 professionals have used our research since 2012.