What is Salesforce CRM Pricing: 2018 Behind-the-Scenes
CRM is a kind of “must have” thing for every successful business. However, it is a tricky and challenging task to select the platform that would suit your company most. You have to take into account your business size, industry, desired goals, and many other aspects. And do not ever forget about the budget. There are no absolutely free solutions, so one way or another it will cost. To be aware of the hidden fees, pay attention to the article below regarding Salesforce CRM pricing. Have to say that Salesforce pricing can be (and usually it is) confusing for anyone looking for the perfect platform. Often it doesn’t help even the fact that they have 1,700 products and enormous AppExchange store to upgrade the CRM, often for free. But often all the pros hides in the shadow of the high and incomprehensible price.
What is Salesforce? The Salesforce pricing page is full of countless features and combined plans cost, so it is really easy to lose the balance there. And that’s for sure that you can't catch all the “hidden cost”. If you are not going to get in touch with Salesforce manager right now to make clear all the questions regarding Salesforce CRM pricing and get not the answer only, but also tons of emails and phone calls, here's a brief overview. So, make yourself at home and be one step closer to the success! Very Brief Overview It is believed that every company owner or the person going to launch own business knows what Salesforce is. Nevertheless, it is useful to recollect the information once more, really briefly. So, Salesforce is a leading and award-winning platform that suits for all business kinds, regardless of its size or niche. The reason is its endlessly customization possibilities and
scalability. The solution is like a chameleon changing and adapting itself to each single one company demands. You can create new tabs, data fields, filters, or even formula-driven events. The most incredible thing is that it is possible to create integrative with Salesforce custom applications Salesforce can make the team performance much easier and pleasant task than ever before. You can view, control and manage all the sales, marketing and customer service on the single dashboard. Also, it is possible to chat with the sales team or separate salespeople using the created Chatter. Another great thing is that mentioned above benefits (as well as many others) works on all mobile devices from PC to mobile phones and can be applied wherever you are. So you can add just made call to the database, add few notes, note the following steps to take and represent them on the next sales team meeting. Sounds great, doesn’t it? But getting back to the Salesforce CRM pricing must admit that all those features and customization possibilities appear a major reason it is so confusing.
Why Salesforce CRM Pricing is so Unclear? The $25/user/month sounds pretty cheap for any business owner, but if to dig deeper, you may be surprised because of appeared additional costs. The first good news is that the different cost editions are available. So you may choose how many additional options you need. The second one is that integration with other Salesforce cloud services is free. There are tons of apps on the AppExchange. So making a few of them work together is a pretty good point. It happens often that the customization and implementation are taught tasks. And so, many users have to hire a Salesforce expert who would do those things. So when planning Salesforce pricing, keep in mind that probably you’ll have to spend some money on Salesforce implementation. To the word, the cost starts from $5,000 to over $80,000. There are many reasons why the price is so high. The most influential one is the complexity. As for the others, here they are: ● The size of your org chart. ● The number of your potential users. ● The number of various products and services you sell. ● Do you have up-/cross-sells? ● How do you take payments: on- or offline? ● Regarding the typical sales process: How long it takes? ● Are there any management hoops to hop through? ● Or chosen ones by your legal department? ● Do you want Salesforce to integrate with other applications? ● The same about business processes? ● And so on and so force. If you are a small sales team, probably an off-the-shelf edition would be enough for you. But, it is not a suitable solution for the most sales team. And here appear a lot of additional fees for additional features. Truly saying, that is also one of the principal reasons users choose Salesforce over the rest CRM competition. And Salesforce CRM pricing is not an obstruction.
What is Salesforce actual cost? That’s a quite complex question. So to get an answer, let’s go back to basics.
1. Salesforce Sales Cloud(Lightning Essential) starts at $25/month/for up to 5 users. You will get basic contact management features, task and event tracking, Outlook and Gmail integration, mobile app, reporting, Chatter (their internal chat tool). That is a basic package with no hidden costs. Keep in mind that Salesforce bills annually, always. So there, you will have to pay $300 per each user (if up to 5). 2. If there have to be more than five users with advanced options, Salesforce CRM pricing will start at $75/user/month (or $900 each ) per Lightning Professional. This edition includes bulk actions like mass emailing, detailed campaigns, customizable dashboards to track your KPIs. 3. The really Big Game starts from Lightning Enterprise, $150/user/month ($1800/year). It is a fully customizable edition that includes workflow and approval automation, the possibility to integrate custom applications using their API. Additionally, there are few helpful features like a personal AppExchange including custom profile and page designs. 4. The next level is the Lightning Unlimited p lan at $300/ser/month ($3,600 annual). It includes Salesforce Service Cloud, live agent web chat, Data.com prospector, unlimited development of custom applications, multiple sandboxes. As you probably have noticed, Salesforce CRM pricing rises from the budget cost of $125/year to thousands in the blink of an eye.
But wait, it is not a full cost you will pay. Remember about training for salespeople? The cost of ‘success plan’ Salesforce Premier Success Plan is a set of pieces of training for all the team members. You’ll need it for going onboard on Salesforce. Some of them are mostly self-guided, yet the others offer a hands-on.
As seen, the upper plans require more assistance to determine Salesforce CRM pricing. Therefore, the final cost will depend on which CRM edition you've chosen. For example, if you selected the Lightning Professional ($75/user/month or $900/year), the Premier Success would cost 20%, the Premier Success+ 30% of the edition price. That is between ~$180 – $270/user.
Salesforce Alternatives in terms of Pricing and Set of Possibilities Microsoft Dynamics CRM. It’s the closest competitor taking to the point company size (well-suitable for enterprises), cost (billed annually, from $5 to several hundred per user per month), set of features (many applications for sales automation are the same). Agile CRMis developed to satisfy the needs of small and medium-sized companies, that includes CRM, sales and marketing automation. Agile CRM pricing starts from Free edition (for up to 10 users) to $79.99/monthly or $64.99/month/annually or $47.99/per 2 Years) Zoho CRM is better adapted for small and medium-sized business, also has automation features for sales and marketing teams from HR to email and finance, a native integration with other Zoho applications. Pricing from $12/user/month (annually) up to $100/user/month (annually). Infusionsoftis a great solution for small business that combines CRM, contact management, e-commerce, sales and marketing automation, fully integrates marketing tools as emailing and social media. Cost starts from $99/user/month to $379/user/month, $299 for new user education, additional charge for e-commerce and sales pipeline. The pricing policy is pretty clear and understandable with no hints.
Conclusion Salesforce is no doubt market leader among cloud-based sales automation solutions since ‘99. Therefore Salesforce CRM pricing model has become a kind of example to follow by other CRMs. After all, have to say that the stated pricing is pretty clear, generally. But be careful while choosing the additional features. If you want to become Salesforce user, don't wait up andimport a part of your data from the current CRM, CSV, Excel or Gsuite by running Demo Migration. It's a Free and Secure option. Also, keep in mind that Data2CRM holds a Discount on Salesforce transferthat can help you to save up to 20% of the migration budget.