Salesforce

We're the #1 AI CRM—where humans with agents drive customer success together.

CRM
★★★★☆ 4.4
1999 Founded
10001+ Employees
150,000+ Customers
San Francisco, California, USA Headquarters
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Quick Facts

✓ Free Trial
Website
salesforce.com →
Pricing Model
per-user
Free Trial
30 days
Company Type
public
Social
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About Salesforce

Salesforce, Inc. is a cloud-based enterprise software company headquartered in San Francisco, California, best known as the global leader in CRM and what it now markets as the "#1 AI CRM." en.wikipedia.org Its Customer 360 platform brings together applications for sales, service, marketing, commerce, analytics, integration, and AI so companies can manage the entire customer lifecycle on a single, multi‑tenant cloud infrastructure.

Founded in 1999 by former Oracle executive Marc Benioff along with Parker Harris, Dave Moellenhoff, and Frank Dominguez, Salesforce was an early pioneer of software-as-a-service (SaaS) and went public in 2004. Over the past two decades it has grown both organically and through major acquisitions such as MuleSoft, Tableau, and Slack, helping expand the platform beyond CRM into integration, analytics, and productivity. en.wikipedia.org The company has also rebranded its platform around Agentforce and the Agentforce 360 Platform, reflecting a strategic shift toward deeply embedded autonomous AI agents across its clouds. reuters.com

At the product level, Salesforce’s core CRM capabilities are anchored in Sales Cloud (now branded Agentforce Sales), which provides lead, account, contact, and opportunity management, sales forecasting, automation, and AI-powered sales agents that help with prospecting, engagement, and pipeline management. Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Commerce Cloud, and industry clouds build on the same underlying platform, giving organizations a unified data model and extensive workflow automation, analytics, and app development tools. salesforce.com The AppExchange marketplace and robust APIs enable thousands of third‑party integrations and custom solutions, making Salesforce one of the most extensible CRM platforms available. techradar.com

Salesforce operates at massive scale, employing roughly 76,000 people worldwide and serving more than 150,000 customer organizations across industries including technology, financial services, manufacturing, retail, healthcare, nonprofit, and the public sector. en.wikipedia.org It has consistently held the largest share of the global CRM market and is aggressively investing in AI through its Agentforce 360 platform and Data 360 (formerly Data Cloud), aiming to make agentic AI and unified customer data central to enterprise operations in the coming decade. itpro.com

Key Features

Account, contact, lead, and opportunity management - centralize customer records and track every interaction across the sales cycle.

Pipeline and forecast management - visualize deal stages, inspect pipeline health, and generate AI-assisted sales forecasts.

Lead management and routing - capture, deduplicate, score, and automatically assign leads to the right seller or queue.

Sales automation and workflows - use Flow and approvals to automate routine tasks, handoffs, and complex multi-step processes.

AI sales agents (Agentforce Sales) - autonomous agents that handle prospecting, qualification, follow-ups, and CRM updates using company data.

Einstein AI insights - predictive lead and opportunity scoring, recommended next best actions, and AI-generated call summaries and emails.

Sales engagement & cadences - sequence multi-channel outreach with email templates, tasks, and call steps for SDRs and AEs.

Conversation intelligence - record and analyze sales calls to surface themes, objections, action items, and coaching insights.

Quoting, CPQ, and revenue lifecycle - configure products, pricing, and discounts; generate quotes; and connect to billing and revenue recognition tools.

Territory and performance management - define territories, assign accounts, set targets, and track quota attainment for teams and reps.

Partner relationship management - provide partners with a branded portal for deal registration, enablement, and joint pipeline visibility.

Advanced reporting and dashboards - build customizable reports and dashboards for real-time views of activities, pipeline, and KPIs.

Mobile CRM app - access accounts, update opportunities, log activities, and collaborate from iOS and Android devices.

AppExchange ecosystem - extend functionality with thousands of prebuilt apps and components for vertical and horizontal use cases.

Low-code customization and platform - tailor objects, fields, page layouts, and apps with clicks (and code when needed) on the Agentforce 360 Platform.

Pros & Cons

👍 Pros

  • Exceptionally customizable CRM with flexible data model, workflows, and automation, allowing organizations to mirror complex sales processes and industry-specific needs.
  • Scales reliably from small teams to large global enterprises, with strong performance, uptime, and the ability to support thousands of users and massive data volumes.
  • Extensive integration ecosystem and AppExchange marketplace offering thousands of prebuilt apps and connectors to marketing, service, analytics, telephony, and back-office systems.
  • Rich reporting and dashboarding that provide detailed pipeline visibility, rep and team performance metrics, and more accurate forecasting.
  • Powerful AI capabilities (Einstein and Agentforce) that support lead and opportunity scoring, conversation intelligence, summarization, and AI agents that automate repetitive sales tasks.
  • Large global community (Trailblazers), Trailhead online training, and a mature partner ecosystem that help teams learn the platform and find specialized implementation support.

👎 Cons

  • Licensing, required add-ons, and implementation services can be expensive, making total cost of ownership high for startups and smaller organizations.
  • Steep learning curve and configuration complexity; many companies need dedicated Salesforce administrators or external consultants to get the most value.
  • User interface and navigation can feel overwhelming or cluttered for new or casual users, especially in heavily customized orgs.
  • Some advanced capabilities (e.g., advanced analytics, certain AI features, or additional sandboxes) are locked behind higher-tier editions or paid add-ons.

User Reviews

G2
4.4
★★★★☆
Capterra
4.4
★★★★☆
TrustRadius
8.8
★★★★★

Integrations

Google Workspace Microsoft 365 Microsoft Outlook Microsoft Teams Slack Zoom Workplace Google Analytics Adobe Marketo Engage Mailchimp HubSpot Marketing Hub HubSpot Sales Hub Zendesk for Customer Service Jira Asana Smartsheet DocuSign Dropbox Sign Okta SAP Concur ZoomInfo Sales Twilio Tableau Salesloft LinkedIn Sales Navigator

Best For

Company Size

smb mid-market enterprise

Industries

Technology and SaaS Financial Services and Banking Manufacturing Retail and Consumer Goods Healthcare and Life Sciences Communications and Media

Use Cases

End-to-end sales pipeline and opportunity management Lead capture, scoring, and routing Forecasting and revenue intelligence Account and contact management Sales engagement and outbound prospecting Customer 360 view across sales, service, and marketing

FAQ

What is Salesforce?

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Salesforce is a cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) platform that unifies sales, service, marketing, commerce, data, and AI on a single Customer 360 platform. It provides applications like Sales Cloud (Agentforce Sales), Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, and industry-specific clouds so companies can manage leads, opportunities, accounts, support cases, campaigns, and analytics in one place while leveraging AI agents and automation.

How much does Salesforce cost?

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Salesforce offers a Free Suite at $0/user/month for up to two users, which includes core CRM and basic email and service features. Paid CRM suites start with Starter Suite at about $25/user/month (billed monthly or annually), Pro Suite at $100/user/month (billed annually), and enterprise-grade Sales Cloud editions at $175/user/month (Enterprise), $350/user/month (Unlimited), and $550/user/month (Agentforce 1 Sales), typically billed annually. Actual costs depend on edition, number of users, add-ons, and success plans, and Salesforce provides a 30-day free trial for most CRM offerings.

What are the main features of Salesforce?

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Core Salesforce features include lead, account, contact, and opportunity management; pipeline and forecast tracking; workflow automation with flows and approvals; email and calendar integration; sales engagement and cadences; quoting and CPQ; partner relationship management; and rich reporting and dashboards. On top of that, Salesforce offers AI capabilities like Einstein and Agentforce for lead and opportunity scoring, conversation intelligence, summarization, and autonomous sales agents, as well as thousands of integrations and apps via AppExchange.

Who are Salesforce's main competitors?

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Salesforce competes with a range of CRM vendors. In the mid-market and enterprise segments, its primary competitors include Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, Oracle CX Sales, and SAP Sales Cloud, as well as HubSpot Sales Hub and Zoho CRM for organizations that favor simpler or more cost-sensitive solutions. Some companies also compare Salesforce with vertical or use-case specific tools like Pipedrive, Freshsales, or specialized industry CRMs when evaluating alternatives.

Is Salesforce good for small businesses?

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Salesforce can be a strong fit for small businesses that want to grow into a more sophisticated CRM over time, especially using the Free Suite and Starter Suite, which are designed for small teams and offer guided onboarding, core CRM, and basic automation at lower price points. However, very small or budget-constrained businesses that just need a simple contact manager may find Salesforce's flexibility, learning curve, and potential add-on costs to be more than they need; in those cases, lighter-weight CRMs may be easier to adopt.

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