Salesforce Marketing Cloud vs. Twilio SendGrid

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Score 8.1 out of 10
N/A
Marketing Cloud is an AI-powered, cloud-based digital marketing platform within the Salesforce Customer 360 ecosystem. Marketers can segment their audience, deliver personalized messages, track campaign performance, engage leads and accounts, and optimize strategies based on real-time insights.
$1,250
per month per installation
Twilio SendGrid
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
Twilio SendGrid Marketing Campaigns provides users with segmentation, campaign editing, and deliverability. According to the vendor, Twilio SendGrid Marketing Campaigns is trusted by over 80,000 customers globally, including Airbnb, Spotify and Uber. Twilio SendGrid Marketing Campaigns aims to help users by providing: MORE EFFICIENT EMAIL BUILDING The campaign building process is free from frustrating, rigid step-by-step wizards that slow users down. The vendor says…
$15
per month
Pricing
Salesforce Marketing CloudTwilio SendGrid
Editions & Modules
Account Engagement
$1,250
per month
Engagement
$1,250
per month
Intelligence
$3,000
per month
Loyalty Management
$20,000
per month
Personalization
$100,000
per year
Data Cloud for Marketing
$108,000
per year
Basic
$15
per month
Advanced
$60
per month
Free
Free
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Salesforce Marketing CloudTwilio SendGrid
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Salesforce Marketing CloudTwilio SendGrid
Considered Both Products
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Chose Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Pardot is pretty much on the same level. We chose Pardot because it integrates directly with Salesforce. We already use Contentful for landing pages, so we weren't too worried about using Pardot's builder. I really liked the simplicity of the visual email workflows. Coming …
Chose Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Pardot is a player in that it is one of the older products on the forefront of email marketing. This is good and bad in that it has been established but bad in that it isn't as robust as some of the other products on the market. Adobe can be good but is new to the market and …
Twilio SendGrid

No answer on this topic

Features
Salesforce Marketing CloudTwilio SendGrid
Email & Online Marketing
Comparison of Email & Online Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
7.9
167 Ratings
4% above category average
Twilio SendGrid
7.0
48 Ratings
13% below category average
WYSIWYG email editor8.1118 Ratings7.035 Ratings
Dynamic content7.6149 Ratings6.738 Ratings
Ability to test dynamic content7.7108 Ratings5.636 Ratings
Landing pages7.8117 Ratings8.023 Ratings
A/B testing8.0147 Ratings7.128 Ratings
Mobile optimization7.3107 Ratings7.036 Ratings
Email deliverability reporting8.3128 Ratings7.448 Ratings
List management8.5125 Ratings7.542 Ratings
Triggered drip sequences8.191 Ratings7.122 Ratings
Lead Management
Comparison of Lead Management features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
8.3
121 Ratings
6% above category average
Twilio SendGrid
-
Ratings
Lead nurturing automation8.2107 Ratings00 Ratings
Lead scoring and grading8.2108 Ratings00 Ratings
Data quality management8.1113 Ratings00 Ratings
Automated sales alerts and tasks8.599 Ratings00 Ratings
Campaign Management
Comparison of Campaign Management features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
7.8
111 Ratings
5% above category average
Twilio SendGrid
-
Ratings
Calendaring8.3100 Ratings00 Ratings
Event/webinar marketing7.494 Ratings00 Ratings
Social Media Marketing
Comparison of Social Media Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
8.1
85 Ratings
7% above category average
Twilio SendGrid
-
Ratings
Social sharing and campaigns8.380 Ratings00 Ratings
Social profile integration7.836 Ratings00 Ratings
Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
8.2
121 Ratings
11% above category average
Twilio SendGrid
7.6
48 Ratings
1% below category average
Dashboards8.3115 Ratings7.446 Ratings
Standard reports8.3120 Ratings8.146 Ratings
Custom reports7.997 Ratings7.130 Ratings
Platform & Infrastructure
Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
7.7
121 Ratings
3% above category average
Twilio SendGrid
-
Ratings
API7.187 Ratings00 Ratings
Role-based workflow & approvals7.586 Ratings00 Ratings
Customizability7.4108 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration with Salesforce.com8.3110 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration with Microsoft Dynamics CRM8.613 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration with SugarCRM7.610 Ratings00 Ratings
Third-party software integrations7.021 Ratings00 Ratings
Pre-Send Testing
Comparison of Pre-Send Testing features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
-
Ratings
Twilio SendGrid
8.1
10 Ratings
1% above category average
URL Validation00 Ratings7.310 Ratings
Link Tracking00 Ratings8.110 Ratings
Image Validation00 Ratings9.08 Ratings
Inbox Display00 Ratings7.710 Ratings
Email Accessibility Tools00 Ratings7.710 Ratings
Spelling and Grammar Check00 Ratings8.18 Ratings
Spam Testing00 Ratings8.110 Ratings
Email Previews00 Ratings8.610 Ratings
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User Ratings
Salesforce Marketing CloudTwilio SendGrid
Likelihood to Recommend
8.1
(325 ratings)
7.7
(59 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.1
(114 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
4.1
(35 ratings)
8.1
(6 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(11 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
9.6
(9 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
7.0
(36 ratings)
3.0
(9 ratings)
In-Person Training
5.0
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
8.1
(7 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
3.0
(17 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
5.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
7.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
7.6
(34 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
8.0
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
7.0
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Salesforce Marketing CloudTwilio SendGrid
Likelihood to Recommend
Salesforce
I rated this a seven because I love Salesforce, and it is excellent on the sales side. However, the marketing side has some pros and cons. It is terrific for keeping track of lead, customer, and dealer information, but it is not easy to automate workflows, integrate other software, or create well-designed emails. It is also straightforward to generate reports, which is very helpful in keeping track of lead progression to better market those leads and turn them into customers.
Read full review
Twilio
Twilio SendGrid is well suited for those organizations who need to send mass emails very often to their prospects and customers and thus may be wary of a reliable tool that can do that without affecting domain reputation. It may be less suited for organizations which do not have say more than 10,000 target prospects and thus may rely only on 1:few ABM for sending emails.
Read full review
Pros
Salesforce
  • Filter relevant content so you can priorize those that are more relevant and resolve it first
  • Measure the traffic in the different social networks, as well as the response rate, average response time and other relevant metrics
  • Configure automation rules to order the work of those who must interact with the customer
Read full review
Twilio
  • Managing email lists / audiences is easy with features like groups and segments.
  • They provide pre-built email templates that are very easy to modify. It is also super easy to create new email templates with their drag-and-drop email builder.
  • Provides clear / easy-to-read analytics of email campaigns.
  • I can easily import large email contact lists all at once or add a user manually one-at-a-time, when needed.
Read full review
Cons
Salesforce
  • The email builder does not offer any way to catch/check bugs across different email service providers
  • Creating SQL is not as easy as drag-and-drop; a lot of technical knowledge is required
  • Salesforce Marketing Cloud is sold as a marketing tool, but to be honest, you need a LOT of technical IT support to run the tool
  • Einstein metrics are across the board; if you have multiple audiences in one instance of Salesforce Marketing Cloud you can't segment the data.
Read full review
Twilio
  • Not necessarily their Email API but their email in general - they are currently in beta for automated email sequences but are still bare bones. Much more work is needed before it can be used mainstream and be able to convert everything to SendGrid.
  • Helping with warming up our dedicated IP for the best-sending score.
  • We seem to hit the promotions folder a decent amount (maybe the IP problem above) and even a lot of their emails hit my spam or promotions folder (whether they be transactional or marketing) which isn't a great sign when trusting an ESP.
  • Transactional email sequences would be a huge plus.
  • Now that Twilio owns SenGrid, having an integrated platform where you could see all our transactional emails together.
  • Better reporting and split reporting between transactional and marketing emails.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Salesforce
As of right now we have not seen any other program that integrates as seamlessly into our Salesforce platform. We have barely scratched the surface of all the features and use cases. It would be irresponsible to make a move to another platform in the near future. We have not come up against any limitations that would prompt a need to switch
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Twilio
No answers on this topic
Usability
Salesforce
You won't find another solution that has as many features as Salesforce Marketing Cloud Interaction Studio. We all know Salesforce, we all know how big they are and it's not for nothing... Their tools do most of the things you want, need and even imagine. Using it is complicated, but the usability is infinite.
Read full review
Twilio
It has the potential to be really cool. However, it feels as if it was created by developers for developers (and I work with developers, yet even for me the instrument was somewhat not easy to use - just read SendGrid's help manuals...) However, if you are into data and your way of thinking is more mathematical rather than lyrical, you'll enjoy this instrument
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
Salesforce
Upgrades and timing of the upgrades were communicated well and planned during off hours for our work. If we did have a campaign scheduled during that time, it would kick-off after the system was back active. There were a few unplanned system down times, but it was a rare occurrence and those times were also short in duration.
Read full review
Twilio
No answers on this topic
Performance
Salesforce
Though the make up of MA apps is not built this way today, it would be nice to see them become more real-time. The integration between Salesforce and Pardot is not a true real-time integration. If I modify something in Salesforce, those changes are not automatically reflected in Pardot immediately. There is a delay of about 15 minutes before the systems sync. This delay, although not long, is less than ideal We would love the systems to be integrated real time such that changes are propagated from one system to the other immediately.
Read full review
Twilio
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Salesforce
They are really responsive and more than not solve the problem or give you insight to how you can manage the solution yourself. I do find however sometimes a long delay on the more complex issues when they need to loop in other departments. but overall a good experience with support
Read full review
Twilio
Twilio SendGrid Email API is everything we want it to be, and we have no reason to look for any other solution. Features and pricing match exactly what we need. As developers for SaaS products, Twilio SendGrid Email API provides a great service. I hope that they stay this way and don't inflate the service with too many marketing oriented features, because there are other tools for that and Twilio SendGrid Email API is a API for sending email first and foremost.
Read full review
In-Person Training
Salesforce
The trainers at the Pardot user conference (Elevate and Connections) were very knowledgeable and presented the material well. Again, the content was targeted to more of a new user audience, and was not really relevant for folks who had been using the product for 2+ years.
Read full review
Twilio
No answers on this topic
Online Training
Salesforce
Pardot's online training touches on all topics briefly and vaguely without much indepth exploration into how a final outcome could look, such as Nurturing Campaigns, Email templates, landing page templates, etc... The only true way to uncover Pardot's full capabilities is to have Front End design and coding experience. Without this key skill set, I would not recommend Pardot to another business.
Read full review
Twilio
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Salesforce
From an IT perspective, once you set up the Javascript beacon and start collecting data there is a waiting game. During this time you can start labeling your site actions which can be labor intensive for a single person, but you don't really have the final end-users on the platform yet. We did a lot of training so users were experienced, but it wasn't until they had their first tasks to accomplish that they started using the system and had questions. I'd recommend setting up some immediate goals for an end-user to start segmenting for the purpose of displaying message campaigns so you can jump start end-user action.
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Twilio
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Salesforce
I think that all of the marketing platforms I have evaluated and used in the past serve different markets and purposes. Salesforce Marketing Cloud was more palatable to our team because of our existing tech stack where we had Salesforce CRM already deployed and in use. Compared to Marketo and Hubspot, Salesforce Marketing Cloud is a bit dated in terms of the UI/UX and the overall experience but still meets the needs of our organization. Mailchimp, however, isn't even playing in the same arena and is meant for small organizations and companies that don't have a need for a full fledged offering that SFMC brings to the table.
Read full review
Twilio
Sendgrid has a lot of features that other providers have and a few more - like the dynamic template builder, which AWS SES doesn't have. We choose the provider based on the scenario of use and the provider we're using. If we're going to be making regular changes to a template, then we'd go with Sendgrid, as the changes will be easier to make and don't necessarily require developer intervention.
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Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Salesforce
was not involved with this part but i have not heard about clompaints
Read full review
Twilio
No answers on this topic
Scalability
Salesforce
Prior to this, we had no solution and literally were doing things on paper in a world where technology is outpacing paper. Having this process optimized has made it easier for the sales and marketing people to change information. From the training perspective, it has allowed us to see holes in where we could create additional support training, so the ROI here has been a lot more than just the optimization of a process.
Read full review
Twilio
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Salesforce
  • Salesforce Marketing Cloud allows us to more efficiently reach out to a higher number of prospects.
  • Salesforce Marketing Cloud allows us to nimbly communicate important messages in a timely fashion to facilitate conversion.
  • Salesforce Marketing Cloud allows us to track who is opening our messages so that we can stop sending to those not interested and focus on the most engaged audiences.
Read full review
Twilio
  • As it was cheaper than the transactional service we previously used, it saved costs.
  • The API was relatively easy to work with so it helped us ship the service and test it quickly.
  • We still use the transactional email service, even though we recognize its limits as it meets our immediate needs.
Read full review
ScreenShots

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Screenshots

Screenshot of Pardot Analytics - Pardot's reporting and analytics can be used to perform true revenue impact analysis and closed-loop reporting.Screenshot of Pardot Email Analytics - The reach and impact of  email marketing efforts are displayed in real-time with advanced reporting and analytics by device, and email client.Screenshot of Pardot Forms and Landing Pages - Pardot's form and landing page builders are used to turn online traffic to leads with targeted offers and content marketing.Screenshot of Pardot Email Marketing - Lead nurturing flows are defined via an interface that enables definition of the simplest or most complex segmented and targeted campaigns.