logo salesforce essentials
Salesforce reviews
3.7 (3 reviews)

Salesforce Essentials is a comprehensive CRM tool designed specifically for small businesses. It provides all the basic functionality required to manage leads, customers, and transactions. This software eliminates the need for complex sales software configuration, offering a simple yet effective solution. Salesforce Essentials is perfect for businesses seeking a straightforward approach to managing their customer relationships and sales processes.

  • 01Pros and cons from reviewers
  • 02Main features
  • 03What is Salesforce?
  • 04How Salesforce compare to similar software?
  • 05Who is Salesforce best for according to our reviewers?
  • 06Salesforce reviews

Pros from reviewers

  • Salesforce Essentials offers all-in-one solution: Salesforce Essentials provides a comprehensive solution for sales, offering all the necessary tools in one place. This feature enhances efficiency and productivity by eliminating the need to switch between different platforms for various tasks

  • Cloud-based services: Salesforce Essentials operates on a cloud-based platform, allowing users to access their data from anywhere, anytime. This feature also ensures quick responses and real-time updates, enhancing the speed and efficiency of sales operations

  • Easy documentation and tracking: Salesforce Essentials allows users to document and track all their interactions with clients. This feature is particularly beneficial for grant managers and writers, as it enables them to record every interaction with a funder, including the proposal and any other documentation received

  • Highly customizable: Salesforce Essentials offers a high level of customization, allowing users to tailor the platform to their specific needs. This feature makes it incredibly powerful in terms of automations and user interface, enhancing its functionality and usability

  • Global leading CRM: Salesforce Essentials is globally recognized as a leading CRM software. Its broad array of features and functionalities, combined with its high level of customization, make it a powerful tool for managing customer relationships.

Cons from reviewers

  • Limited customization options: Salesforce Essentials does not allow for much customization, particularly in task tracking. Users have reported difficulty in adjusting the system to fit their specific needs, such as being unable to customize due dates for tasks

  • Slow verification process: Users have reported that the verification process can be slow, causing delays in their work

  • Limited functionality: Despite its wide array of features, Salesforce Essentials lacks some basic functionalities that users expect from a modern CRM tool. For example, users cannot sort by most fields, add custom fields to list views, or modify the number of records per page

  • Complex backend management: Managing the backend of Salesforce Essentials can be quite complex, requiring a dedicated individual to handle the platform. This can be a disadvantage for smaller teams or businesses without the resources to dedicate to this task

  • Poor mobile app: Users have reported that the mobile app lacks crucial features, such as the ability to include notes. This can make it difficult for users to work effectively while on the go.

Main features

Starting Price

$26

/ user / month

Free Plan

No

Email templates

Lead and opportunity management

Transaction tracking

Integrations

Mobile app

What is Salesforce?

Salesforce Essentials is a powerful tool designed specifically for small businesses. It serves as a comprehensive solution for tracking and managing relationships with leads and customers by centralizing all essential data in one place. The software not only organizes data but also provides a visual representation of your sales pipeline, offering meaningful insights into sales performance. Salesforce Essentials acts as an operational dashboard, providing real-time insights. It also plays a crucial role in managing customer relationships, simplifying communication and ensuring consistency across all touchpoints. This tool helps to strengthen the bond between businesses and their clients. Deals on Salesforce Essentials and other top SaaS can be found at Secret to help drive business growth.
logo salesforce essentials

Salesforce

vs

logo hubspot

HubSpot

Both HubSpot and Salesforce are highly relevant SaaS solutions if you’re looking for reliable, reputable and comprehensive CRM software. However, their biggest difference lies in their target market. HubSpot is a more attractive choice for startups and SMEs. Salesforce, on the other hand, is an ideal choice for large enterprises. This difference in focus is the source of many of the differences we see when we compare these two software tools.


HubSpot is an all-in-one suite with integrated CRM functionalities. It's less expensive than its competitor Salesforce, but its functionalities mean it's primarily intended for use in marketing and sales. It's perfect for smaller companies or start-ups that don't necessarily have a great deal of experience in CRM deployment and operation. It's also easier to use and customize to your specific business needs. HubSpot's ease-of-use and attractive interface are major advantages. What's more, by centralizing sales, marketing, customer service and...

logo salesforce essentials

Salesforce

CRM software for SMEs

50% off Annual Subscription on Salesforce

Save up to $1,500

logo hubspot

HubSpot

CRM, marketing automation & customer service software suite

75% off for 1 year on HubSpot

Save up to $7,000

logo salesforce essentials

Salesforce

vs

logo zoho

Zoho

One of the key differences between the two solutions is their pricing. Salesforce is the more expensive. While Zoho CRM plans start at $14/month/user, Salesforce starts at $25/month/user. Zoho’s plans max out at $52/month/user for its Ultimate plan. Salesforce’s Unlimited plan is priced at $330/user/month. Zoho also offers a free version with solid CRM features, including contact management, email marketing, sales automation, and more. Ultimately, Salesforce is a premium product. You pay a higher price for it, but you get increased functionality in return. 


Zoho and Salesforce’s AI features also diverge. Zoho’s AI work assistant, Zia, is designed to make your CRM more efficient. It can make workflow automation suggestions, run analytics for personalized customer recommendations, and perform data enrichment to find missing lead data. It also suggests basic writing improvements. Zia is only available with Zoho’s top-tier plans. Salesforce’s AI assistant, Einstein, is generative...

logo salesforce essentials

Salesforce

CRM software for SMEs

50% off Annual Subscription on Salesforce

Save up to $1,500

logo zoho

Zoho

All-in-one customer relationship management software

INR 1.8 lacs of credit on Zoho

Save up to $2,203

logo salesforce essentials

Salesforce

vs

logo zendesk

Zendesk

Zendesk Sell and Salesforce Sales Cloud are two top-rated CRM solutions. Understanding their fundamental differences helps you find the right solution for your business. One of the main differences is the broader ecosystem in which the two tools exist. Zendesk and Salesforce offer a suite of products, one of which is their CRM. Zendesk focuses on the service aspect of sales and its other products reflect this. In addition to its CRM, Zendesk provides a ticket management system, personalized chat, community forums, and help center tools. The platform supports multi-channel customer support including tickets, email, text, and social media. It also offers Zendesk Sunshine, a CRM native to Amazon Web Services (AWS), to help you connect customer data. These products are especially popular with small to medium businesses. 


In addition to its Sales Cloud, Salesforce offers customer service and marketing clouds. You can combine these to enable the sharing and management of customer data...

logo salesforce essentials

Salesforce

CRM software for SMEs

50% off Annual Subscription on Salesforce

Save up to $1,500

logo zendesk

Zendesk

Create a customer success support suite that is accessible and available to your customers at all times.

6 months free on Zendesk

Save up to $50,000

Who is Salesforce best for according to our reviewers?

  • Sales Representatives: Salesforce Essentials is a highly efficient tool for sales representatives, offering all necessary tools in one place and boosting daily sales with quick responses and cloud services

  • Grant Managers: As a CRM, Salesforce Essentials is beneficial for grant managers, allowing them to document all interactions with funders and potential funders, and keep track of all related documentation in one place

  • Backend Managers: Despite its complexity, Salesforce Essentials is a powerful tool for backend managers due to its high customizability and broad array of features and functionalities

  • Small Business Owners: Salesforce Essentials may not be the best fit for small business owners due to its high cost, complex interface, and the need for extensive training to fully utilize the software

  • Disgruntled Users: Some users have found Salesforce Essentials to be user-unfriendly, with a sensitive interface that can lead to errors and a need for extensive phone support.

  • Salesforce reviews

    3.7

    Salesforce rating

    4.0

    Ease of use

    4.0

    Customer service

    3.9

    Value for money

    3.8

    Likelihood to recommend

    4.1

    Features

    3 Salesforce reviews

    3.7 (3 reviews)
    • Martha

      Rediscovering Salesforce Essentials: A Journey of Transparency, Affordability, and Exceptional Customer Service

      I have to say, my journey with Salesforce Essentials has been quite an interesting one. Years ago, I reached out to them and was quoted $1 per month, which was a bit steep for me at the time. However, I recently saw their CEO on Jim Cramer's show discussing the challenges they were facing, which I found quite transparent and honest. What really caught my attention was their recent report of record sales. It made me think, if they're doing so well, they must be doing something right. This sparked my curiosity and I decided to give them another shot. I was pleasantly surprised to find they now offer introductory packages for as low as $25 per month, which is a great option for small businesses like mine. When I called them last week, I was impressed by their quick response. I received a call back from one representative, and when I called back, another representative was ready to assist me. It's quite impressive to think that a company as large as Salesforce has such a dedicated team ready to help at any time. Although the person I needed to discuss plans with was out of the office, I was assured they would get back to me as soon as possible. It's comforting to know that they value each customer and are willing to go the extra mile to ensure we get the help we need. I'm looking forward to exploring what Salesforce Essentials can do for my business. Their dedication and commitment to customer service is truly commendable.

      April 21, 2024

    • Frank C

      Salesforce Essentials: A Game-Changer for Career Progression

      Salesforce Essentials has been a game-changer in my career, paving the way for my early retirement decision. It's a comprehensive platform that encourages meticulous data input, ensuring no detail is overlooked. The management's focus on closing tickets has instilled a sense of accomplishment in me, as it highlights the progress of our work. The platform's requirement for detailed fields, even for simple tasks, has been a boon, promoting thoroughness and precision. I'm thrilled to have had the opportunity to work with such a robust platform.

      April 15, 2024

    • Forrest

      Effortless User Experience

      Overall, I find Salesforce Essentials to be an excellent product. As a grant manager, I use it to document all my interactions with funders and potential funders. It's the simplest product I've used in my ten years of experience. I value its function as a CRM, despite it being designed for a slightly different purpose. As a grant writer, I can record every interaction with a funder, including the proposal and any other documentation we've received. It's easy to trace the entire history with an organization, which helps me keep everything in one place. However, I wish the task tracking was set up differently, or at least customizable. I use task tracking to record every interaction I have with a funder, but it doesn't perfectly fit for that. For instance, I want to note that I emailed them and I have to select a "due date", even though there isn't one. I just put today's date, but I wish I could customize it.

      April 13, 2024

    1 to 3 of 3 results

    Save on the best SaaS with Secret.

    Secret has already helped tens of thousands of startups save millions of dollars on the best SasS like Salesforce and 386 more. Join Secret now to buy SaaS the smart way.