Salesforce CRM software comes in multiple editions to best meet the unique requirements of business. Here, we have a Salesforce CRM editions comparison guide so that you can select one suited to your needs. Salesforce boasts an expansive product offering, from marketing automation solutions and eCommerce storefronts to standard CRM software explicitly designed to support companies of various sizes across industries such as healthcare and finance.
Today, customer relationship management (CRM) is big business - accounting for almost 25 percent of enterprise software sales. One prominent brand within this field is Salesforce CRM. Forbes estimated that Salesforce held 19.5% market share in 2023, more than twice its closest rival's 9.4%. As such, companies looking to enhance their customer relationship management (CRM) capabilities should investigate Salesforce's offerings as an option.
Due to variations among companies' primary CRM products for handling B2B sales, there can be numerous CRM products on offer from which your sales staff may choose - making CIS an invaluable ally when selecting from this variety. All versions offer software as a service capability enabling desktop or mobile access online or via cloud infrastructure. Helping you select the Salesforce edition best suited to your business is our objective here: let's compare them.
Below are the five Salesforce CRM editions currently available:
- Essentials
- Professional
- Enterprise
- Unlimited
- Developer
Salesforce Essentials Edition
This Salesforce edition serves to aid sales teams with routine job tasks at $25 per user per month, which represents one-third less than its price in comparison with subsequent version(s). Thus, it makes this edition ideal for smaller sales teams or those wanting a first taste before upgrading. This edition's tasks cover various categories. These tasks may include:
- Keep track of customer contact information.
- Handle all leads, including sending them to the right sales representatives.
- Keeping sales opportunity tracking, including the customer's stage in the sales cycle.
- Oversee and monitor marketing campaigns
- Make bulk lists and email templates so you can send emails to several clients at once.
- Case management features that let the appropriate group receive customer inquiries
- Make five automated workflows and up to five computerized processes.
- Exchange and work together on files
- Basic reporting abilities
Salesforce Professional Edition
At this point, Salesforce's CRM features become truly attractive. If your company boasts an established sales force that justifies hiring managers for sales management duties, purchasing the Professional edition may be best.
Sales teams can take advantage of the features and pricing of Salesforce Professional edition, which costs $75 per user per month. Locate leads and automatically grade them so that the most likely leads are prioritized to close the deal.
- Calculate revenue generated from all relevant advertising campaigns to identify which business-to-business (B2B) marketing tactics are most successful.
- To plan your sales goals, create forecasts.
- Manage contracts, including those for business sales, with the capacity to carry out and monitor approvals and renewals.
- Oversee a product catalog and establish prices.
- Keep tabs on and handle sales orders.
- Compile and monitor quotes for customers.
- Restricted ability to manage CRM information access rights
Salesforce Enterprise Edition
The Enterprise edition, as its name suggests, is meant for large organizations with several teams. Its features are intended to enhance cross-group coordination and collaboration, for example, between account management and sales teams.
This edition allows you to customize the Salesforce platform to meet any special business requirements or integrate it with external software applications used within your organization. Furthermore, custom software development may be utilized if some processes or conditions don't meet Salesforce standards. Pricing structure for one of Salesforce's most comprehensive CRM versions increases to $150 per user per month. Included are all features from lower-tier editions, as well as:
- Assignment of teams to deals allows multiple teams from within an organization to collaborate effectively on large contracts.
- Capacity to divide a sales opportunity management so that commissions are allocated to all parties involved in closing a deal fairly
- Personalization of the forecasting features to meet the unique requirements of your company
- Establishing sales territories to assist in duties such as matching customers with the appropriate sales representatives
- Complete control over who can access any CRM data
- Possibility of developing an infinite number of workflows and automated processes
- Access to a developer sandbox that is only partially used for coding new CRM features
- Application programming interfaces (APIs) for Salesforce that your business can use to build custom objects enhancements on top of Salesforce
- Features for advanced reporting that allow you to track historical trends
Salesforce Unlimited Edition
This version is ideal for businesses that require maximum flexibility to tailor Salesforce to the particular requirements of their company. This edition is, therefore, best suited to businesses with an in-house engineering team that can make modifications to software for customization purposes.
Except for additional customer support and access to Salesforce technical teams for advice, the Unlimited Edition is identical to its Enterprise counterpart. Furthermore, this offering includes a fully equipped sandbox environment - essential when developing custom software before it goes live within your organization. Since your business can create an infinite variety of Salesforce enhancements, this edition can be considered unlimited. However, given all its customization-related difficulties, this edition costs $300 per user per month.
Salesforce Developer Edition
You may have heard of a Developer edition of Salesforce in addition to the other versions we just covered. Salesforce provides software platforms that developers with coding experience can use to create apps and product customizations. Salesforce calls this division of its company the Developer edition.
The name might need to be clarified. To be clear, the Developer edition is not meant to be used by your business as a stand-alone CRM. Salesforce's CRM can only be accessed by purchasing one of the other editions. Nevertheless, any developer can download the Developer edition and start submitting free software applications to Salesforce.
This version is tailored towards software engineers. When encountering difficulties, please reach out to the Salesforce developer community, as technical support is not included (it is free). But remember, AppExchange offers clients an avenue through which apps may be sold if available.
How Do You Select The Appropriate Salesforce Edition For You?
It would help if you considered the following in order to determine the right Salesforce edition based on business size and needs:
Business Requirement
Outlining your company's needs is the first step in choosing the appropriate software. Do you require tools for sales forecasting or a better way to manage your sales territories? Are you in need of unique workflows, and do you have an engineering team that can develop custom apps to improve Salesforce's capabilities? Consider the needs of your business in terms of optimizing workflow, boosting team output, and above all improving client interactions.
Size Of Your Team
If your organization has more than one team or teams under management, consider the Professional, Enterprise, or Unlimited editions. The Essentials edition might be sufficient if your business is small and only employs a few sales representatives once it reaches a size where an upgrade becomes necessary.
Budget
Cost can often be a deciding factor when purchasing CRM features for small to mid-sized enterprises, so be sure to select only those advanced features that will meet the minimum criteria acceptable to your business. Investigate other examples as well in order to find software tailored to both your budget needs and individual preferences.
Conclusion
Salesforce dominates the CRM market with an expansive market share and a wide array of products designed to address different business requirements. Offering solutions designed for both small businesses' basic needs as well as complex enterprise requirements, Salesforce remains at the forefront of customer relationship management software solutions - and is often chosen first by those trying to maximize customer interactions.
However, selecting the right Salesforce edition requires having a firm grasp of one's team size, organizational requirements, and financial limitations. Through the alignment of these factors with the additional features of every Salesforce edition, organizations can make well-informed decisions that drive them towards increased productivity, better teamwork, and, ultimately, stronger customer relationships.
You can choose the Salesforce version that best suits your needs by being honest about your business requirements and what is feasible at this point in your growth (remember, you can always upgrade later). You can guide your business towards better customer relationships with a robust CRM.
