Microsoft Dynamics vs. Salesforce: Comparison 2024
Microsoft Dynamics vs. Salesforce: Comparison 2024 Salesforce vs. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Overview Salesforce’s Sales Hub and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales are similar products that offer most of the CRM features you expect to find in standalone CRM software. We compare these two as the primary CRM offerings from both providers, though other products exist for marketing, customer service and other work management functions. Salesforce is a highly customizable CRM that teams can configure for almost any business need, while Microsoft Dynamics 365 serves as a centralized place for customer data for teams that already use it. Salesforce vs. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Comparison Combine Microsoft and Power BI Microsoft Power BI In our survey, CRM users cited workflow automation, contact activity tracking and task management as the most important CRM features. We used these insights to guide us as we tested Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics 365. There are some notable differences between the platforms’ contact and sales pipeline management approaches, but they offer similar sales assistants powered by artificial intelligence (AI). Microsoft Dynamics is also commonly known as an enterprise resource planning (ERP) tool. Source: MarketWatch Guides Features Overview Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics 365 offer very similar feature lists for CRM. However, Salesforce offers more native features for marketing automation. Microsoft Dynamics does not include any email-related features in the Sales product, which puts it at a disadvantage compared to many other CRM platforms. Our Salesforce Review and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Review offer more in-depth analyses of these platforms’ top features. Salesforce Sales CloudMicrosoft Dynamics 365 SalesMonthly Price Range$20-$500/user$65-$135/userContact Management✅✅Workflow Automation✅✅Lead Management✅✅Lead Scoring✅✅Pipeline Management✅✅Sales Forecasting✅✅Email Marketing Automation✅❌Analytics✅✅AI-Powered Tools✅(Einstein)✅(Copilot AI)Phone Support✅✅Live Chat✅✅ Contact Management Power BI – Data Visualization Microsoft Power Platform Microsoft Dynamics 356’s contact profiles are well-organized and easy to navigate, following a similar structure to many popular CRM systems. When we tested the platform, the profiles stood out as one of the more user-friendly features. We could add notes and easily edit contact information without searching through settings. Aside from the contact profiles, Microsoft Dynamics’s approach to the overall contact list is unique. The different Excel-powered charts allowed us to get quick insights into the customer data on the platform. For instance, we could create a drill-down chart of contacts by their city in just a few clicks. While testing the platform, we imagined plenty of use cases for these quick insights and charts. By comparison, Salesforce keeps its analytics separate from the customer profiles, which is the typical setup for customer data within most CRM platforms. The Salesforce customer profiles display contact information alongside upcoming tasks logged in the platform, related opportunities, deals and any quotes a customer has received. These capabilities make it simple for sales teams to refer to any information they need about a customer. View of a sample customer profile in Salesforce. Sales Pipeline Management Power BI – Data Visualization Microsoft Power Platform Microsoft Dynamics’s approach to the sales pipeline is unique compared to other CRM systems we’ve tested. By default, the platform organizes deals in various charts highlighting the sales funnel stages. Most platforms include a list of open deals or, most often, a Kanban-style view of the different deal stages, with movable deal cards sorted into various boards indicating their status. This could be a major plus for teams that don’t love a Kanban board. However, for teams looking for streamlined and straightforward opportunity management, it could overcomplicate how team members view the sales process in the platform. Salesforce’s default configuration for the sales pipeline is a more traditional deal tracking board with the option for a list view. We liked that dragging and dropping the deal cards with automatic deal value calculations at the top of each stage in the pipeline was easy. Sample view of the Salesforce sales pipeline. AI-Powered Features What is Power BI Desktop? – Power BI Microsoft Learn Both Microsoft and Salesforce include AI assistants in their CRM products. Microsoft’s Copilot AI and Salesforce’s Einstein AI are helpful chatbots that users can interact with, similar to ChatGPT. These AI-powered tools also power forecasting, predictive scoring and other advanced features. Microsoft just rolled out Copilot AI last year, and it is helpful for tasks like generating a summary of an open deal; however, it struggled to understand natural language requests. AI tools across the CRM space are very new, and we expect they will learn and improve over time to help streamline CRM strategies. Pricing Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Salesforce offer similar CRM pricing structures, so comparing their pricing is straightforward. Microsoft’s primary sales product has a lower starting price than Salesforce’s Sales Cloud, and Salesforce has a much more comprehensive price range, with the top Einstein 1 Sales plan costing $500 per user per month. Power BI – Data Visualization Microsoft Power Platform However, both platforms offer “starter kits” at lower prices with various features across the board. In Salesforce’s case, these are the Starter Suite and Pro Suite, which include top features from the Sales, Marketing and Service Clouds. The Microsoft Dynamics Business Central product is similar, with key features from Dynamics 365 Sales and Service, emphasizing core business functions and finance rather than marketing. Salesforce Pricing Our Salesforce Pricing Guide offers a more in-depth look into Salesforce’s pricing structure. ProductPlanPriceSalesforce Sales CloudProfessional $80/user/month Enterprise $165/user/monthUnlimited$330/user/month Einstein 1 Sales$500/user/month Small Business (Combines Sales, Marketing and Service features) Starter Suite$25/user/monthPro Suite$100/user/month Microsoft Dynamics Pricing ProductPlanPriceMicrosoft Dynamics 365 SalesProfessional $65/user/month Enterprise $95/user/monthPremium$135/user/month Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business CentralEssentials$70/monthPremium$100/month Integrations Salesforce is difficult to beat when it comes to native integrations, and it’s easy to search for any specific third-party apps you need to connect with the Appexchange marketplace. The Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM is excellent as part of a Microsoft ecosystem, but connecting it with outside tools is more complicated.Competitor software like Google tools won’t be available, and we were also surprised to see that Zapier integration was not an option for Dynamics 365 in the Microsoft AppSource marketplace. However, both platforms offer an API for developers. PlatformSalesforce Sales Cloud Microsoft Dynamics 365 SalesGmail✅❌Google Calendar✅❌Mailchimp✅✅Facebook Ads✅✅Zoom✅✅Slack✅✅Sprout Social✅✅Shopify✅✅Stripe✅✅PandaDoc✅✅DocuSign✅✅Five9✅✅Trello✅❌Asana✅❌Zapier✅❌ Customer Support Salesforce and …