What is Salesforce Marketing Cloud?
Salesforce uses the terms ‘Marketing Cloud' and ‘Agentforce Marketing’ as umbrella terms to refer to the collection of marketing products they sell. Their three flagship offerings include Marketing Cloud Engagement, Marketing Cloud Account Engagement, and Marketing Cloud Next. Note, these are three distinct products.
Marketing Cloud Engagement (formerly ExactTarget) is primarily designed for business-to-consumer (B2C) multi-channel marketing across email, SMS, and mobile. Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (formerly Pardot) is primarily designed for business-to-business (B2B) marketing automation and lead nurturing. Because both of these products were acquired by Salesforce, they require integration with Salesforce Sales Cloud for full CRM connectivity (see here and here).
The newest addition, Marketing Cloud Next, launched in 2024, brings generative AI capabilities to both B2B and B2C teams. It is the only product of the three built natively on the Salesforce platform, and it leverages Data 360 (formerly Data Cloud) for unified customer data and personalized engagement.
What is HubSpot Marketing Hub?
HubSpot Marketing Hub is a unified, AI-powered marketing automation platform. It gives B2B and B2C teams everything they need to build awareness across channels, convert high-intent prospects with personalized outreach, and execute campaigns faster. It's built to simplify. Designed to scale as you grow.
Improve your visibility with AI search optimization & multi-channel management
Your customers are finding businesses with AI. HubSpot’s Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) makes sure they’re finding you. See how you’re showing up in AI answers, get actionable tips for improvement, and then optimize your content across channels. With Breeze, you can easily generate and repurpose content across email, SMS, web, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube, Reddit, and more – all consistent with your brand voice, all in one platform. Salesforce, on the other hand, doesn’t offer native AI answer optimization and doesn’t support as many channels.
Increase your team’s capacity with AI & automation
The best marketing teams aren't working harder. They're using better tools. HubSpot identifies companies showing purchase intent on your website, automatically scores target accounts and contacts, and helps you build entire customer journeys using natural language prompts — from content to segments to automations and reports. And when your team needs an extra hand, that’s where Breeze Agents and Assistants step in. Customer agent autonomously qualifies leads and resolves customer inquiries, while custom assistants handle the repeat work – so you can get back to marketing strategy. Salesforce, on the other hand, requires additional licenses for AI agents.
Tie your campaigns to revenue with connected data & reporting
Great marketing runs on great data. That’s why HubSpot offers built-in data enrichment, and a data agent for custom research. With Marketing Hub, you can build, enrich, and activate segments using your marketing, CRM, website, and external data. Generate personalized content by segment, analyze segment performance, and visualize end-to-end customer journeys. With attribution reporting connecting every touchpoint to revenue, you know exactly what's moving the needle and where to focus next. Conversely, Salesforce requires add-ons for advanced tracking and personalization and lacks similar data enrichment and data agent capabilities.
Pricing and product feature information on this page reflects what was publicly available as of April 2026. Before making a decision, verify current pricing and features directly on each platform's official documentation.
1. Based on a survey of 232 HubSpot customers who switched from Salesforce, conducted in March 2026.
2. Based on a HubSpot survey of 1,546 CRM users across the globe conducted in August 2025.