Salesforce Essentials Review: Is It Right for Your Business?

Salesforce Essentials is one of our recommendations for the best customer relationship management (CRM) systems for small businesses. Based on our evaluation of the best CRMs, this platform scored high in general features, specialized features, customer service, and expert score. However, it received lower scores in pricing because of the lack of plan options. It also scored lower in ease of use because of its overwhelming layout and menu display.

When to Use Salesforce Essentials

• Small business CRM: This platform is one of our best choices for CRMs for small businesses.
• Social media management: This provider is included in our top recommended social CRM platforms.
• Email marketing: We recommend this solution for small teams that need a CRM with basic email marketing features.

When to Use an Alternative

• More than 10 users in the plan: Consider using Salesforce’s higher tiers or Pipedrive if you need a CRM that can support more users.
• Social media outreach: Try Zoho CRM if you want an alternative with social media marketing initiatives.
• Ecommerce and wholesale business: Check out this guide to look for CRM options with features for running your ecommerce business.

Salesforce Essentials is a CRM system for small businesses that integrates with the overall ecosystem of Salesforce apps. You can customize its contact management, sales opportunities, mass emailing, and customer service ticketing features to fit your business requirements. It is best for small sales and support teams looking for highly customizable CRM software.

Salesforce Essentials Deciding Factors

Salesforce Essentials Alternatives

If this platform doesn’t meet your business needs, below are some highly rated alternatives to consider:

Best For	Businesses with lengthy or unique lead nurturing processes	Businesses that want an affordable CRM with excellent analytics tools	Companies that need visual representations of their sales pipelines	Ecommerce and online retail businesses
Starting Price*	Free (unlimited users) or $15 per user, monthly	Free (3 users) or $14 per user, monthly	$14 per user, every month	Free (unlimited users) or $49 per month (5 users)
	Freshsales Review	Zoho CRM Review	Pipedrive Review	Bitrix24 Review

*Based on annual billing; monthly pricing is also available at slightly higher rates

Salesforce Essentials Pricing

2.50 / 10

Salesforce Essentials pricing scored 2.5 out of 5, mainly because of the lack of other plan options. It offers a single subscription plan that costs $25 per user, each month (billed annually), and supports up to 10 users. This package includes tools for managing contacts, accounts, leads, and opportunities. Other Salesforce Essentials features include lead assignment, email templates, custom reports and dashboards, and case management.

You may sign up for its 14-day free trial to see how this CRM system works before you commit to its paid plan.

Salesforce Essentials Features

General Features

4.63 / 10

In this Salesforce Essentials review, we gave this provider a score of 3.75 out of 5 for its general features. It has excellent tools for managing accounts, contacts, leads, and opportunities. You can also customize your sales processes, as well as manage tasks and activities. Additionally, it has mobile apps for Android and iOS devices that offer full offline functionality. Plus, there’s a built-in software called Chatter for communication, file sharing, and team collaboration.

Other standout Salesforce Essentials features include real-time sales insights and configurable reports and dashboards with drag-and-drop functionality. However, it does not offer forecasting, cross-filters (filters that let you identify a record with or without a related record), or history tracking features. If these features are essential to your business, try Bitrix24 or upgrade to a higher Salesforce tier.

Check out this platform’s general features below:

• Account management
• Contact management
• Lead management
• Opportunity management
• Campaign management
• Customizable sales process
• Task management and activity feed
• Email templates
• Mobile app
• Chatter

Specialized Features

5.00 / 10

We gave the Salesforce Essentials edition a score of 5 out of 5 for its specialized features because it provides separate consoles for sales and service within the same platform. This is a unique feature that is not offered in most CRM solutions for small businesses. Aside from that, it comes with a Lightning Flow Automation tool for automating and managing your organization’s sales and support processes.

Sales Cloud

The sales cloud provides tools for selling smarter. For example, you can generate leads from your company website’s visitors, track and qualify prospects, and then route hot leads to the right agents. It lets you manage your contacts, customer engagement, and opportunity stages. Moreover, you can send targeted emails to leads and monitor your marketing campaigns across all channels.

Service Cloud

The service cloud of the Salesforce Essentials edition serves as a platform for customer case management. You can integrate it easily with telephony systems like the private branch exchange (PBX) or voice-over-internet-protocol (VoIP), so you can make and receive calls. It also allows you to engage with customers via live chat, create cases from social media, and send artificial intelligence (AI)-powered responses. It also lets you set up a self-service site for your customers.

Customization & Automation

This CRM’s Lighting Flow Automation tool allows you to automate and manage up to five business processes and five flows per organization. It has a drag-and-drop tool called Lightning App Builder with prebuilt and custom components you can use for customized apps and pages. You can also install native apps from the AppExchange store.

Third-party Integrations

You can extend this CRM’s capabilities by connecting it to other apps you frequently use to run your business. Some of its popular integrations include Outlook, Google Workspace, DocuSign, QuickBooks, and Dropbox. You can sync these apps via AppExchange, Zapier, Automate.io, or Workato. Some apps like Mailchimp and Slack also provide integration via an application programming interface (API).

Some of this platform’s most popular integrations include:

• Outlook
• Google Workspace
• Slack
• QuickBooks
• Mailchimp
• LinkedIn
• DocuSign
• ActiveCampaign
• Jira Software
• Dropbox

Customer Service

4.25 / 10

We gave this CRM a score of 4.25 out of 5 for customer service. Salesforce offers three levels of support under its Success Plans: Standard, Premier, and Signature. All types of licenses—including the Salesforce Essentials edition—offer Standard Success support. This gives you access to self-guided resources, a help portal, demos, events, and community advice. It also includes a two-day email response time for technical support cases submitted online.

The Premier Success plan costs 30% of the net price of the software subscription. It adds 24/7 phone support and developer support on top of the inclusions in Standard Success. You also receive access to the following services:

• Expert coaching and training sessions
• Personalized recommendations and resources
• 25% discount on Salesforce classes and certifications
• Business value reviews by Salesforce experts
• Technical health reviews by Salesforce experts

Under the Signature Plan, a technical account manager (TAM) assigned to your account documents your needs and prioritizes solutions to issues you encounter. You also get predeployment support, 24/7 automated solution monitoring, and key event management services. The cost of this plan depends on the complexity and scale of your business solution.

Ease of Use

1.00 / 10

When it comes to ease of use, this provider got a score of 1 out of 5. This platform is best suited for users with intermediate level technical skills. There is a bit of a learning curve to it, it takes several clicks to accomplish an action, and the number of display options can be overwhelming for beginners. However, it offers many video tutorials, in-app prompts, and self-help resources for users who need assistance in using the software.

Expert Score

3.75 / 10

In this Salesforce Essentials review, we gave it a score of 3.75 out of 5. Most of its users like its out-of-the-box setup and its robust contact and lead management features. They also appreciate its collaboration tools, mobile app, and straightforward reporting tools. Many users commended the platform’s deep customization options.

However, many shared that its extensive customization and automation features make it overwhelming and confusing, especially for new users. Some find Salesforce Essentials pricing to be a bit expensive for the set of features it offers. Others said that it is hard to reach the customer service team and get direct answers from them. Despite these downsides, most users consider it worth the effort to learn how to use the program.

As of this writing, it has earned the following scores from the most popular review sites:

• Capterra: 4.3 out of 5 based on 160 reviews
• G2: 4.2 out of 5 based on 643 reviews
• TrustRadius: 8.8 out of 10 based on 70 reviews

Bottom Line

Salesforce Essentials is a scaled-down version of Salesforce’s sales and support CRM editions. While it has a 10-user limit, it is equipped with powerful sales automation, lead management, and customer support tools. Sign up for a 14-day free trial to see Salesforce Essentials in action.

You Might Also Like…

• Do you want to save time creating sales projections? Download our free sales forecast templates for small businesses.
• Do you want to refine the way you make business decisions to improve your customer relationships? Follow our step-by-step guide on how to create an effective CRM process.
• Are you ready to create your own CRM strategy? Read our guide on how to formulate one and download our free CRM strategy worksheet.