Act-On vs Salesforce
Which one do AI engines recommend, and how do they differ on price, fit and features?
The short answer
Salesforce is the stronger AI pick in Marketing Automation: it has a visibility score of 39.3 versus 1 for Act-On, and ranks ahead in 100% of the answers that name both.
Choose Act-On if…
- AI answers describe it more positively (33% vs 21% positive)
- Favored for mid-market demand generation
- Lower total cost of ownership
- Fast deployment
Choose Salesforce if…
- You want the brand AI engines rank higher (39.3 vs 1)
- You need ISO 27001:2022 or ISO 27017 or ISO 27018 or SOC 1 or SOC 2 or SOC 3 or HITRUST coverage
- You prefer a larger, established vendor (5,000+ employees)
- Powerful reporting, automation and customisation
AI visibility side by side
Latest weekly run · Nov 2
| Metric | Act-On | Salesforce |
|---|---|---|
| Visibility score | 1% | 39.3% |
| Change vs last week | New | New |
| Rank in Marketing Automation | #31 | #3 |
| Share of voice | 0.5% | 8.9% |
| Mentions this run | 3 | 49 |
| Positive in AI answers | 33% | 21% |
The stronger value in each row is marked with a ✓.
Visibility score trend
Weekly runs over the last 60 days
Act-On 0pp · Salesforce 0pp over 0 weekly runs.
Engine by engine
Salesforce leads on 3 of 3 engines
Head to head in AI answers
3 engine answers name both brands
| Prompt | Engine | Act-On | Salesforce |
|---|---|---|---|
| Which marketing automation vendors do analysts recommend? | ChatGPT | #12 | #1 |
| Which marketing automation vendors do analysts recommend? | AI Mode | #7 | #3 |
| Official website of the top marketing automation platform vendors | ChatGPT | #14 | #3 |
Features, pricing & fit
| Dimension | Act-On | Salesforce |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Usage-based | — |
| Entry price | $900 / mo | — |
| Free plan | No | — |
| Deployment | — | Cloud (SaaS) |
| Compliance | — | ISO 27001:2022, ISO 27017, ISO 27018, SOC 1, SOC 2, SOC 3, HITRUST |
| Support | Standard support package with email-based support, Premium support package, recommended for Enterprise | Phone, Trailblazer Community, Success Plans, Trailhead training |
| Founded | 2008 | 1999 |
| Headquarters | Portland, Oregon, United States | San Francisco, California |
| Employees | 201–500 | 5,000+ |
| Funding | Round of $4M, about six months before the 2011 Series C · $82M raised | — |
| Best for | Midsize and enterprise marketing teams focused on growing revenue through lifecycle marketing, including distributed organizations such as franchises and branch offices. | Businesses from small companies to large enterprises wanting sales, service, marketing and commerce on one CRM platform |
Plans side by side
Salesforce
Pricing not available.
Pros and cons
Themes from the AI answers that mention each brand
Act-On
- Favored for mid-market demand generation
- Lower total cost of ownership
- Fast deployment
Salesforce
- Powerful reporting, automation and customisation
- Market leader and gold standard CRM
- Deep ecosystem and strong CRM integrations
- Built for large enterprises and scaling
- Free trial to test its features
- Requires a dedicated administrator to manage
- High enterprise pricing
- Heavy, slow implementation that suits large budgets
Data collected ·ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Mode·coverage 100%·next run
Cite as: SlateIndex, “Act-On vs Salesforce”, https://slateindex.ai/compare/act-on-vs-salesforce, data of Nov 2, 2026. Licence: CC BY 4.0.