Softwr

Sales Enablement · head to head

Gainsight vs Salesforce

Gainsight logo

Gainsight

Sales Enablement

The #1 Customer Success Platform

From
$2500/month
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Salesforce logo

Salesforce

All industries

World's #1 CRM

From
$25/month
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Gainsight limited customization options; teams resort to exports and scripts when platform lacks required fields; Salesforce sales Cloud tiers as captured 2 January 2024: Starter Suite $25/user/month, Professional $80/user/month, Enterprise $165/user/month, all USD billed annually
  • They diverge on capability: Gainsight covers Health scores, Salesforce covers Contact management.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Gainsight and Salesforce actually diverge.

Attributes where Gainsight and Salesforce differ
AttributeGainsightSalesforce
Starting price$2500/month$25/month
PlatformsWebWeb, Ios, Android, Api
CategorySales EnablementAll industries
Founded20111999

Identical on both: pricing model (subscription), free tier (No), user rating (Not yet rated).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Gainsight

  • Health scores
  • Churn prediction
  • Playbook automation
  • Customer 360 view
  • Journey orchestration
  • Salesforce
  • HubSpot
  • Zendesk

Only in Salesforce

  • Contact management
  • Opportunity management
  • Lead management
  • Reports & dashboards
  • Email integration
  • Workflow automation
  • Mobile access
  • AppExchange

Both cover

  • Slack

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Gainsight

  • Customer Successnot Salesforce
  • Retentionnot Salesforce
  • Health Scoringnot Salesforce

Salesforce

  • Sales managementnot Gainsight
  • Customer servicenot Gainsight
  • Marketing automationnot Gainsight
  • Lead generationnot Gainsight
  • Analytics & reportingnot Gainsight

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Gainsight

  • Limited customization options; teams resort to exports and scripts when platform lacks required fields
  • Integration reliability issues; broken connectors and schema changes create stale health scores
  • Cannot automatically track emails within the platform; requires manual logging or third-party solutions
  • Long implementation and setup; typically requires 12-24 weeks and mandatory implementation services
  • High total cost of ownership; Year 1 costs often exceed $200K including required professional services

Salesforce

  • Sales Cloud tiers as captured 2 January 2024: Starter Suite $25/user/month, Professional $80/user/month, Enterprise $165/user/month, all USD billed annually

Pricing, plan by plan

Gainsight

$2500/month
  • Essentials$2500/month
    • Health scores
    • Customer 360
    • Playbooks
  • Enterprise$5000/month
    • Advanced analytics
    • AI predictions
    • Custom integrations

Salesforce

$25/month
  • Essentials$25/month
    • Account & contact management
    • Opportunity tracking
    • Lead management
  • Professional$80/month
    • Everything in Essentials
    • Complete CRM
    • Lead scoring
  • Enterprise$165/month
    • Everything in Professional
    • Workflow automation
    • Advanced analytics
  • Unlimited$330/month
    • Everything in Enterprise
    • Unlimited customizations
    • 24/7 support

Which should you pick?

Choose Gainsight if

  • You need health scores.
  • You also want churn prediction.
Gainsight review

Choose Salesforce if

  • You need contact management.
  • You work on Web, Ios, Android, Api.
  • You also want opportunity management.
Salesforce review

Questions people ask

Is Gainsight or Salesforce better?
Neither clearly leads. Gainsight starts at $2500/month and Salesforce at $25/month, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Gainsight or Salesforce?
Gainsight starts at $2500/month and Salesforce at $25/month.
Does Gainsight or Salesforce run on more platforms?
Gainsight runs on Web. Salesforce runs on Web, Ios, Android, Api.
What is Gainsight best used for?
Gainsight is most often used for customer success, retention, health scoring. Of those, customer success and retention are not what Salesforce is typically brought in for.
What can Gainsight do that Salesforce cannot?
Gainsight covers Health scores, Churn prediction, Playbook automation, Customer 360 view. Salesforce covers Contact management, Opportunity management, Lead management, Reports & dashboards. Both handle Slack.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Gainsight: Does Gainsight offer a free tier?

Gainsight does not offer a free trial for the main Customer Success Cloud platform. Gainsight PX (product analytics) offers a free Starter tier supporting up to 100 monthly active users.

Source
Gainsight: How is Gainsight priced?

Gainsight prices at $150-$300 per user/month for tier plans, but the main CS Cloud pricing is based on customer records managed. Initial deployments managing 500-1,500 customer records typically cost $60,000-$120,000 annually, with Year 1 costs often exceeding $200K including mandatory implementation.

Source
Gainsight: What are Gainsight's core features?

Gainsight offers health scoring, customer journey orchestration, playbooks, in-app engagement, reporting, customer data consolidation via Customer 360, and Staircase AI for real-time engagement insights. It also includes Skilljar for customer education and Communities for self-service support.

Source
Gainsight: What CRM integrations are available?

Gainsight integrates with Salesforce, HubSpot, and Slack. The Salesforce connector syncs account data, the HubSpot connector ingests engagement data, and Slack automation sends Gainsight notifications and alerts to channels.

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