Dynamics 365 vs Salesforce: Pricing

I’ve been taking a crack at writing a series of comparison articles between Salesforce and Dynamics 365. Pricing is the topic of this article.

Both Dynamics 365 for Sales and Salesforce Sales Cloud are CRM systems that offer Enterprise-grade functionality. After researching the pricing of the two solutions, I was kind of surprised by how large the difference is between Salesforce and Dynamics pricing, given how similar they are.  Let’s get into it.

Introduction to Dynamics 365 and Salesforce

Before diving straight into the pricing, we should take a look at the two products and the modules they contain. This will help us decide how to compare them.

Both Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Salesforce have more than one product module that they sell. They also offer various tiers of their products – it’s kind of complicated! For the purposes of a fair comparison, I am going to focus on the most popular, core customer relationship management (CRM) module from each vendor.

For Salesforce.com, this module is called “Sales Cloud Lighting Enterprise”. In Dynamics 365, it’s called “Dynamics 365 for Sales, Enterprise Edition”.  These modules both handle standard enterprise CRM functionality – account, contact, lead, and opportunity management.

Of course, there are many more options. I will also compare customer service software pricing, bundle pricing, and pricing options for small business.

Dynamics 365 vs Salesforce Pricing Comparison

So, how do Dynamics 365 and Salesforce compare on price?

Product	Price ($USD/user/month)
Dynamics 365 for Sales	$95
Salesforce Sales Cloud	$150

Dynamics 365 is about 35% less expensive than Salesforce.com.

You should note that this is a pure pricing comparison, and it doesn’t actually tell you very much about which solution you should choose. For more info, I recommend you check out one of my other articles comparing Dynamics 365 and Salesforce features. Overall though, these two solutions are extremely competitive: the modules I have chosen (Dynamics 365 for Sales, Enterprise Edition and Salesforce Sales Cloud Lightning Enterprise) are about as similar as it gets between different CRMs.

Customer Service Software Comparison

Microsoft and Salesforce don’t just do CRM software; they also produce software that Customer Service agents can use to manage support cases. Pricing for these solutions is very straightforward. “Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Customer Service, Enterprise Edition” and “Salesforce Service Cloud, Lightning Enterprise” are the exact same price as their Sales/CRM counterparts.

So if you just want the Customer Service modules, Dynamics 365 is also $95/user/month, and Salesforce is also $150/user/month.

Bundled Pricing

Okay – so we’ve covered the Sales & Customer Service modules separately. However, both Salesforce and Dynamics 365 offer these products in a bundle – at a significant discount. Here’s how the bundled pricing compares:

Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement Plan:  $115/user/month

Salesforce  Sales + Service : $175/user/month

Once again, Dynamics 365 is about 35% less expensive on a monthly basis. However, these bundles are not really fair comparisons: Dynamics 365 contains 4 modules (Sales, Customer Service, Field Service, Project Service), and Salesforce only contains 2 modules (Sales, Service).

Small Business Pricing

Comparing Dynamics 365 and Salesforce pricing for small businesses is a little tricky. In this case, the two companies don’t have directly competitive offers and the functionality between them varies a bit more. Still, I will provide the options for small business from each vendor and their respective costs. For the most comparable offers, Microsoft is less expensive than Salesforce.

Salesforce Small Business Pricing

Salesforce has 2 options for Smaller Businesses:

SalesforceIQ CRM Starter

At $25/user/month, SalesforceIQ is the least expensive option in this article. However, its functionality is quite limited and you can’t have more than 5 users.

Sales Cloud Lightning Professional

At $75/user/month, this version is more capable and can take more users. This module contains CRM functionality only.

Dynamics 365 Small Business Pricing

Dynamics 365 has just one CRM option for small businesses. It is called “Dynamics 365 Business Edition”. This is a very new product. It costs $40/user/month, and contains more than just the Sales/CRM module. You also get Finance and Operations Management, Customer Service, and Marketing functionality! The CRM module in this offer is most comparable to Sales Cloud Lightning Professional.

Conclusion

The pricing comparison appears to be no contest. When comparing similar functionality, Microsoft Dynamics 365 is always less expensive than Salesforce. For this article, I didn’t need many sources of information; I only consulted the pricing pages for Dynamics 365 and Salesforce:

In my other pieces, I’ll be comparing Dynamics 365 and Salesforce.com in other areas, such as features, integration, and market share.