Braze vs. Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC): Pros, Cons, and The Best Alternative

When evaluating Braze vs. Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC), marketing leaders find two powerful yet very different customer engagement platforms. Braze and Salesforce Marketing Cloud each offer robust tools for multi-channel marketing automation, customer journey orchestration, and personalized messaging. 

In this comparison, we’ll break down Braze vs. Salesforce Marketing Cloud, including their strengths, limitations, and features. We’ll use data and insights from industry sources to see how they stack up on key criteria like personalization, analytics, ease of use, and cost. Finally, we’ll explore why CleverTap is a better alternative, offering an all-in-one solution that addresses many of Braze and SFMC’s challenges.

Braze vs. Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC): Comparing Key Features, Strengths, and Limitations

SFMC, part of the Salesforce ecosystem, evolved via acquisitions into a broad marketing hub known for deep CRM integration and data-driven campaigns. Braze emerged as a mobile-first customer engagement platform recognized for real-time personalization. Both platforms can drive conversion and retention, but they differ in usability, capabilities, and suitability for various business sizes.

Braze Strengths: User-friendly, Real-Time Engagement Platform 

• Real-Time Personalization and Triggers: Braze excels at sending instant, contextually relevant messages based on user actions, triggering real-time messages for personalized outreach.
• Strong Mobile Engagement Focus: As a mobile-first platform, Braze is ideal for apps and digital-first companies, offering powerful in-app messaging and push notifications. Brands can track user behavior and deliver personalized messages across mobile, web, and email.
• User-Friendly Interface: Braze’s intuitive interface and drag-and-drop workflow builder make it accessible to marketers without coding skills. It’s more approachable than many enterprise tools, allowing smaller teams to get started quickly.
• Flexible Integration and Scalability: Braze supports flexible APIs and integrates with various tech stacks, streaming data to warehouses and BI tools. The Braze Alloys partner program enhances third-party integration. As a central messaging hub, it scales efficiently, managing audiences from thousands to millions while maintaining performance.

Compare CleverTap to Braze and find out which is the best customer engagement platform.

Braze Limitations: Higher Costs and Analytics Limits 

According to customer reviews, the following are some challenges with Braze:

• Need for Technical Resources: While Braze is user-friendly for basic campaigns, complex setups often require developer support. Advanced features, like custom campaigns or data workflows, may need coding or SQL, slowing execution for teams without technical resources.

Source: G2

• Higher Cost at Scale: Braze’s premium pricing can increase significantly with larger contact lists or message volumes. Maintaining third-party integrations also requires engineering resources, raising the total cost.

Source: G2

• Data Retention and Analytics Limits: Braze focuses on recent data but limits data retention and analytics depth. It stores around 250 data points per user monthly and retains data for about a year, making it less suitable for long-term analysis. Marketers often use external warehouses for deeper insights.

Source: G2

• Limited Advanced Segmentation: Real-time segmentation is limited, as updates typically occur daily. Funnel reports are not actionable, requiring manual export to retarget dropped users, slowing marketing agility.

Get a detailed comparison of the top Braze competitors to find the right solution for your needs.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC) Strengths: Comprehensive Marketing Automation Suite

• Comprehensive Multi-Channel Capabilities: SFMC excels in multi-channel campaign management, offering tools for email, mobile messaging, social media, and digital ads. Journey Builder automates cross-channel customer journeys, making SFMC ideal for brands seeking consistent messaging across touchpoints.
• Deep Salesforce CRM Integration: SFMC seamlessly integrates with Salesforce CRM, providing a unified 360° customer view. This integration allows for advanced segmentation and personalization, triggering campaigns based on purchase history or support cases, leveraging Salesforce’s extensive database.
• Powerful Data and Personalization Tools: SFMC offers AI-driven features like Einstein AI for predictive scoring and Audience Studio for real-time tracking. Its robust data tools support dynamic content targeting and in-depth analysis, meeting enterprise-level precision marketing needs.
• Scalability and Customization: Designed for enterprises, SFMC offers custom data schemas, system integrations, and scalable infrastructure for large-scale email campaigns, leveraging Salesforce’s cloud for high-volume messaging.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC) Limitations: High Complexity and Cost

According to customer reviews, the following are some challenges with SFMC:

• High Cost and Pricing Complexity: SFMC is expensive, with tiered plans often starting in the thousands per month. Costs increase with contacts and features, and the pricing model, with add-ons for studios and messages, makes budgeting difficult.

Source: G2

• Steep Learning Curve: SFMC’s complexity and multiple interfaces create a steep learning curve, especially for small, non-technical teams. Training and dedicated specialists are often needed, slowing down campaign execution.

Source: G2

• Long Implementation Times: Deploying SFMC takes longer, as integration with other Salesforce products and staff training are often required. This is slower than modern SaaS tools that offer quicker setup.
• Support and Interface Issues: The SFMC interface can feel dated and clunky. Navigating between Studios can be challenging, and support response times may not meet expectations, requiring internal or third-party assistance.

Compare the top Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC) competitors to find your best fit.

Braze vs. Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC): Which One Is Better?

Choosing between Braze vs. Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC) depends on balancing ease of use and complexity. SFMC offers powerful, enterprise-level features but is complex and costly, best for large teams. In contrast, Braze is user-friendly and agile, ideal for quick deployment, but its downsides are technical overhead and certain feature gaps. 

These limitations set the stage for why an alternative like CleverTap has gained traction by promising the best of both worlds.

Why CleverTap Is a Better Alternative to Braze and Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC)

Both Braze and Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC) offer robust customer engagement solutions, but they often force a trade-off between agility (Braze) and all-encompassing power (SFMC). 

CleverTap, however, combines the best of customer engagement platforms, providing real-time, personalized outreach like Braze while also offering comprehensive analytics and multi-channel depth similar to SFMC – all with greater ease and cost-efficiency. Here’s why CleverTap is often seen as the superior alternative.

Source: G2

All-in-One Platform with Unified Data and Analytics

CleverTap integrates multiple customer engagement functions into one platform, eliminating the need for separate analytics services or data warehouses. Its proprietary TesseractDB captures up to 10,000 data points per user and retains up to 10 years of user behavior. This far surpasses Braze’s limit of around 250 data points and one-year data retention. 

As a result, CleverTap users can build comprehensive 360-degree customer profiles without relying on external integrations. This unified data approach simplifies operations and ensures that valuable customer insights are never lost.

Advanced Real-Time Segmentation and Personalization

CleverTap’s AI-driven segmentation and automation capabilities go beyond what Braze and SFMC offer. Its Clever AI engine uses machine learning to segment users by their likelihood to perform specific actions, such as making a purchase or churning. 

Source: G2

The platform’s Lifecycle Optimizer maps users into lifecycle stages and identifies effective campaigns to move them forward. CleverTap offers instant customer segmentation based on real-time data, allowing marketers to react quickly to changes in user behavior.

Ease of Use and Faster Implementation

CleverTap’s design prioritizes usability, making it accessible even for non-technical marketing teams. It has been recognized for its fast implementation and features a unified dashboard, reducing the complexity associated with SFMC’s fragmented studio system. 

Additionally, CleverTap offers pre-built templates and frameworks to streamline common marketing tasks, allowing teams to launch campaigns with minimal effort. This ease of use is a key advantage over SFMC’s steep learning curve and Braze’s need for custom functions.

Higher Campaign Effectiveness and Engagement

CleverTap’s robust data capabilities and AI-driven features result in more effective campaigns. Its RenderMax technology ensures up to 90% push notification render rates, significantly higher than Braze’s delivery optimization. 

CleverTap also features a real-time analytics dashboard that directly links campaigns to revenue, giving marketers instant insights into performance. This rapid feedback loop allows for quicker campaign adjustments, leading to improved user engagement.

Source: G2

Lower Total Cost of Ownership

CleverTap is more cost-effective than both Braze and SFMC. Its flexible pricing models, which can be based on monthly active users or data volume, make it accessible to a wider range of businesses. 

By consolidating functions into one platform, CleverTap eliminates the need for costly integrations and external analytics tools. This streamlined approach reduces the total cost of ownership by approximately 40% compared to Braze or SFMC.

Personalized Growth at Scale with Clever AI’s Agentic Capabilities

CleverTap’s Agentic AI is a next-gen marketing engine where intelligent “agents” autonomously plan, decide, and act across customer lifecycles—while staying within your brand’s guardrails. It includes Strategy Agents (that shape plans), Decision Agents (that choose offers and workflows), Creative Agents (that craft personalized messages), and Action Agents (that execute one-to-one interactions). Designed for scalable, real-time individualization, it enhances ROI while ensuring transparency, trust, and human oversight remain central.

Widely Endorsed by Users and Analysts

CleverTap is highly rated by users and industry analysts alike. On G2, it consistently scores higher for ease of use and campaign automation compared to Braze and SFMC. Leading brands across industries have praised CleverTap’s innovative features and its ability to drive significant growth. The platform’s strong reputation and proven effectiveness make it a reliable choice for companies looking to optimize their customer engagement strategies.

Source: G2

CleverTap stands out as a balanced, user-friendly, and cost-effective alternative to Braze and SFMC. Its combination of real-time personalization, comprehensive data management, and practical usability makes it a preferred choice for companies of all sizes. Whether your focus is agility or robust data capabilities, CleverTap delivers without the compromises often seen with its competitors.

Braze vs. Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC) vs. CleverTap: Which Platform Is Best Suited For You?

CleverTap: The Best of Both Worlds

In the above Braze vs. Salesforce Marketing Cloud comparison, it is evident that each have their strengths: Braze excels in agility with real-time, mobile-focused engagement, while SFMC offers comprehensive data integration for large enterprises. However, both come with trade-offs—Braze can lack depth, and SFMC can be complex and costly.

CleverTap bridges the gap, combining Braze’s speed with SFMC’s power. It offers multi-channel messaging, AI-driven personalization, and rich analytics in one intuitive platform. CleverTap’s balanced approach delivers smarter customer engagement, faster growth, and higher ROI, making it an ideal choice for modern marketers.