Blackbaud Altru vs. Salesforce Sales Cloud

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Blackbaud Altru
Score 6.8 out of 10
N/A
Designed for General Admissions OrganizationsN/A
Salesforce Sales Cloud
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
Salesforce Sales Cloud is a platform for sales with a community of Sellers, Sales Leaders, and Sales Operations, who use the solution to grow sales and increase productivity. The AI CRM for Sales features data built right in, so that companies can sell faster, sell smarter and sell efficiently. Salesforce Sales Cloud is used for, and supports: Buyer Engagement Sales Engagement Enablement Sales AI Sales Analytics Team…
$25
per month
Pricing
Blackbaud AltruSalesforce Sales Cloud
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Starter
$25.00
Per User/Per Month
Professional
$80.00
Per User/Per Month
Enterprise
$165.00
Per User/Per Month
Unlimited
$330.00
Per user/Per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Blackbaud AltruSalesforce Sales Cloud
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
Additional DetailsAltru’s pricing information is catalogued below, as supplied by the software provider or retrieved from publicly accessible pricing materials. Altru is priced as an annual subscription. This includes hosting, unlimited users, access to unparalleled product support – everything you expect from a complete cloud solution.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Blackbaud AltruSalesforce Sales Cloud
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Blackbaud AltruSalesforce Sales Cloud
Sales Force Automation
Comparison of Sales Force Automation features of Product A and Product B
Blackbaud Altru
-
Ratings
Salesforce Sales Cloud
7.8
242 Ratings
1% above category average
Customer data management / contact management00 Ratings8.6242 Ratings
Workflow management00 Ratings7.9233 Ratings
Territory management00 Ratings7.5186 Ratings
Opportunity management00 Ratings8.5236 Ratings
Integration with email client (e.g., Outlook or Gmail)00 Ratings7.5221 Ratings
Contract management00 Ratings7.2193 Ratings
Quote & order management00 Ratings7.5176 Ratings
Interaction tracking00 Ratings7.6207 Ratings
Channel / partner relationship management00 Ratings7.7168 Ratings
Customer Service & Support
Comparison of Customer Service & Support features of Product A and Product B
Blackbaud Altru
-
Ratings
Salesforce Sales Cloud
7.4
84 Ratings
1% below category average
Case management00 Ratings7.884 Ratings
Call center management00 Ratings7.366 Ratings
Help desk management00 Ratings7.268 Ratings
Marketing Automation
Comparison of Marketing Automation features of Product A and Product B
Blackbaud Altru
-
Ratings
Salesforce Sales Cloud
7.7
221 Ratings
2% above category average
Lead management00 Ratings7.9216 Ratings
Email marketing00 Ratings7.5185 Ratings
CRM Project Management
Comparison of CRM Project Management features of Product A and Product B
Blackbaud Altru
-
Ratings
Salesforce Sales Cloud
7.5
224 Ratings
1% below category average
Task management00 Ratings7.5213 Ratings
Billing and invoicing management00 Ratings7.260 Ratings
Reporting00 Ratings7.9177 Ratings
CRM Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of CRM Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Blackbaud Altru
-
Ratings
Salesforce Sales Cloud
7.8
237 Ratings
2% above category average
Forecasting00 Ratings7.4206 Ratings
Pipeline visualization00 Ratings7.8225 Ratings
Customizable reports00 Ratings8.2234 Ratings
Customization
Comparison of Customization features of Product A and Product B
Blackbaud Altru
-
Ratings
Salesforce Sales Cloud
8.1
228 Ratings
7% above category average
Custom fields00 Ratings8.2226 Ratings
Custom objects00 Ratings8.1216 Ratings
Scripting environment00 Ratings8.0160 Ratings
API for custom integration00 Ratings8.2189 Ratings
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
Blackbaud Altru
-
Ratings
Salesforce Sales Cloud
8.7
230 Ratings
5% above category average
Single sign-on capability00 Ratings8.8197 Ratings
Role-based user permissions00 Ratings8.6203 Ratings
Social CRM
Comparison of Social CRM features of Product A and Product B
Blackbaud Altru
-
Ratings
Salesforce Sales Cloud
7.5
145 Ratings
3% above category average
Social data00 Ratings7.6144 Ratings
Social engagement00 Ratings7.5141 Ratings
Integrations with 3rd-party Software
Comparison of Integrations with 3rd-party Software features of Product A and Product B
Blackbaud Altru
-
Ratings
Salesforce Sales Cloud
7.8
197 Ratings
9% above category average
Marketing automation00 Ratings7.8193 Ratings
Compensation management00 Ratings7.8130 Ratings
Platform
Comparison of Platform features of Product A and Product B
Blackbaud Altru
-
Ratings
Salesforce Sales Cloud
7.2
208 Ratings
4% below category average
Mobile access00 Ratings7.2208 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Blackbaud AltruSalesforce Sales Cloud
Small Businesses
Bloomerang
Bloomerang
Score 9.0 out of 10
Salesmate
Salesmate
Score 9.8 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Bloomerang
Bloomerang
Score 9.0 out of 10
Creatio
Creatio
Score 9.1 out of 10
Enterprises
Blackbaud CRM
Blackbaud CRM
Score 7.5 out of 10
Creatio
Creatio
Score 9.1 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Blackbaud AltruSalesforce Sales Cloud
Likelihood to Recommend
8.2
(11 ratings)
8.4
(374 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.1
(1 ratings)
9.0
(56 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
7.6
(120 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
9.8
(27 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(18 ratings)
Support Rating
9.2
(3 ratings)
5.7
(91 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
7.9
(11 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(15 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
1.0
(18 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
-
(0 ratings)
8.8
(9 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
8.7
(33 ratings)
Professional Services
-
(0 ratings)
9.3
(8 ratings)
User Testimonials
Blackbaud AltruSalesforce Sales Cloud
Likelihood to Recommend
Blackbaud
Well suited for smaller organizations that want to centralize many systems. Smaller organizations will have less constituents to manage and fewer events (our organization has 100,000+ constituents, daily programs/events, and a large donor base). Many areas within Altru are not updated to be functional for 2020. Because of this, we do not use the merchandising feature, the volunteer portal, or marketing communications. It does a little bit of everything "okay enough" to be better than having separate systems. It's restrictive in many areas, but being able to do SO much in one database outweighs the negatives! It is 100% necessary to have a data manager who spends all of their time in Altru doing data cleanup, researching and writing policies and procedures, training new users, keeping staff up-to-date on new processes, creating queries and running reports, creating workarounds for "unfixable" issues within the database.
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Salesforce
Sales Cloud is very well suited for the daily leads and opportunity pipeline management as well as user management. Sales process automation are very helpful for repetitive tasks. It integrates well with other platforms. It's easy to customize and report on data. Sales Cloud can be pricey so is only open to larger org's that need complex CRM. User adoption is slow to any new users that have no prior experience.
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Pros
Blackbaud
  • Ticketing and tracking many different types of admission sales including group, facility rental, individual tickets, and class registration.
  • Membership management, including membership card mailing, recurring memberships, and renewal reminders.
  • Being an all-encompassing database rather than forcing you to use multiple databases.
  • Great customer service and client support, including ongoing updates to better the system.
  • Has a merchandise inventory management system.
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Salesforce
  • Logging notes: SF makes it easy to log notes in the timeline or static notes that live in an easy-to-see spot for longevity.
  • Logging activities: It's easy to post a call, text, email, etc.
  • API data: Once connected, SF is critical to automation, such as website activity, login activity, pages visited, etc., which saves the Customer Success side time in understanding account activity.
  • Custom fields: you can add custom fields to really personalize your experience. We use quite a few and it's brilliant.
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Cons
Blackbaud
  • Query system not user-friendly for management with limited database background.
  • Limited company-to-user support outside of an online community of users. No long term account managers for program.
  • No email analysis tools for eblasts.
  • Limited merchandise capabiity for shop use, though the program does allow third party programs to work with it.
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Salesforce
  • I have hard-coded the auto-update of the phone number format and state format from some codes shared by the community, but I do not know where to do it. I cannot reset it either.
  • It is unclear what functionalities each version has. We use the enterprise version, and it seems we can only have one design of the pipeline. But different business segments would have very different sales cycles, and hence, pipeline tracking would be different. It would be nice to have this available in our version.
  • It seems I cannot create a report to pull notes logged at the account levels.
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Likelihood to Renew
Blackbaud
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
There are days when I wish we hadn't switched, but I know that if we put in the time, we will get to where we want to be with the software and that it has many more capabilities than anything else we looked at. However, the amount of time and onboarding we need to do is also far greater than we realized/were told when we originally bought the product. They told us we should hire onboarding support, but at the end, after we had already reached our budget maximum for this, so it's been slower than we had hoped.
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Usability
Blackbaud
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
Salesforce has been designed on the basis of "Clicks, not code". So anyone willing to learn the Salesforce user interface (which is quite good as far as management software platforms go) is able to become a Salesforce user or even a Salesforce administrator. You don't have to know coding language to work in the Salesforce environment. Also, Salesforce has one of the best software training resources (Trailhead) that I have ever encountered. It is free to all, easy to use, and most importantly it is interactive. No scrolling through endless text in a user manual. There are hands-on modules and related videos interlaced and through it all you earn points and badges to display your level of learning.
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Reliability and Availability
Blackbaud
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
Salesforce is always available securely from any internet-capable device anywhere in the world, UNLESS you choose to set security measures so that ONLY trusted IP ranges may access the system at certain times of the day. It's all about choice and flexibility with Salesforce products.
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Performance
Blackbaud
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
Salesforce performance in general is excellent. "The cloud infrastructure beneath Force.com has been fine-tuned over the past 10 years. It powers nearly 100,000+ businesses running more than 185,000 applications that 3 million users count on every day."
Points per Salesforce -
1) Multitenant kernel - With a multitenant platform, each business that uses the app doesn’t have its own copy. Instead, all businesses share a single copy and then customize it for their specific needs.
2) ISO 27001 certified security - You can’t compromise when it comes to enterprise-level security. Force.com is road-tested and trusted by nearly 100,000+ companies, including many of the world’s most security-conscious organizations, such as banks and health care providers.
3) Proven reliability - All Force.com apps run on world-class data centers with backup, failover, and disaster-recovery facilities. Force.com has had a proven 99.9 percent uptime record for years.
4) Proven, real-time scalability - Force.com is used by many of the world's largest enterprises, including Cisco, Japan Post Network, and Symantec. Applications can automatically scale from a few users to millions of page views, as needed.
5) Real-time query optimizer - You need fast access to your data. The Force.com query optimizer delivers under 300ms response time, at a massive scale.
6) Real-time transparent system status - You can always see real-time system performance, availability, and security information at trust.salesforce.com.
7) Real-time upgrades - Unlike traditional software platforms, our upgrades never break your customizations, code, or integrations. We upgrade the platform for you 3 to 4 times each year. As a result, you’re always on the latest version, with access to the latest features, performance, and security enhancements.
8) Real-time sandbox environments - With a single click, you can create copies of your applications, configuration, and data in separate environments for development, testing, and training.
9) Three global production data centers and disaster recovery - Force.com runs on three geographically dispersed, mirrored data centers with built-in replication, disaster recovery, a redundant network backbone, and no single points of failure
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Support Rating
Blackbaud
They are always available and very knowledgable. Many times I am able to come up with a solution before they've finished troubleshooting just by having talked through it with them. I really appreciate the Chat feature to answer simple questions in a timely fashion. The training I received was top notch and very detailed.
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Salesforce
The overall support has been good. More and more features are being released quite frequently. Very small features are also making big difference in how the tool can be adapted and used better. If there is anything we need or are stuck, the support team sets up a call and helps in resolving the issue/provides workarounds.
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In-Person Training
Blackbaud
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
I attended two training sessions. I would rate them a 4 as an advanced user. It was very basic – great for someone new – would give 8+ for new person.

I had 3 years of experience at the time. I skipped basic and went onto advanced and still not helpful. A lot of it was best practices that didn’t feel relevant for our business
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Online Training
Blackbaud
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
I have gone through multiple. The content that’s delivered is quite basic – I wish they had more advanced training.

We are grandfathered into premium support plus training. We get unlimited access to instructor led and online training for free. We have taken advantage of this
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Implementation Rating
Blackbaud
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
Just from an organizational standpoint - we standardized our data prior to moving to Salesforce. But we essentially standardized it wrong. That's created a big disgusting mess for us know that I'll have to deal with as the Admin. Be sure you think through use cases prior to doing something like that - seek outside opinions on how the data will work best, especially depending on what else you're going to integrate with Salesforce.
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Alternatives Considered
Blackbaud
We switched from Raisers Edge in 2012 due to the need to have all processes in one database. Group Sales/Rentals had to use a separate database for their sales than the Members and Donors department. We also could not sell tickets for events and programs in one space. Being able to have all of these in one database is why we chose Altru.
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Salesforce
Salesforce Sales cloud is well integrated with a lot of other marketing and sales technology SAAS products that we use within our business, which is a big part of why I enjoy using it. Compared to NetSuite, it is a lot more user friendly, a modern platform that provides better visual understanding of sales pipeline and contains more useful data across the customer journey.
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Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Blackbaud
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
Salesforce is the most widely used CRM system. Professionalism tends to increase when things go wrong for market leaders. Salesforce considers us as users because they own the market. Having all of our data in one place and all of our teams working within Salesforce. Anyone who uses Salesforce is impacted by it, even if they don't.
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Scalability
Blackbaud
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
I don't think there is a limit to Sales Cloud's scalability; at least, I haven't encountered one or heard of one. My data is not enormous, so perhaps some companies might encounter lags, but nothing from my end. I think I'll be able to use Sales Cloud from now until infinity.
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Professional Services
Blackbaud
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
Using Salesforce.com has made my daily routines more efficient and simplified the manual tasks I had to perform independently. I can now access data from any device, online or offline, and provide better guidance to my team about the forecasts provided by the built-in artificial intelligence (AI). A chat with a Salesforce support specialist would be great. The knowledge base has a community forum where Salesforce users can ask questions and learn more about the product.
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Return on Investment
Blackbaud
  • It has become very tedious to account for registrants in each session of a class or camp, because you have to "sell" them into each session in order to have an accurate class roster.
  • It is very easy to process payment and entry fees to our Museum and programs.
  • It is easy to retrieve accurate information and records of patrons.
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Salesforce
  • All tools we've implemented with Salesforce had a pretty quick positive ROI with the exception of CPQ & Billing. That was a very large project that I would only suggest for businesses with many SKUs that tend to be packaged together.
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ScreenShots

Blackbaud Altru Screenshots

Screenshot of Constituent Record: Get a true 360-degree view of each constituent's activity.Screenshot of Daily Sales:  Improve sales speed and visitor experience with a smart POSScreenshot of Group Sales:  Keep group sales orders organized and manageableScreenshot of KPIs:  Measure and monitor organizational performanceScreenshot of Membership Dashboard:  Improve membership acquisition and retentionScreenshot of Organizational Calendar:  Effectively manage events, programs, spaces, supplies and equipment

Salesforce Sales Cloud Screenshots

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