For small businesses, selecting and implementing a new customer relationship management (CRM) software can be a daunting task. Luckily, Salesforce offers their Starter and Pro Suites, which provide a complete CRM suite that your small business can start using right away. We are about to explore the features, benefits, and differences between these two suites, providing some insight to help you decide which is the solution best suited for your small business.

Salesforce Starter Suite

Starter Suite is the product of Salesforce's 20+ years of experience connecting with customers and learning how top performers used Salesforce to meet their needs. The lessons they learned were distilled into best practices which are built into Starter Suite.

Starter Suite takes the complicated undertaking of setting up a single workspace for multiple teams and makes it easy! It includes Sales, Service, Marketing, and Commerce tools, all united in one platform.

Starter Suite is geared towards businesses that are just getting started with Salesforce or CRM and those looking for scalable solutions that drive business growth. Now let's dive into what exactly Starter Suite does to enable you to succeed.

Starter Suite Features

• Sales

  • Pre-built sales paths and reports to keep teams efficient and manage sales processes

  • Guidance for Success prompts you with considerations and recommended actions at each stage of the sales cycle

  • Lead and Opportunity records document essential information, discussions, and interactions with prospects and potential clients

• Service

  • Track customer engagement history and details for a 360-degree view of customers and better service experiences

  • Manage customer support cases and a knowledge base on a single platform

• Marketing

  • List views enable users to choose which prospects or customers to contact

  • Campaign and email templates to craft branded emails 

  • Automated email sends using Einstein Send Time Optimization to reach out at the best time

• Commerce

  • Quickly collect revenue from a won opportunity with Pay Now

  • Create direct payment links and send it to a recipient to complete a transaction

• Reports & Dashboards

  • Manage, analyze, or build reports and dashboards

  • Pre-built dashboards for sales, service, and marketing reports provide valuable insights

• Priced at $25 per user per month

Learn more by going through the Salesforce Starter Suite Trailhead or sign up for a 30-day free trial.

Salesforce Pro Suite

Pro Suite takes the features provided by Starter Suite and unlocks further functionalities to support growing businesses as they become more complex. Businesses looking to help their employees keep up with growing demand can benefit from the more advanced features Pro Suite offers, such as process automation, quote creation and management, and forecasting. Now let's look into these additional features and many others that allow Pro Suite to take your business to the next level.

Pro Suite Features

Salesforce Pro Suite includes all of the features of Salesforce Starter Suite, plus:

• Greater Customization and Automation

  • Custom apps and objects organize data to meet your specific needs

  • Easily create process automations with Flows

  • Customize the user interface through personalized navigation and layout options for peak productivity

• Sales

  • Quote creation and management 

  • Gain accurate prediction and insight into your sales performance through forecasting features

• Service

  • Customer service cases can be created through web, email, and chat so customers can reach you on their preferred channels

  • Live chat allows your customer service reps to provide real-time support from your application or website, improving the customer experience

• AppExchange

  • Gain access to a marketplace for a range of prebuilt tools that provide additional functionality and can extend your CRM to external systems and data sources

  • When you scale your CRM, you'll be able to seamlessly integrate the tools you love as well as discover new ones

• Priced at $100 per user per month

Learn more by going through the Salesforce Pro Suite Trailhead or sign up for a 30-day free trial.

Salesforce Starter Suite & Salesforce Pro Suite Feature Comparison

Conclusion

Both Salesforce Starter & Pro Suites offer simple, easy-to-setup solutions for your small business CRM needs. Starter Suite is ideal for businesses that are brand new to Salesforce or CRM and those that are looking to grow teams and increase productivity. Pro Suite takes the incredible features and functionality of Starter Suite and powers them up with further customization through custom apps and custom objects, process automation through flows, and access to a marketplace of prebuilt tools through AppExchange, making it ideal for growing businesses looking for a seamless growth path and capabilities to support complicated processes. 

Whether you're new to CRM or seeking more complex capabilities to meet your growing business needs, Salesforce Starter & Pro Suites offer solutions that can empower you to succeed. Contact DB Services to get started today!

Already using Starter Suite and want to upgrade to Pro Suite? No problem! As of the Spring '24 Release, you can quickly request an upgrade from Starter to Pro Suite in the Product Catalog in Your Account.