| Functionality | 6 <p>Relate delivers the core functionality early-stage B2B startups need. It excels in prospecting, sales pipeline management, data enrichment, sequencing, LinkedIn contact imports, and customizable reporting.</p><p>However, it’s missing several features that larger teams rely on, such as workflow automation and robust third-party integrations.</p> | 10 <p>Salesforce is one of the most powerful CRMs on the market. Its core functionality will be more than sufficient for most companies, and it also offers advanced capabilities that should satisfy even the most complex enterprises.</p> |
| Ease of Use | 9 <p>If you’re an early-stage B2B startup, you’ll likely find Relate intuitive and closely aligned with how your processes already work. Getting up to speed is quick and straightforward.</p><p>However, if you’re familiar with traditional CRMs, you might experience a learning curve. Relate introduces some unique concepts, like connecting pipelines through “processes,” which may take a little time to adjust to.</p> | 1 <p>Salesforce has the steepest learning curve and most complex user experience out of all CRM experiences. Built for large sales teams, everything (e.g. editing pipeline stages, adding an opportunity) takes longer to get done. There are foreign terms for technically proficient, power users everywhere, especially in the automations modules. Be prepared to invest weeks to learn the basic operations, and months to master the advanced features.</p> |
| Look and feel | 8 <p>Relate’s modern, minimalist design will appeal to tech startups, but it might come across as too plain for others. That said, the platform shines with its blazingly fast page loads—easily some of the fastest we’ve seen, which offers a seamless user experience.</p> | 4 <p>Even with the latest Salesforce Lightning, the user interface still feels cluttered and dated compared to newer CRMs out there—it’s definitely not a joy to use.</p> |
| Customisability | 6 <p>Relate offers strong customizability for early-stage B2B startups. You can tailor pipelines and reporting to match your workflows. However, it’s not as flexible as more general-purpose CRMs (like Folk and Attio). The platform is firmly sales-focused, with pipelines designed exclusively for tracking deals and reporting geared entirely toward sales metrics.</p> | 10 <p>With Salesforce's Apex programming language, you can customise almost anything you can think of - from user interface, sales workflows to how Salesforce integrates with other software.</p> |
| Ease of Setup | 8 <p>Relate offers a self-serve free trial. Thanks to Relate's familiar spreadsheet-like layout, we found the initial setup to be extremely simple (taking <10 mins). The only nit is that unlike other modern CRMs (e.g. Attio, Folk), connecting your email doesn't sync your contacts automatically. For B2B sales team, Relate's thoughtful set up out-of-the-box means it's easy to fully customise the platform, and should be largely done within 1-2 business days.</p> | 1 <p>Salesforce offers a self-serve free trial, but as an enterprise-focused platform, the initial setup is a lot more involved. Even the simplest configurations can take over 20 minutes, with basic tasks, like customizing pipeline stages, requiring more steps compared to other CRMs. Fully customizing and implementing Salesforce can take several months, and many teams end up hiring dedicated consultants or technical experts (at significant expense) to handle setup and data migration.</p> |
| Customer Support | 8 <p>Relate provides in-app live chat support during US business hours with a friendly team that usually responds in around an hour. The help center is another strong point—it's well-written, thorough, and easy to follow.</p> | 4 <p>Salesforce offers personalized Q&A through live chat, but it’s only available during business hours and often feels sales-y. We wish the coverage was greater and they held off on the upsell!</p> |
| Integratability | 1 <p>Integrations are a major weak spot for Relate. It only connects with Google Calendar, Outlook, and Slack, and basically pushes you to build you own integrations entirely through Zapier. There’s no API for custom integrations.</p> | 10 <p>Salesforce has the most extensive integration ecosystem of any CRM. It offers pre-built integrations with nearly all the key third-party tools and provides a robust API for building custom integrations.</p> |
| Ease of Migration | 6 <p>Relate allows you to export key contact, organization, and deal information through its reporting module. The process is self-serve, but limited to basic data.</p> | 10 <p>Salesforce allows users to export most data via self-serve or via an API. Exports of key data to relevant 3rd party vendors are also available via pre-built integrations.</p> |
