Overview
When looking for a CRM, many of our clients have considered Salesforce, as it is one of the main players in the market. Both SwiftFox and Salesforce are cloud-based SaaS CRM platforms, that can have 10 or 10,000 users and enable you to undertake a range of actions with the data stored in them. As a newer player in the market, SwiftFox comes with a different philosophy to Salesforce, which is the start of where differences emerge.
This page can help you understand both platforms and help educate your choice.
Comparing Features
Setup & training
With SwiftFox when you get started you won't need a third party ‘Implementation Partner' to get you set up – the SwiftFox team handle everything.
As part of our commitment to ensuring your success with SwiftFox, we recognise the importance of a hands-on onboarding process. We work closely with our clients during the initial stages of onboarding, collaborating with new clients to import data, configure customisations, and establish new user accounts and appropriate permissions.
Once the platform environment has been set-up and configured, our team will work closely with you to provide a comprehensive overview of the system & train your team. Any webinars or training sessions can be recorded and made available to your team for future reference.
Salesforce set-up can be challenging and a lot of work, and most organisations employ a Salesforce implementation partner to get up and running much faster. Implementation partners are well trained and work closely with your team, however they are expensive and typically their work takes many months.
Salesforce offers online training programs free of charge, however most Salesforce customers employ a full-time staff member to administer the system or outsource this to a consulting agency.
Data security
SwiftFox hosts client data in Australian data centres on Microsoft Azure, so your data stays onshore. The SwiftFox team operates under Australia's only industry-legislated privacy code and is a member of the Australian Data and Insights Association.
Salesforce does offer an Australian region — AWS Sydney, on Hyperforce — and Data Cloud and Marketing Cloud have run there since December 2023. Two things to confirm before you assume your data sits in Australia: Salesforce does not publish whether a customer can specify or is guaranteed a region, and older orgs on legacy infrastructure may still sit in Amsterdam, Tokyo or Virginia. Ask where your instance would actually live, in writing.
Usability
SwiftFox features a beautifully simple user experience. Uncomplicated design is powerful. You, your boss, your intern, the new hire - everyone in your organisation should know how to use, and love using SwiftFox. And you should be able to work out how to use a feature with a few clicks. SwiftFox was built from the ground up in the social media age and our future focussed design principles make it simple to navigate. As a universal CRM, once you understand how to navigate one feature – you can navigate them all!
Salesforce was developed in the early 2000s, and its interface and user experience originates from the design principles of that period. While the platform continually updates, users often find the experience different depending on the features or products you are using.
Universal CRM
SwiftFox has everything you need in one platform. This is what makes it so powerful. So marvellously simple to use. You can send emails, newsletters, coordinate events, create forms, manage your pipeline, send text messages, have phone calls, tick off your tasks, talk to your team - all from one place, and with one subscription.
Following initial set-up, organisations license SwiftFox on a subscription basis and our central development team take care of ensuring your platform is always updated and at the cutting edge of innovation.
Salesforce’s core CRM is focussed on basic sales features, while its extensive marketing features come at a significant additional monthly cost. Many Salesforce features have been integrated following Salesforce acquiring competitors, so its universality can feel like a ‘bolted-on’ experience.
AI & data innovation
SwiftFox is built by The Red Fox Group, an Australian data analytics company, so AI and analytics are not a bolt-on here. Our AI is deliberately simple: draft an email and send it when your people actually open things, see who is likely to renew or lapse, spot who will donate or buy before you ask.
It is included. There are no credits to buy, no consumption meter running in the background, and no separate AI licence.
Salesforce has retired Einstein as a paid add-on and replaced it with Agentforce, which runs on consumption. You buy Flex Credits — AU$700 per 100,000 — and each standard agent action costs 20 of them. Core edition includes 500,000 credits a year for the whole organisation, which works out to roughly 25,000 actions: about two per person per working day across a team of 50. After that you top up.
It is genuinely capable technology. The thing to plan for is that the sticker price no longer tells you the AI bill.
New features roadmap
SwiftFox takes care of everything. As a SaaS platform, our team has a long-term development pipeline where we are continuously rolling out new features accessed by all our users. Clients can always submit suggestions for the product roadmap.
Salesforce has a roadmap of releases, however as Salesforce is such a large organisation, enhancements to its core features are led by its US team which make it difficult for client requests to be actioned in a timely manner. Custom development is possible with Salesforce, this requires organisations to hire an external development partner as additional cost.
Ongoing support
SwiftFox has the help you would expect — guides, in-platform training, videos, live webinars, the SwiftFox Academy. But we are also local, and we have a phone. Get stuck and you can talk to someone who can jump on a video call and sort it out. Support is included, not a percentage of your licence.
Salesforce includes its Standard Success Plan with every licence, which is self-service: documentation, Trailhead and the community. Premier Success — 24/7 support for business-critical issues — is 30% of your net licence fees, though it is now bundled at Core edition and above.
Below Core, round-the-clock support costs roughly a third again on top of your licences. Salesforce also commonly recommends engaging an implementation partner for ongoing support, at additional cost.
SwiftFox: What does it do?
SwiftFox is campaign and membership software for organisations that talk to their people at scale. Store contacts, send emails and texts, make calls, run events, build forms, manage memberships, accreditations and awards, track cases and visits, run projects and pipelines, take payments and reconcile them to Xero, publish a member portal — and see every interaction against the one profile.
SwiftFox AI reads that history and tells you what to do with it: who is likely to renew, who is drifting, who will donate, who will show up. Automations then handle the follow-up so your team doesn't have to.
One subscription. Everyone in your organisation gets an account. No per-user fees.
Salesforce
: What does it do?
Salesforce is a cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) platform with features for sales, marketing and customer service.
As its name suggests, Salesforce is ‘sales-centric’ with a strong focus on deal and lead management, particularly for sales reps and customer support teams. There is also extensive data analytics and AI tools, however these can be more complex to use.
Often Salesforce requires third-party implementation providers to get organisations up and running, which can result in more extensive set-up costs and bespoke development.
An Overview of SwiftFox Users
SwiftFox is campaign and membership software for organisations that talk to their people at scale. Store contacts, send emails and texts, make calls, run events, build forms, manage memberships, accreditations and awards, track cases and visits, run projects and pipelines, take payments and reconcile them to Xero, publish a member portal — and see every interaction against the one profile.
SwiftFox AI reads that history and tells you what to do with it: who is likely to renew, who is drifting, who will donate, who will show up. Automations then handle the follow-up so your team doesn't have to.
One subscription. Everyone in your organisation gets an account. No per-user fees.
An Overview of
Salesforce
Users
Salesforce is a cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) platform with features for sales, marketing and customer service.
As its name suggests, Salesforce is ‘sales-centric’ with a strong focus on deal and lead management, particularly for sales reps and customer support teams. There is also extensive data analytics and AI tools, however these can be more complex to use.
Often Salesforce requires third-party implementation providers to get organisations up and running, which can result in more extensive set-up costs and bespoke development.
Pricing
SwiftFox charges one subscription for your whole organisation. Everyone gets an account — the ops manager, the intern, the board member who logs in twice a year.
That is a deliberate choice. When licences are rationed, people work around the CRM instead of in it: spreadsheets appear, lists get emailed around, and the 360-degree view you bought the system for quietly stops being true. Per-user pricing also punishes you for growing.
Salesforce charges per user, per month. At Core — the edition most mid-sized organisations land on — that is AU$273 each. For 50 people, AU$163,800 a year before you have added marketing, implementation or AI credits.
Marketing is a separate product. Marketing Cloud Next starts at AU$2,100 per organisation per month. Implementation is not list-priced at all: most organisations engage a partner, and that engagement is usually the largest number in the project.
SwiftFox sits at AU$2,000–$3,200 a month for an organisation of around 50 people, with marketing, events, memberships and implementation included.
Time to join SwiftFox? Making the jump is easy!
Get in touch and learn how easy it is to switch to SwiftFox, our team is available to help you every step of the way.
We don’t just tell you to export your data from your old system and figure it out yourself, we sit down and plan with you the most efficient migration process with minimal disruption.
And then a dedicated SwiftFox team member will take care of the transition, including help with set up and data importing if required. No third-party implementation provider required, just us!
SwiftFox and Salesforce Integration
We also know there are times when one part of your organisation may need Salesforce, while SwiftFox meets different requirements. That’s why we also offer a fast integration with Salesforce, powered by Zapier. Integration takes minutes to set up with our SwiftFox and Salesforce templates, and your data will start syncing immediately. This makes it possible for different teams in your organisation to use both platforms.