Pardot, now Marketing Cloud Account Engagement, is Salesforce's B2B marketing automation tool. Compare pricing, features and HubSpot alternatives.
Pardot began in 2007 as an independent Atlanta-based marketing automation startup founded by David Cummings and Adam Blitzer. After being acquired by ExactTarget in 2012 and then becoming part of Salesforce in 2013 through Salesforce's acquisition of ExactTarget, Pardot grew into one of the most widely used B2B marketing automation platforms.
In April 2022, Salesforce officially renamed the product Marketing Cloud Account Engagement, though the platform's functionality, APIs and certifications were left unchanged. Many marketers, agencies and job listings still refer to the product as Pardot.
Pardot/MCAE's core capabilities include lead scoring and grading to prioritize which prospects sales should follow up with, automated email nurture campaigns built through a visual Engagement Studio, and customizable landing pages and forms for capturing leads without developer help.
Because it is native to the Salesforce ecosystem, it also supports account-based marketing features for targeting and reporting on named accounts, and ROI reporting that attributes pipeline and closed revenue back to specific marketing campaigns inside Salesforce.
Pardot/MCAE is priced on a subscription basis per organization (not per user), with four published tiers: Growth at $1,250/month, Plus at $2,500/month, Advanced at $4,000/month, and Premium at $15,000/month, all billed annually.
Optional add-ons include Salesforce Engage at $50/user/month for sales teams who want engagement alerts, and B2B Marketing Analytics Plus at roughly $3,000/month for deeper attribution and reporting dashboards.
Yes, Salesforce renamed Pardot to Marketing Cloud Account Engagement in April 2022; the underlying product is unchanged.
Published tiers are Growth at $1,250/month, Plus at $2,500/month, Advanced at $4,000/month and Premium at $15,000/month, billed annually.
David Cummings and Adam Blitzer founded Pardot in 2007 in Atlanta, Georgia.
It is designed to integrate tightly with Salesforce Sales Cloud and delivers the most value alongside a Salesforce CRM license.
B2B marketing automation, including lead scoring, email nurture campaigns, landing pages and account-based marketing.
Salesforce, which acquired it via ExactTarget in 2013 after ExactTarget acquired Pardot in 2012.
It is generally better suited to mid-market and enterprise B2B teams given its pricing and CRM dependency; smaller teams often consider HubSpot instead.
HubSpot Marketing Hub, Adobe Marketo Engage, and Oracle Eloqua.