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Businesses use Salesforce to connect customer information across systems so their teams can manage customer relationships and related work. Its Agentforce 360 Platform brings together data, applications, employees and AI agents. Through Agentforce, customers can build agents that respond to inputs, make decisions and carry out tasks in workflows such as sales and customer service.
Businesses of all sizes across industries worldwide pay Salesforce, mainly for subscriptions and support, which generate nearly all its revenue. Its own sales force handles most sales, with partners playing a smaller role. Professional services and other activities contribute a small share. Its customer base is broad, with no single customer supplying a substantial share of revenue.
The business depends on customers renewing subscriptions and buying additional services; customers need not renew when their contracts end. Some offerings, including Agentforce and Data 360, charge according to use, so customer usage also affects revenue. Salesforce relies on outside data centers, cloud platforms and technology providers to deliver its services. Privacy, data-localization and AI rules constrain where and how it can store, transfer and use customer data and provide services.
The risk section is the longest, dullest part of the filing. This keeps only what can really hurt you: where it hits, how hard, when it plays out.
Every company claims an edge. Each one is checked against hard numbers like margins and returns: which hold, and which line gives way first.
Salesforce’s results hinge on enterprise CRM renewals, expansion and AI adoption; privately held Zendesk is another important customer-service rival to watch outside this list.
HubSpot challenges Salesforce for businesses’ spending on software that manages sales, marketing, customer service and commerce. Watch adoption of its paid Hubs and AI agents, which customers can use separately or together as their businesses grow.
Microsoft competes for Salesforce’s business customers through Dynamics 365 customer-management software, Teams collaboration, Power Platform and business AI agents.
ServiceNow challenges Salesforce for enterprise spending on customer management, customer-service workflows and AI-enabled application platforms. Its CRM and Industry products connect service, sales, field service and order management, making that product area worth watching for competition facing Salesforce.
Oracle competes for the same business software purchases as Salesforce through customer-experience cloud applications for sales, service, marketing and commerce.
SAP competes for enterprise customers’ spending on Salesforce’s customer-management and commerce software through its customer-experience applications.
Adobe challenges Salesforce for marketing teams’ spending on automated campaigns, customer data, customer journeys and commerce software. Watch its Digital Experience business, rather than its creative software, for the clearest overlap with Salesforce’s marketing and commerce offerings.
Pegasystems challenges Salesforce for enterprise purchases of customer-engagement, service, sales-automation and AI workflow software. Watch Pega Platform adoption among large businesses and government agencies, the customers it targets with industry-tailored solutions.
Freshworks competes for businesses’ customer-service and CRM purchases that Salesforce also seeks. Watch its Freshdesk customer-experience suite and Freddy AI offerings for competition facing Salesforce’s service software.
Veeva pays Salesforce to host legacy CRM applications, but its independent Vault CRM also competes for life-sciences customers’ customer-management spending.
Braze competes with Salesforce’s marketing software for brands’ spending on personalized messages and customer engagement. Watch existing customers’ use of more channels and messaging credits: brands pay subscriptions priced largely by consumers reached and messages sent.
Sprinklr challenges Salesforce for enterprise spending on customer-service, marketing and customer-insight software. Its Service, Marketing and Insights suites are the products to watch for purchases by customer-facing teams.
Klaviyo challenges Salesforce for businesses’ spending on consumer customer-management, marketing automation and customer-data software. Watch its subscription platform among retail and eCommerce customers, where it has a strong presence and combines data with messaging, service and analytics.
Workday and Salesforce both depend on organizations buying and expanding cloud-software subscriptions: Workday sells HR and finance applications, while Salesforce sells customer-management software. Workday’s subscription growth and adoption of additional capabilities offer a read on enterprise application budgets, not a direct measure of CRM demand.
Snowflake and Salesforce both depend on enterprise investment in data-driven applications: Snowflake stores and processes business data, while Salesforce connects it to customer-management software and AI agents. Watch Snowflake customers’ platform usage, because they pay for consumption rather than a fixed subscription alone.
Shopify competes with Salesforce Commerce Cloud for merchants paying to build and expand online businesses. Watch Shopify Plus and enterprise customers, which generate most of the value of goods sold on its platform and use offerings designed for more complex commerce operations.
Five9 overlaps with Salesforce in software businesses buy for customer service and autonomous AI agents. Watch its AI Agents and Agent Assist products, which form part of a service that coordinates customer interactions across voice and digital channels.
nCino brings Salesforce subscription revenue by including Salesforce access in certain banking solutions and passing fees to Salesforce for hosting and platform functions. Watch adoption of those banking solutions, rather than treating all nCino subscription growth as revenue flowing to Salesforce.
Microsoft Corp earningsMSFT
Microsoft’s report will show whether businesses are still increasing spending on business software and AI, where Dynamics 365 competes with Salesforce for part of the same budgets.
Look at Dynamics 365 growth alongside Microsoft’s comments on demand for business software and AI. Steady Dynamics 365 growth would show that businesses are still paying for customer-management software and related tools, leaving a market for Salesforce to compete in; slowing growth would suggest more cautious spending and potentially tougher competition, but would not by itself show that Salesforce demand is weakening.
SERVICENOW, INC. earningsNOW
ServiceNow’s report will show demand for service workflows and customer-management software, where its related products compete with Salesforce for some customer budgets.
Read ServiceNow’s subscription revenue alongside its remaining performance obligations, or contracted revenue not yet recognized. Growth in both would show that businesses are still buying and expanding cloud workflow software, a supportive demand backdrop for Salesforce’s service and related products; a slowdown in both would point to cooling enterprise spending. ServiceNow reports its broader business, not results for only the products that overlap with Salesforce.
Shopify Inc. earningsSHOP
Shopify’s report will show whether merchants are still expanding online sales and paying for commerce tools, as Shopify Plus and Salesforce Commerce Cloud compete for some larger merchants’ budgets.
Compare Shopify’s platform transaction volume with subscription revenue. Growth in both would show that merchants are expanding online sales and continuing to pay for commerce tools, supporting the market Salesforce targets with larger merchants; weakness in both would suggest merchants are pulling back on expansion and tools. Shopify’s overall figures do not isolate Shopify Plus customers or directly measure Salesforce sales.
Salesforce, Inc. earningsThis company
Salesforce earns most of its revenue from business subscriptions, and this report will show whether recognized subscription revenue and contracted revenue expected to be recognized over the next year are growing together.
Compare growth in subscription and support revenue with growth in current remaining performance obligation, the contracted revenue Salesforce expects to recognize over the next 12 months. If both accelerate, new or expanded contracts are supporting recognized revenue; if revenue grows while contracted revenue slows, earlier contracts are still supporting sales but the next wave is weaker; if both slow, the subscription engine’s growth is losing support.
Adobe Inc. earningsADBE
Adobe’s report will show demand for digital marketing and customer-experience software, as its Digital Experience business competes with Salesforce’s marketing and commerce products for budgets.
Focus on Adobe’s Digital Experience business, not its creative software. Growth there would show that businesses are still buying marketing automation, customer-data and customer-journey tools, supporting demand for Salesforce’s overlapping products; if Digital Experience weakens while Adobe’s other business holds up, pressure is more likely in the enterprise-software area Salesforce shares with Adobe.
