Pardot was founded in 2007 by David Cummings and Adam Blitzer with an original model of a pay-per-click arbitrage platform to generate leads for B2B marketers in the technology space. The company soon pivoted into B2B marketing automation aimed for small businesses with expanded marketing features, including email marketing; by 2012, Pardot was included in the Inc 500 as the 172nd fastest growing company. That year, Pardot was acquired by ExactTarget for $95.5 million; in 2013, ExactTarget was acquired by Salesforce.com for $2.5 billion. The Pardot platform offers considerable B2B marketing automation tools for lead management, email marketing, drip campaigns and custom automations. It integrates very well with Salesforce and its related platforms along with other major CRMs, such as SugarCRM, Dynamics 265 and NetSuite.
Intended Customers Small to Midsize Businesses, Enterprises
Free Trial No
Features
All Available Plans & Services
| Standard | Pro | Ultimate | |
| Pricing | |||
| Billed Annually | $1,000/month | $2,000/month | $3,000/month |
| Number of Contacts | 10,000 Prospects; +$100 for 10k | 10,000 Prospects; +$100 for 10k | 10,000 Prospects; +$100 for 10k |
| Onboarding | Quick Start; $4000 (Optional) | Quick Start; $4000 (Optional) | Quick Start; $4000 (Optional) |
| Features | |||
| Prospect Tracking | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Lead Deduplication | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Custom Lead Scoring | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Custom Fields | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Unlimited Emails (Mass & One-to-One) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Engagement Programs | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Automation Rules | 50 | 100 | 150 |
| File Hosting | 100 MB | 500 MB | 10 GB |
| SEO Keyword Monitoring | 100 Keywords | 250 Keywords | 1,000 Keywords |
| Competitor Monitoring | 10 Competitors | 25 Competitors | 100 Competitors |
| Landing Pages | 50 | Yes | Yes |
| Forms | 50 | Yes | Yes |
| Fully Customizable URLs | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Basic Dynamic Content | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Tracked Social Posts | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Native CRM Integration | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Webinar Integration | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| EventBrite Integration | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Olark Chat Integration | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Bit.ly Pro Connector | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Basic User Management | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Client Advocate | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Live, Weekly Training | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| On-Demand Training Videos | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| User Forum | Add-On | Yes | Yes |
| Advanced Dynamic Content | Add-On | Yes | Yes |
| Multivariate Landing Page Testing | Add-On | Yes | Yes |
| Social Profiling & Lookups | Add-On | Yes | Yes |
| Google AdWords Integration | Add-On | Yes | Yes |
| Advanced Email Analytics | Add-On | Yes | Yes |
| Email Rendering & Preview Analysis | Add-On | Yes | Yes |
| Pardot API Access | No | 25,000 Calls/Day | 100,000 Calls/Day |
| Email A/B Testing | No | Yes | Yes |
| Live Chat Support | No | Yes | Yes |
| Integrated Marketing Calendar | No | Yes | Yes |
| Multiple Scoring Categories | No | Yes | Yes |
| Dedicated IP Address | No | Add-On | Yes |
| Custom User Roles | No | Add-On | Yes |
| Custom Permissions | No | Add-On | Yes |
| Custom Object Integration | No | Add-On | Yes |
| Phone Support | No | Add-On | Yes |
| Wave for B2B Marketing | No | Add-On | Add-On |
| Salesforce Engage | Add-On | Add-On | Add-On |
Pardot makes it a little difficult to ascertain which features are included in each plan. This may be a sign of an effective marketing and sales strategy - keep prospects speculating until they commit themselves to a guided tour or demo - with the added benefit of avoiding a potentially superficial 1:1 feature comparison with other marketing automation providers. Inscrutability of their platform to outsiders aside, given Pardot’s reputation in the B2B marketing automation space, they surely know their craft. Exploring the platform through guided tours and browsing user reviews gives a sense of the powerful customization Pardot grants its users over their marketing assets, from simple things like fields and tags to complex system automations for personalized drip campaigns and lead scoring, as well as native integrations with some of the most expansive and best-resourced CRMs on the market. Pardot offers users considerable tools for managing the customer experience depending on how they interact with your site - marketing email, white paper, Google advertisement or so forth. Marketing elements can be segmented, organized and nested according to campaigns and workflows, customer engagement can be tailored to account for previous interactions, triggers and sub-triggers can be customized and timed across multiple channels. The advanced plans offer greater scope and depth of features - increased SEO assistance, more automation rules, greater API access and increased security and support. Businesses that aren’t tied into the Salesforce network of products would find it difficult to create custom integrations between Pardot and third-party applications - the API only becomes available on the Pro plan, which costs $2,000 per month (for up to 10,000 contacts). If a business is immersed in the Salesforce universe, Pardot is an excellent option for B2B marketing. Companies can integrate Pardot with Salesforce Engage, which is a CRM plug-in that gives direct access to Pardot’s marketing insights for sales reps, for $50 per user/month. For companies looking to align their marketing and sales departments, particularly those already invested in the Salesforce ecosystem, Pardot is a powerful, highly customizable platform.