Attio vs Salesforce
A source-aware comparison of pricing, documented capabilities and workflow fit.
Short answer
- Price: not directly comparable — Attio is free tier available, Salesforce is from $25/user/mo billed monthly.
- How to start: Attio is free tier available, Salesforce is from $25/user/mo billed monthly.
- Where they differ: only Salesforce has mobile app; both offer public api and sso (saml).
These lines are generated from the pricing we track, not from a paid placement. How we score tools.
What Attio is
What Attio isAttio is a CRM built like a flexible database, letting teams model their own objects and pipelines. Modelling your own objects means the CRM can describe an investor pipeline, a partner network or a marketplace, not just deals. The cost is that you design the system: there is no out-of-the-box sales process waiting for you.
What Salesforce is
What Salesforce isSalesforce Sales Cloud is the reference CRM, and its edition ladder spans a twenty-two-fold price range for what is nominally the same product. The two cheapest editions are the Starter and Pro suites, sold as small-business bundles covering sales, service, marketing and commerce; from Core upward the price reflects platform capability rather than extra apps, bringing Slack, Tableau and the Agentforce AI agents into the licence. The AI allowance is itself metered, published as Flex Credits per organisation per year, and the vendor states explicitly that the page is informational and that detailed pricing comes from a sales representative.
Side by side
| Attio | Salesforce | |
|---|---|---|
| Category | CRM | CRM |
| How to start | Free tiernot a monthly price | $25/user/moverified |
| Public API | Yes | Yes |
| Mobile app | No | Yes |
| Open source / self-hostable | No | No |
| SSO (SAML) | Yes | Yes |
| Visit | Attio ↗ | Salesforce ↗ |
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What Attio is built to do
- Custom data model
- Defines objects and relationships to match the business.
- Automatic enrichment
- Builds records from email and calendar activity.
- Collaborative lists
- Runs pipelines as shared, filterable lists over any object.
What Salesforce is built to do
- Lead and opportunity management
- Accounts, contacts, leads and opportunities with built-in flows and routing.
- Agentforce AI
- AI agents for prospecting, pipeline and sales email, metered in Flex Credits.
- Forecasting and quoting
- Sales quoting and forecasting from Pro Suite, predictive forecasting higher up.
Choose Attio if
- Small teams of up to 3 who want a modern CRM free with 50,000 records
- Startups scaling to 10 seats and 250,000 records: Plus $35/user/month annually
- Sales teams that want call intelligence and sequences on Pro ($79 annually)
Skip Attio if
- You have more than 3 users and no budget
- You want cheap seats: Pro is $99/user/month billed monthly
- You need SCIM or SSO — Enterprise, annual billing only
Choose Salesforce if
- Small teams wanting a bundled suite: Starter Suite is $25 per user per month and includes service, marketing and commerce alongside sales
- Growing businesses needing quoting and forecasting, which begin on Pro Suite at $100 per user per month billed annually
- Companies standardising on Slack and Tableau, since both enter the licence at Core, $195 per user per month
- Organisations committing to AI agents, where Max at $550 per user per month carries the full Agentforce suite and 2.75M Flex Credits a year
Skip Salesforce if
- You are comparing on the $25 headline: the same product line runs to $550 per user per month, a twenty-two-fold spread
- You want a firm quote from the website — the vendor states the page is informational and routes you to a sales representative
- You need AI on a cheap edition; the vendor states AI can be added to Core and above
- You are storing a lot per user: the lower editions allocate 10GB per org rather than per user
Evidence and freshness
Where a claim on this page comes from a vendor page, it is linked here.
Salesforce
Vendor pricing page verified · reviewed 2026-09-10
Attio: pros & cons
- Highly flexible data model
- Fast, modern interface
- Good for non-standard sales processes
- Flexibility means you must design the structure
- Younger than established CRMs
- Fewer prebuilt integrations
Salesforce: pros & cons
- Published per-user prices across five editions
- AI usage allowance stated as Flex Credits per org
- Starter and Pro suites bundle service, marketing and commerce
- Top edition is 22 times the entry price
- Vendor states the page is informational only
- Pro Suite and above are annual billing
Our verdict on Attio
Excellent if you know how you work and want the tool to follow. Teams wanting an opinionated default should look elsewhere.
Our verdict on Salesforce
Pick the edition by platform needs, not feature lists — the jump from Pro to Core is where you start paying for Slack, Tableau and AI agents. Treat every figure as a starting point for a sales conversation.
Published plans, side by side
Every figure below was read from the vendor's own pricing page and is shown with the sentence it came from. Where a vendor publishes no plan prices, we say so rather than guess.
Attio
- Free$0/mo
Free $0: 3 seats, 50,000 records
- Pro$99/user/mo billed annually
Pro $99/user/month or $79 annual: unlimited seats, 1M records; Enterprise custom; 14-day Pro trial
Salesforce
- Starter Suite$25/user/mo billed monthly
Starter Suite $25 USD per user per month, billed monthly or annually: lead, account, contact and opportunity management, built-in sales flows and lead routing, AI email, event and contact sync, dynamic email marketing and analytics
- Pro Suite$100/user/mo billed annually
Pro Suite $100 USD per user per month, billed annually: everything in Starter plus greater customisation and automation, sales quoting and forecasting, access to AgentExchange, Premier Support as an add-on
- Core$195/user/mo
Core $195 USD per user per month: everything in Professional Edition plus Momentum and Premier Success, Slack Business+ and Tableau Next
- Advanced$395/user/mo
Advanced $395 USD per user per month: everything in Core plus enhanced security, more AI and expanded data capacity, Sales Programs, Backup & Recover, Archive, Data Detect and Security Center
- Max$550/user/mo billed annually
Max $550 USD per user per month: everything in Advanced plus the full AI suite, Agentforce for Sales and Agentforce Coworker, Salesforce Spiff, Sales Planning, Sales Programs, Salesforce Maps, Tableau Next and Slack Enterprise+, and 2.75M Flex Credits per org per year
Attio vs Salesforce: common questions
- Does Attio or Salesforce have a free plan?
- Attio has a free tier with limits, while Salesforce has no free plan listed.
- Which is cheaper once you start paying, Attio or Salesforce?
- Salesforce has the cheaper first paid step: Starter Suite at $25/user/mo billed monthly, against Pro at $99/user/mo billed annually for Attio. Both figures come from the vendors' own pricing pages.
- What is the difference between Attio and Salesforce?
- On the criteria we check, only Salesforce has mobile app; both offer public api and sso (saml). The table above lists every criterion side by side.