Staying at the top of a field is more difficult than reaching the top. Salesforce has been able to do that in the world of customer relationship management (CRM) for the past two decades. However, nothing lasts forever. Salesforce is facing a new challenge for its spot as the world’s top CRM platform: ServiceNow.
But wait, is ServiceNow a CRM? Yes, ServiceNow made big strides by launching ServiceNow CRM in early 2025. This was a major moment for the Santa Clara-based company because CRM is Salesforce’s territory. ServiceNow CRM has the potential to emerge as one of Salesforce’s biggest competitors in that domain.
In this blog, we’ll discuss the various aspects of this CRM competition, compare ServiceNow CRM vs Salesforce, and in the end, we’ll give our opinion on whether ServiceNow can dethrone Salesforce as the number one CRM.
Salesforce: The established power
Salesforce is the established, dominant player in the CRM market. Founded in 1999, Salesforce CRM owns the world’s largest CRM market share at around 24%. The platform hosts a mature ecosystem that caters to each section of the sales and marketing cycle, such as:
- Sales Cloud
- Commerce Cloud
- Marketing Cloud
Moreover, Salesforce CRM’s AppExchange strengthens its network of dominance. It is fair to say that Salesforce is nearly synonymous with the word CRM itself.
ServiceNow: The rising power
ServiceNow is a young but ambitious enterprise, only launched in 2005. It is a digital workflow automation platform that offers several ServiceNow modules. Businesses use the ServiceNow platform to make their various processes faster and more efficient.
These are some of the common ServiceNow modules:
- ServiceNow IT Service Management (ITSM)
- ServiceNow IT Operations Management (ITOM)
- ServiceNow HR Service Delivery (HRSD)
ServiceNow CRM platform: A CRM war in the making?
The competition between ServiceNow and Salesforce has been going on for quite some time now. But you can say it was more of a “cold war” with Salesforce ruling CRM, and ServiceNow ruling ITSM.
However, things changed with the ServiceNow CRM announcement at the company’s Knowledge 2025 conference in January. ServiceNow’s CEO, Bill McDermott, said at the event, “We’re running the table in CRM because now you can configure, price, and quote CRM with ServiceNow, and that has been a horror show.” He certainly didn’t mince his words there.
Firstly, by saying “run the table in CRM,” he evinced ServiceNow’s ambition to challenge Salesforce as the dominant CRM vendor. Secondly, configure, price, quote (CPQ) is one of Salesforce’s most marketed features. Salesforce CPQ charges premium pricing, and it has deep penetration in the market. Calling it a “horror show” was a clear criticism of Salesforce.
While ServiceNow and Salesforce don’t necessarily compete head-on yet, they certainly look like they’re on a collision course. Both giants have made aggressive moves into each other’s territory. Salesforce has also announced its entry in the ITSM world with the launch of Salesforce ITSM this year.
Understanding CRM in ServiceNow
It is important to note that the ServiceNow CRM module isn’t a traditional CRM like Salesforce. The latter is primarily designed for sales and marketing processes, such as managing leads and tracking sales.
However, this approach in CRM is not so great for post-sale service operations. Why? Doing so requires connecting sales and marketing pipelines with IT and operational teams. This is what makes ServiceNow CRM different.
ServiceNow CRM focuses only on one part of CRM: customer service. It connects customer service to all the behind-the-scenes departments that fix problems, such as IT, engineering, operations, HR, field service, and more.
ServiceNow CSM vs CRM
Now, here it might get a little confusing. ServiceNow CRM solutions are offered as part of ServiceNow Customer Service Management (CSM). There is no standalone ServiceNow CRM product. Instead, ServiceNow CSM does the job of a CRM in ServiceNow. While CRM functions remain the foundation, ServiceNow CSM builds on it by adding tools to manage complex service operations.
Basically, it’s a marketing strategy for large enterprises that ServiceNow has come up with. Integrating CRM with other service operations delivers better ROI and wins business. So, remember that there is no comparison between ServiceNow CSM vs CRM; they are essentially the same.
ServiceNow CRM features and capabilities
Before diving into ServiceNow CRM vs Salesforce, let’s look at some key ServiceNow CRM features.
1. Omnichannel customer service
ServiceNow CRM provides a consolidated service experience across multiple channels, such as:
- Email and phone
- Digital self-service portal
- Virtual agents and AI chatbots
The fact that all channels in ServiceNow CRM flow into a unified workflow engine is one of the best things about the platform.
2. Field service management (FSM)
Some companies require onsite visits to perform service tasks like installations, repairs, maintenance, or schedule of work. ServiceNow CRM capabilities allow such companies to automate staff dispatching, optimizing schedule, inventory management, and record keeping.
Industries like manufacturing, construction, and healthcare can greatly benefit from field service management in ServiceNow CRM.
3. Sales and order management (SOM)
ServiceNow CRM offers SOM for industries that have complex, multi-department order fulfillment. Traditional CRMs like Salesforce don’t offer any SOM features, which is a problem for companies in logistics or customer service because their order fulfillment touches many departments.
SOM-related ServiceNow CRM features provide such businesses with a fulfillment system that orchestrates all the internal teams needed to deliver a customer’s product or service.
4. Configure, price, quote
Adding CPQ to its CRM functionalities is the biggest move by ServiceNow that has made it a serious player in the CRM market. ServiceNow CRM covered the post-sale side of the customer experience, but with CPQ, it’s now a true revenue-enabling platform.
Only a few selected vendors like Salesforce and Oracle were in this CPQ league of CRM platforms before, which speaks volumes of ServiceNow CRM capabilities.
ServiceNow CRM vs Salesforce comparison
HubSpot, SAP, and some other Salesforce competitors also made similar bold statements like the CEO of ServiceNow. But Salesforce still holds a market share larger than all of them combined. So, will ServiceNow CRM prove to be a tougher opponent?
We’ll compare ServiceNow CRM and Salesforce in these seven key benchmarks:
- CRM capabilities
- Customer service
- Sales and marketing automation
- Platform ecosystem
- AI-powered automation
- User experience
- Pricing
| ServiceNow CRM | Salesforce | |
| CRM capabilities | ⭐⭐⭐ ServiceNow CRM capabilities are more focused on customer service workflows. Even with SOM and CPQ, it still does not compete directly with Salesforce | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Salesforce is a complete CRM with end-to-end capabilities. It manages the entire customer lifecycle through a vast set of tools to acquire and nurture leads |
| Customer service | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ServiceNow CSM is exceptionally strong in environments where service requires collaboration with IT, operations, engineering, or field teams | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Salesforce Service Cloud is one of the most mature and widely adopted service platforms globally, but it is a bolt-on feature rather than built-in CRM function in Salesforce |
| Sales and marketing automation | ⭐⭐ ServiceNow CRM is simply not built for managing the sales and marketing cycle. It lacks core sales capabilities. Even with CPQ and SOM, ServiceNow handles sales after the deal is won, not before | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Salesforce is the gold standard for sales automation. And its Marketing Cloud supports marketing campaigns, automation, segmentation, personalization, and ad orchestration |
| Platform ecosystem | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ ServiceNow Developers can create custom apps for internal and external use using platform specific technologies to expand CRM functionalities | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ The Salesforce AppExchange ecosystem is enormous, offering thousands of apps, ISV solutions, integrators, and vertical tools. It acts as a full development platform |
| AI-powered automation | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ ServiceNow CRM integrations with Now Assist and AI capabilities are strong, especially in workflow automation, summarization, routing, and virtual agents | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Salesforce has heavily invested in AI across CRM, including Einstein, Agentforce, and deep integrations with generative AI partners. AI is embedded across sales, service, marketing, and analytics. |
| User experience | ⭐⭐⭐ ServiceNow CRM implementation ties deep into IT, and multi-department workflows. These connections make the system very powerful but also more challenging to maintain | ⭐⭐⭐ Salesforce can feel complex because it offers a huge range of CRM features all on one platform. To manage it properly, companies usually need trained Salesforce Admins |
| Pricing | ⭐⭐⭐ ServiceNow CRM pricing is expensive. Its licensing for CSM, SOM, and CPQ is premium-priced, and total cost increases because the platform typically requires certified developers and admins | ⭐⭐⭐ Salesforce tends to be expensive because you pay separately for different clouds and add-ons. As organizations grow, they often need more modules, storage, and advanced features, which raise costs |
TL;DR
- Salesforce offers more 360 CRM functionalities
- ServiceNow CRM has a slight edge in customer service
- Salesforce dwarfs ServiceNow CRM module in sales and marketing automation
- Both platforms have an extensive ecosystem
- ServiceNow CRM’s AI features are as good as Salesforce’s, but a bit limited
- Both platforms are feature-rich, but can be complex to use
- Neither platform is typically considered budget-friendly, especially compared to HubSpot or Zoho
Will ServiceNow CRM dethrone Salesforce?
The future of ServiceNow in the CRM world is certainly interesting. The company has been making forays in the CRM space since 2019 with the launch of ServiceNow CSM. In order to decide whether ServiceNow CRM can challenge Salesforce’s reign, we need to see what makes ServiceNow different from other Salesforce competitors like HubSpot, SAP, or Zoho.
On a large enterprise level, ServiceNow CRM is the toughest challenge Salesforce has faced so far. CRM in ServiceNow has a unique strength in linking customer-facing services with internal workflows, which is something that other Salesforce competitors lack.
But does that mean we’ll see a new number one CRM in the coming decade? Short answer: highly unlikely. People are excited about ServiceNow, but Salesforce’s lead is large and compounding. Salesforce spans sales, service, marketing, commerce, data, analytics, and you name it. That is quite a lot for ServiceNow to catch up on in the coming years.
And looking so far, ServiceNow CRM remains centered on service operations; CPQ expands its reach, but it doesn’t equal Salesforce’s full front-office stack.
However, that doesn’t mean we think ServiceNow will not make a name for itself in the CRM space. Instead, it is very likely that ServiceNow will carve out a different niche of CRM altogether: Operational CRM. It will likely become a top platform for enterprises where customer experience depends on operations, such as field-service-heavy industries.
So, our prediction is that in the next 5–10 years, both ServiceNow and Salesforce will have to coexist. The main differentiator between the two platforms will be how they integrate AI technologies into their solutions.
Conclusion
We hope that you found this blog insightful. ServiceNow is not exactly a new platform, but it has become mainstream among businesses only recently.
ServiceNow is currently one of our expertise at Xavor. We are keenly watching the platform’s evolution, and this piece about ServiceNow CRM was our attempt to provide a clear perspective on its capabilities and its future, with regard to its competition with Salesforce.
If you want to have more insights about ServiceNow, partner with us. Our ServiceNow-certified professionals can help you with various aspects of the platform implementation in your business workflows.
Contact us at [email protected] to talk to our ServiceNow experts.