For years, Demandbase has topped lists of account-based marketing solutions.
They’ve been pushing the account-based message since way back in 2007 (when hardly anybody else was doing it) and have been sitting neatly in the Leaders corner of Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for ABM tools for the last few years.
But we’re not in 2007 anymore, and there are more than a handful of newcomers looking to take some market share off of the grandfather of account-based marketing.
In this guide, we’re going to explore 7 Demandbase competitors that we think deserve a space in your final shortlist.
Some of them are similar to Demandbase in terms of offering. Others take a markedly different approach to selling into target accounts.
All of them will help you grow revenue.
Top Demandbase Competitors & Alternatives You Should Take A Second Look At
1. ZoomInfo - Best For An Integrated All-In-One Suite
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ZoomInfo is an interesting competitor in the ABM space.
Rather than focusing on developing a best-in-class solution, ZoomInfo has decided to go broad, offering four different “suites” that you can add on as modules as your GTM motion develops:
- SalesOS
- MarketingOS
- OperationsOS
- TalentOS
Why Consider ZoomInfo As An Alternative To Demandbase?
Okay, maybe saying that ZoomInfo isn’t focused on being a best-in-class solution.
That’s because they were a best-in-class solution for contact and company data. They’re still solid in that area, though they are losing some ground (more on that shortly).
What ZoomInfo does best is acting as a single vendor across multiple different categories.
This means you can start with a marketing-forward motion, and when you want to build out sales around it, you don’t have to bolt on a separate platform. You can just go to the same vendor, buy their sales suite, and it will plug in neatly from the get-go.
As far as stand-out features go, a few things ZoomInfo does well include:
- Conversational intelligence (the kind of thing Gong is famous for)
- A decent chatbot with solid “if/then” workflows
- B2B ABM ads through their own demand-side platform
Where ZoomInfo Falls Short
ZoomInfo’s scope is a double-edged sword.
It makes them an all-in-one, one-stop-shop vendor, but it also means they are heading towards becoming a jack of all trades but a master of none.
They’ve already taken their eye off the data ball, with solutions like Apollo.io taking over as leaders in that space.
Of greater concern, though, is that their product expansion is largely coming through acquisitions rather than internal builds.
That means, at a high level, they’re bolting products to cross-sell to existing users (ACV expansion play). Rather than investing engineering time in building best-in-class features, they’re spending time integrating those acquisitions into the existing architecture (which takes its time).
ZoomInfo Pricing
ZoomInfo doesn’t offer pricing information on its website, but what we do know is that you’ll be paying at least $40k a year for workflows alone.
Again, not a cheap solution, but an expansive one.
2. Terminus - Best For Marketers
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Terminus is another alternative to Demandbase that offers a similar feature set.
They’re a little cheaper (anecdotally), though they still target the higher end of the market with strong advertising/marketing budgets.
Why Consider Terminus As An Alternative To Demandbase?
The main distinction with Terminus is that they’re focused heavily on the marketing use case.
You’ll get features like:
- Personalized website experience
- Targeted B2B ads
- Automated chatbots
Their ad offering, in particular, is pretty strong, with support across display and social, retargeting capabilities, and even an audio advertising network.
They even have the functionality to include personalized ads in outbound email campaigns, which is a cool, unique feature for drumming up email engagement.
Where Terminus Falls Short
The flipside here is that Terminus isn’t quite as capable as other solutions when it comes to the sales use case.
Their sales workflows aren’t quite as strong as other Demandbase competitors (like 6sense or ZoomInfo), and their sales engagement stuff isn’t that robust either.
The problem here is that they don’t close the loop between ABM and ABS (account-based selling), which makes sense given the marketing focus.
Also, their chatbot is much more automated vs. a human-style experience (again, due to the lack of focus on the sales use case).
Terminus Pricing
Anecdotally, we’ve heard that Terminus costs less than 6sense and Demandbase.
This, of course, depends entirely on the feature set you end up settling on and aligns with the fact that Terminus isn’t quite as fully-featured as those alternatives.
3. Rollworks - Best For HubSpot-Based Teams
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RollWorks basically takes what the likes of Terminus and 6sense do and trims it down to suit an SMB audience.
In particular, they are focused on HubSpot CRM users.
Why Consider RollWorks As An Alternative To Demandbase?
The biggest pro with RollWorks is pricing, with plans starting at just $975 a month.
As far as ABM solutions go, that’s pretty affordable.
They are more focused on marketing than the sales use case (a pro and a con) and have a huge range of HubSpot integrations.
This makes RollWorks the ABM solution of choice for HubSpot users, who, more often than not are SMBs anyway, meaning the more limited feature set offered by RollWorks is a benefit rather than a drawback.
Where RollWorks Falls Short
RollWorks is, as you would assume, a less capable solution, given what it costs.
On the sales front, it misses out on having B2B contact data or buyer intent data to help you identify buying committees.
As far as marketing goes, they have decent advertising functionality, but reports note that they lack a self-serve option for ads, meaning you have to rely on their ad ops team to execute.
RollWorks Pricing
RollWorks offers three pricing plans, Standard, Professional, and Ultimate, with the cheapest coming in at $975 a month.
4. N.Rich - Best For European ABM Plays
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N.Rich joins Terminus, RollWorks, and Triblio in the Niche Players corner of the 2023 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Account-Based Marketing Platforms report.
Though their feature overlap is, to be honest, not all that unique, the big difference is that they are the only provider in that report that’s headquartered in Europe.
Why Consider N.Rich As An Alternative To Demandbase?
N.Rich is the leading ABM platform in Europe, and they’re actually based there.
That means they are big on European data and privacy standards and are your best shot for GDPR compliance.
A few other privacy and security pros with N.Rich:
- One of the first ad platforms to buy into IAB's Transparency and Consent Framework (TCF ID 20), which ensures GDPR compliance in programmatic ads.
- Fully consent-based for cookies and for creating personalized ad profiles.
- Brand safety guardrails ensure ads aren’t shown next to non-brand-safe content.
Aside from all data jazz, N.Rich is known to have a fantastic customer support team that helps with custom buildouts and a fantastic LinkedIn integration for account-based targeting.
They also have a really intuitive and easy-to-navigate UI.
Where N.Rich Falls Short
N.Rich’s big win is also kind of its downfall.
Being an ABM platform that is compliant with the EU is coupled with the fact that data coverage is a bit slimmer than it would otherwise be. Which means from a targeting and advertising standpoint, N.Rich inevitably falls a little shorter than competitors.
For instance, coverage is generally better for larger companies, and sometimes N.Rich doesn’t recognize certain smaller companies at all, making the product effectively useless for startup sales in some industries and categories.
A few other reported downsides include:
- No automated sync with your CRM (so you have to do it manually)
- Some custom buildouts are required for things that should really be a standard feature
- Lacking in persona-based targeting (the likes of which 6sense and Demandbase are a lot better at )
- Doesn’t have as much account intelligence and sales workflow capabilities as Terminus, Rollworks, Demandbase, and others.
- Missing things like a database of contact information and a strong integration with sales engagement tools like SalesLoft and Outreach
N.Rich Pricing
N.Rich, like most other ABM solutions, doesn’t show pricing on its website.
It does, however, operate on a tiered system (Lite, Growth, Scale, and Custom plans). This is generally indicative of a more affordable solution compared to a “we’ll build you a custom package” message.
Anecdotally, too, N.Rich comes in as lower cost and more affordable than other larger and more fully-featured Demandbase competitors.
5. Triblio - Best For Low Cost ABM
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Triblio can basically be thought of as another low-cost ABM market solution.
Why Consider Triblio As An Alternative To Demandbase?
Other than pricing (which we can’t actually speak to specifically, though we know through the grapevine is one of the most affordable solutions around), Triblio has a few solid features:
- Website personalization that can be optimized for specific accounts using a WYSIWYG editor
- Strong coverage in the EU for 1st party data (website de-anonymization)
- Decent ad retargeting that is pretty cheap in comparison to other paid ad options
- Offers and integration with Bombora so you can combine 1st party data with high-quality 3rd party intent data for more targeted website personalization and display ads
Something interesting to note is that Triblio was acquired by Foundry back in 2020, meaning it benefits from all subsequent Foundry acquisitions, such as:
- KickFire visitor intelligence
- LeadSift intent data
- Partnerships with Bombora and G2.
Where Triblio Falls Short
Triblio is another one of those jack-of-all-trades tools, except it is not quite as full-scale as something like ZoomInfo.
That means that it's an all-around intent platform that is decent from a pricing standpoint, but it's never going to be an expert in any one channel.
In particular, it lacks the reporting and dashboard customization that other solutions offer. Gartner, in particular, called out that it lacks advanced advertising functionality.
Triblio’s 2020 acquisition by a bigger and older company might also mean that the pace of innovation slows going forward (a common consequence of such acquisitions.)
Triblio Pricing
Triblio appears to be one of the more cost-effective solution solutions, and actually holds its own against the likes of 6sense, Demandbase, and Terminus in terms of its scope of features.
Again, no actual pricing information is available for Triblio.
6. Metadata.io - Best For Demand Generation Marketers
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Metadata is unique in that they don’t bill themselves as an ABM solution necessarily (though they are one). Instead, they call themselves a Marketing OS, which means they spike high in terms of ABM advertising.
Why Consider Metadata.io As An Alternative To Demandbase?
Metadata is obviously a marketing-focused ABM solution rather than a sales-centered option.
They are very strong in targeted advertisements based on intent data. In fact, many companies integrate 6sense and Metadata because the ad offering is so strong.
Metadata themselves frame the process as such:
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This combo makes for a seriously strong tech stack and borrows from the real strengths of each solution.
An especially unique (and, in my opinion, quite powerful) feature is the fact that Metadata doesn’t just give you a platform; it comes with proven playbooks from the best B2B marketers in the game.
These playbooks are built right inside the platform with step-by-step instructions on how to execute them.
It's kind of like they’re selling the playbooks, and Metadata is the tool you use to execute them. To be fair, it's pretty impressive.
A few other standout features of Meta include the ability to:
- See an audience preview before you run your ad so you don’t waste your marketing budget on the wrong people and personas
- Exclude people who don’t fit your ICP (ideal customer profiles) using filters
- Run all ad campaigns natively so you don’t have to hop in and out of different solutions
- Create a cohort analysis of how much you spend vs. how much you’re driving in the pipeline, without having to revert to Excel
Lastly, Metadata acquired the website personalization platform Reactful in late 2022, meaning they now have the capability to optimize websites to improve conversion rates for leads they’ve driven from B2B ads.
Where Metadata.io Falls Short
Being a marketing-focused solution, they aren’t quite as strong in the sales intelligence and workflows area.
They don't have some sales intelligence or a proprietary database for lead enrichment, but they don’t have all the downstream stuff for sales rep engagement; that’s not really their bag. It's more built for the demand generation marketer.
But 6sense has some pretty powerful functionality in this area. So if you’re running the 6sense>Metadata tech stack, you could always go back to 6sense for downstream sales activities.
Obviously, this isn’t exactly a cheap stack, but it's certainly a powerful one.
Metadata.io Pricing
Metadata is a refreshing change in the ABM space; they actually put their pricing on their website!
The whole system can be bought for $60k a year. It comes with a $540k annual ad spend limit, but you can increase this by upgrading your plan.
Or, you can pick and choose certain features, and add onboarding services and so on.
7. Warmly - Best For SMB Account-Based Orchestration
At this point, it's probably clear that we’ve got a bit skin in the game here.
We (Warmly) are a Demandbase competitor, too.
But not in the sense that ZoomInfo, 6sense, or Terminus is a competitor. We designed Warmly with a different approach in mind.
Here’s the problem:
Most account-based marketing solutions just aren’t built with the SMB in mind.
They’re clearly expensive (many in the 6-figure range), which puts them out of range of SMB budgets.
And it's not that they’re not worth the money; they just offer a whole lot more scope and capability than the average small business needs.
Your typical SMB isn’t going to engage in a huge personalized B2B ad campaign to support an account-based play (which, by the way, requires even more budget).
They also don’t typically have large sales teams to run a human-first playbook.
What the typical small company needs is a solution that is marketing automation/AI-first, SMB budget-friendly, with a leaner feature set focused specifically on identifying and converting high-intent prospects.
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That, funnily enough, is Warmly: an AI-powered platform for account-based orchestration at scale.
Why Consider Warmly As An Alternative To Demandbase?
Warmly uses generative AI to automate and personalize outreach on your rep’s behalf, connecting with your existing tech stack and best-in-class data solutions.
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Here’s a high-level take on how it works:
- Warmly identifies visitors on your website and matches them to target accounts in your sales tech stack
- We enrich this with best-in-class company and contact data to arm your reps (and our AI engaging) with all the information they need
- Outreach sequences are triggered (like your email sequences in Outreach), and generative AI runs conversational chat to engage website visitors
- We monitor buying signals and use intent data from the likes of 6sense, Bombora, Clearbit, and PeopleDataLabs to capture high-intent prospects when the timing is right
- Reps get notified in Slack when it is time for them to get involved
Warmly’s AI runs this entire workflow, from intent signals being triggered to outreach being fired.
The beauty is that from the customer’s perspective, it looks like they’re speaking to a rep the whole time, so when an actual human does get involved, the transition is seamless.
This empowers you to scale up an army of AI SDRs on an SMB budget. We call this account-based orchestrationm a more cost-effective and scalable alternative to ABM.
Also read: The Rise of Account-Based Orchestration in the Age of AI and Automation.
Why Warmly Might Not Be A Good Fit For You
No software platform is perfect for every use case. Demandbase has its drawbacks, and so do we.
We’ve designed and built Warmly specifically to serve the SMB and lower middle markets, businesses that want to access ABM plays without an enterprise budget.
That means it's a great alternative to something like Demandbase, which is largely overkill for small businesses and definitely out of reach budget-wise.
However, this also means that we haven’t built out the kinds of features and integrations (e.g., certain marketing automation platforms) you’d expect from an enterprise-facing solution like Demandbase or 6sense.
We also don’t touch advertising (since this isn’t something a lot of SMBs have a huge budget for).
Warmly Pricing
Warmly offers 3 different plans:
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Most of our customers are on the Business plan at $850 a month (billed annually).
That comes in at a fraction of the price of a Demandbase plan, providing SMBs with the essentials to run an AI-led sales motion, combining best-in-class data and intent signals with AI-orchestrated playbooks.
You can even get started with a free account without having to speak to a sales rep, so you can dive in and start seeing revenue growth immediately.
Get started for free here.
Why Consider An Alternative To Demandbase?
Demandbase is clearly a capable platform.
It’s been in the game the longest, was an early promoter of the ABM ideology, and is still pushing the boundary with its new take on ABX (account-based experience).
But as with any solution, it's not perfect for everyone, and there are a couple of reasons why you might choose to side with an alternative to Demandbase.
Demandbase Isn’t Cheap
Category-leading products don’t come cheap, and Demandbase knows it.
While we don’t have specific pricing details to share (being a complex and largely enterprise-facing solution, they create custom pricing packages), you’re definitely looking at high five figures annually for this solution.
That puts Demandbase out of reach for most small and even medium-sized businesses, and that’s before you factor in things like ad spend and manning the sales team.
B2B Advertising Is A Bolt-On
Demandbase came up first and foremost as an account intelligence platform and only bolted on B2B ads later (they’ve been steadily acquiring companies to expand their offering).
While this isn’t necessarily an issue, by all reports, other solutions like 6sense have stronger advertising functionalities.
Relies on bidstream data
Demandbase sources its intent data from the bidstream, essentially relying on prospect interaction with other B2B ads to judge interest.
While this is standard practice (and the data stream that many competitors use), it's largely considered to be less reliable than other B2B intent data provider options, like Bombora’s proprietary Company Surge® Analytics.
For this reason, revenue teams often pair Demandbase with something like Metadata.io, Bombora, or Clearbit to bolster their data reliability.
This, of course, means an additional expense and more moving parts to integrate.
Stay Lean By Building An AI SDR Army
There’s no denying that a good, hard look at the account-based marketing software landscape inevitably pulls up Demandbase as a category leader.
But they aren’t perfect for every use case, and there are a number of great competitors on the market that might be more effective for specific sales and marketing motions.
This is particularly true for the SMB end of the market, which typically doesn’t have the kind of budget a comprehensive and complex solution like Demandbase requires.
Instead, most small and medium-sized business do better by finding the perfect middle ground between AI-led scale and speed, and a personalized human touch.
And that’s exactly why we built Warmly.
Warmly is designed to help SMBs access enterprise-grade account-based GTM motions without the huge salesforce and upfront software investment.
In fact, you can get started with Warmly for free today (without having to speak to a sales rep) and start driving revenue in weeks, not quarters.
Check out how Behavioral Signals tripled their enterprise pipeline in 30 days using Warmly.