Salesforce Einstein Alternatives: Features, Pricing and Comparison
Big Tech and Enterprise
Looking for an alternative to Salesforce Einstein? Compare features, pricing, and fit to choose the right platform.
Salesforce Einstein (now Agentforce 360) vs Sistava
Salesforce Einstein is the AI layer that sits across the Salesforce stack. It launched in 2016 as predictive scoring and forecasting (Einstein Lead Scoring, Einstein Opportunity Insights), then expanded in 2023 with Einstein GPT and Einstein Copilot, and in 2024 with Agentforce, the autonomous agent platform built on Atlas Reasoning Engine. Since then the Einstein name has largely been retired at the front of the product. Einstein Copilot was renamed Agentforce in January 2025, and at Dreamforce in October 2025 the Einstein 1 Platform became the Agentforce 360 Platform, Data Cloud became Data 360, and Service Cloud became Agentforce Service. Einstein survives as the label on the predictive layer (lead scoring, opportunity insights, forecasting, the legacy bots) and on the Einstein Trust Layer that governs data handling.
Whatever it is called, it only makes sense inside Salesforce. The assistant helps users inside the Salesforce UI. The predictive features score Salesforce leads and opportunities. Agents act on Salesforce records and call Salesforce-defined actions, and they now reach outward through Salesforce-hosted MCP servers and the A2A protocol rather than being sealed inside the CRM. If you are not already a Salesforce customer, or willing to become one, the math still does not work: Sales Cloud Enterprise is 175 USD per seat per month before any agent consumption is added.
Profile
- Pricing
- Most of what used to be sold as Einstein is now branded Agentforce, so the real cost is a Salesforce cloud license plus agent consumption. Sales Cloud editions run 25 USD (Starter), 100 USD (Pro), 175 USD (Enterprise), 350 USD (Unlimited) and 550 USD (Agentforce 1 Sales) per user per month billed annually. Agent usage is billed either at 2 USD per conversation (a 24-hour session) or through Flex Credits at 500 USD per 100,000 credits, where a standard action costs 20 credits (0.10 USD) and a voice action 30 credits (0.15 USD). An org picks one consumption model, not both. A free Agentforce Developer Edition org exists for building and testing.
- Founded
- 2016 (Einstein launched as Salesforce's AI brand, folded into the Agentforce brand from 2025; Salesforce founded 1999, San Francisco)
- Funding
- Public (NYSE: CRM), one of the largest enterprise software companies in the world
- Focus
- AI layer across the Salesforce clouds, now sold as Agentforce 360: autonomous agents grounded in CRM data, multi-agent orchestration over MCP and A2A, plus the surviving Einstein predictive layer (lead scoring, opportunity insights, forecasting)
Why choose Sistava as an alternative to Salesforce Einstein
- We ship a flat-plan AI workforce that runs without a 175-USD-per-seat CRM underneath. You hire Tom the salesperson or Sara the customer success employee on a Personal plan and they work in your existing tools. Salesforce assumes you have already standardized on Salesforce as your platform of record.
- Our pricing is per workspace, not per user. A founder running a small team of AI employees stays on one plan. The Agentforce 1 Sales edition is 550 USD per user per month billed annually. For a 5-person team that is 33,000 USD per year before any conversation or Flex Credit consumption.
- Honest concession: if you are an established mid-market or enterprise company with Salesforce as your spine, Agentforce is the right shape. Agents are grounded in your CRM data through Data 360, governed through Salesforce permissions, and audited through the Einstein Trust Layer. Sistava cannot match that level of CRM-native governance.
- Sistava employees coordinate as a team with leaders, sprints, planning, and delegation, the same shape a small human team uses. Salesforce added multi-agent orchestration, where an orchestrator agent delegates to subagents and, over the A2A protocol, to third-party agents outside Salesforce. That is real delegation, but it is a routing topology you design, not a staffed team that plans its own week.
- Our employees execute through a desktop companion and browser, so they can operate any web app a human can use. Agentforce executes through Salesforce-defined actions, Flows, MCP servers and A2A calls. Strong and increasingly open for system-to-system work, but there is no published equivalent of a general browser or desktop operator for apps that expose no API.
Feature Comparison
| Feature | Salesforce Einstein | Sistava |
|---|---|---|
| Pre-built AI Employees you hire | ✗ | ✓ |
| Works without a CRM seat license | ✗ | ✓ |
| Per-workspace pricing | 175 to 550 USD per seat per month, plus conversation or Flex Credit fees | Flat plans, no per-seat charges |
| In-CRM copilot | Agentforce assistant inside the Salesforce UI | ✗ |
| Predictive lead and opportunity scoring | Einstein Lead Scoring and Opportunity Insights | Via sales employee judgement and tools |
| Generative email and call summaries | ✓ | ✓ |
| Autonomous agent platform | Agentforce 360 | ✓ |
| Pre-built sales agent | Agentforce sales agents (licensed add-on) | ✓ |
| Pre-built customer support agent | Agentforce Service Agent | ✓ |
| Custom agent builder | Agentforce Builder and Agent Script (low-code, requires Salesforce skills) | Configure via natural-language instructions |
| MCP and A2A protocol support | Salesforce-hosted MCP servers, A2A via the MuleSoft Agent Broker | ✓ |
| Delegation between agents | Multi-agent orchestration, orchestrator delegates to subagents | Leader assigns work across the team |
| Weekly sprints, planning, reviews | Not a documented capability | ✓ |
| Desktop companion that operates real apps | Not a documented capability | ✓ |
| Browser automation across any web app | Not a documented capability | ✓ |
| Per-action / per-conversation AI costs | 2 USD per conversation, or Flex Credits at 0.10 USD per action | Included in plan |
| Onboarding time to first useful output | Weeks to months depending on Salesforce maturity | Same day, no Salesforce setup |