Marketo vs Pardot: Features, Sync and Pricing

Choose Account Engagement (Pardot) if your sales team works in Salesforce and you want B2B automation with published prices and edition limits. Choose Adobe Marketo Engage if your CRM is Microsoft Dynamics or Veeva, or if your programs need Marketo's smart campaigns, workspaces and partitions. Neither syncs in real time, and Adobe doesn't publish Marketo prices.

We are Salesforce consultants for Pardot and Marketing Cloud Next. Every fact below comes from Adobe's or Salesforce's own documentation, and we say where Marketo is the better fit.

What Is the Difference Between Marketo and Pardot?

Pardot belongs to Salesforce and only works with Salesforce CRM. Marketo belongs to Adobe, keeps its own database and syncs it with Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics or Veeva.

Pardot's official name has been Marketing Cloud Account Engagement since Salesforce announced the rename in April 2022. Salesforce Help says: "All Account Engagement versions require Salesforce single sign-on and a valid Salesforce connector." What the product does is covered in what Pardot is and how it works.

Marketo is still called Adobe Marketo Engage in Adobe's current documentation and release notes. Adobe's product description defines it like this:

"Adobe Marketo Engage is a platform solution for managing B2B and B2C considered purchase marketing leads through all stages of buying journeys, which natively supports both demand- and account-based marketing strategies."

How Do Marketo and Pardot Compare Feature by Feature?

Most features exist in both but sit in different editions; the CRM row is the one that rules a tool out.

Sources: Salesforce's pricing page and Help; Adobe's pricing page, product description and Experience League. Adobe's pricing grid marks a feature that isn't included in a package with a dollar sign and the label "Available".

How Does Each Tool Sync With Salesforce?

Both sync in cycles, so a change in Salesforce shows up in the marketing tool a few minutes later. Salesforce Help says of Pardot: "Syncing occurs every 2–4 minutes." Adobe describes Marketo's sync like this:

"Marketo syncs with Salesforce all day, every day. Each sync takes some time and then pauses for 5 minutes, then starts again."

The direction matters more than the timing. Adobe says Marketo's sync "is bidirectional only for leads, contacts, and Salesforce campaigns." Accounts and opportunities travel from Salesforce to Marketo only, and Marketo links opportunities to people through opportunity contact roles. An opportunity without a contact role reaches Marketo but belongs to nobody.

Pardot's connector is included in every edition and syncs opportunities without extra setup. It doesn't create prospects from leads and contacts already in Salesforce, so those have to be imported. Our guide to connecting Pardot and Salesforce covers the setup.

Marketo has its own trap at setup. When you first sync fields, Adobe warns that "all fields the user can see will be created in Marketo permanently and cannot be deleted." Hide every Salesforce field you don't need from the Marketo sync user before you start.

What About Microsoft Dynamics?

Pardot can't work with Dynamics. Marketo can, and Adobe states that this sync runs "in batches, not in real time."

What This Means for Sales

Sales works in Salesforce with either tool. Pardot writes its score and grade to the lead and contact as read-only fields, so reports and routing can use both. With Marketo, Adobe recommends creating Score, Acquisition Program and Acquisition Date fields on leads and contacts yourself, and its Sales Insight add-on for sales users is sold in packs of five.

Engagement Programs vs Engagement Studio: How Do Nurtures Differ?

Engagement Studio builds a nurture as a branching path; Marketo's engagement programs send content from prioritised streams on a schedule, and smart campaigns do the branching around them.

In Pardot, Salesforce Help says: "There are three basic types of steps: trigger steps, rule steps, and action steps." A rule step can check up to five conditions, and a program can have up to 300 steps. Growth+ runs 20 programs at a time, Plus+ 100, Advanced+ and Premium+ 200.

In Marketo, Adobe describes a stream as "a pool of prioritized content that the engagement program will use to nurture people." You set the stream's cadence weekly or monthly, and each program holds up to 25 streams of up to 125 pieces of content. Standard packages allow 100 active engagement programs.

Branching in Marketo lives in smart campaigns: trigger campaigns react to one person's action, such as a link click, and batch campaigns run at a set time. That gives a skilled admin freedom, but one nurture's logic is spread over a program and its campaigns.

Lead Scoring and Grading

Pardot has scoring and grading built in. The score measures interest with preset rules (a form submission adds 50 points), and you can change only the point values. The grade runs from A+ to F against a profile of who you want to reach.

Scoring categories start at Plus+, and Einstein Behavior Scoring at Advanced+. Our guide to Pardot scoring and grading lists the default rules.

In Marketo, scoring is something you build: smart campaigns change a score with the Change Score step, and you can create several score fields. Adobe's glossary describes a behavior score for actions and a demographic score for attributes such as job title or industry. Adobe's glossary and scoring pages describe no letter grade, so fit becomes a number you design and agree with sales.

How Much Do Marketo and Pardot Cost?

Pardot's list prices are public: $1,250, $2,750, $4,400 or $15,000 per Salesforce org per month for Growth+, Plus+, Advanced+ and Premium+, billed annually (Salesforce, October 2026). Adobe publishes no Marketo prices; its pricing page says "Get customized pricing for Marketo Engage."

The two vendors also count contacts differently. Salesforce counts mailable prospects across all business units, and "Unsubscribed prospects aren't counted toward this limit." Adobe licenses Marketo "Per 1,000 Contacts" and defines a contact as a person record "for whom Customer has a point of contact (email, Facebook, Twitter, physical mailing address, etc.)." Adobe also makes the customer "responsible for monitoring and limiting the amount of Contacts" against the contract.

Adobe's pricing grid marks Target Account Management, the sandbox and workspaces with a dollar sign in Growth and Select, and the product description sells them as add-ons. Marketo Measure is included only in Ultimate. In Pardot, the extras are add-ons by edition and, if you use Marketing Cloud Next, credits for messaging, AI usage and Data 360 (formerly Data Cloud).

Our Pardot pricing guide breaks down every edition. When you compare, ask both vendors to quote the same number of contacts and users.

Should You Choose Marketo or Pardot?

Your CRM decides most of it. If Salesforce stays your CRM, Pardot or Marketing Cloud Next keeps CRM and marketing with one vendor; if it doesn't, Pardot is off the table.

Choose Marketo If

• Your CRM is Microsoft Dynamics or Veeva, or you may leave Salesforce in the next few years.
• You run several regions or brands and want them kept apart inside one instance with workspaces and partitions.
• You have a marketing ops person who will own smart campaign logic and a scoring model built from scratch.
• You plan buying-group journeys in Adobe Journey Optimizer B2B Edition, a separate Adobe product that works with Marketo Engage.

Choose Pardot If

• Salesforce is your CRM and will stay.
• You want list prices and edition limits before the first sales call.
• You want scoring and grading built in, with both fields visible to sales in Salesforce.
• You want the option of Marketing Cloud Next later: current Pardot editions include access through Account Engagement+ if Sales or Service Cloud runs on Enterprise Edition or higher.

Where Marketing Cloud Next Fits

Salesforce now names Marketing Cloud Next "the recommended starting point for new customers across both B2B and B2C." It runs on the Salesforce platform with Data 360 underneath, and its usage is paid in credits. Salesforce's own FAQ addresses Marketo users directly:

"Do we need to replace our existing marketing automation tool (HubSpot, Marketo) to use Marketing Cloud? Not necessarily." (Salesforce, B2B marketing automation FAQ)

The reason Salesforce gives is that its Piper (Qualified) product works alongside Marketo. For teams ready to consolidate, the same answer offers Marketing Cloud Next as "a complete replacement," Salesforce's sales claim.

Pardot is still sold and has no end-of-life plans. How Pardot and Marketing Cloud Next differ is in our comparison of Pardot and Marketing Cloud Next; if HubSpot is also on your list, read HubSpot vs Pardot.

What Moves When You Switch Between Marketo and Pardot?

Your Salesforce data stays where it is; automations, emails, forms and landing pages are rebuilt. As of October 2026, we found no tool from Adobe or Salesforce that converts one platform's programs into the other's.

From Marketo to Pardot

• Import existing leads and contacts into Pardot, because the connector won't create prospects from them on its own.
• Rebuild smart campaigns and engagement programs as automation rules, completion actions and Engagement Studio programs.
• Rebuild scoring as a Pardot score plus a grading profile, and agree the new handover threshold with sales before go-live.
• Switch off Marketo's sync before Pardot starts writing, so only one tool updates your leads and contacts at a time.

From Pardot to Marketo

• Expect the first sync to take long: Adobe says it "may take hours or even days" because Marketo copies the entire database from Salesforce.
• Hide unneeded fields from the sync user first, because synced fields stay in Marketo for good.
• Turn grades into a demographic score, and rebuild Engagement Studio programs as engagement programs and smart campaigns.
• Rebuild emails and templates in Marketo, including every personalisation field in them.
• Count your contacts against the Marketo contract before go-live, since Adobe defines a contact as a person record in your Marketo database for whom you have a point of contact, while Pardot's limit counts only mailable prospects.

Your Options

If Pardot is running but not delivering, staying is often the cheapest choice: our Pardot consulting fixes what holds it back in the tool you already pay for. If you're on Pardot and want Salesforce's newer platform, Marketing Cloud Next consulting sets it up beside Pardot. If you're moving from Marketo to Pardot or to Marketing Cloud Next, our migration projects plan the cut-over with sales.

If your CRM is Dynamics, or your team relies on Marketo's smart campaign logic, staying on Marketo can be the right call. We'll say so in the first conversation.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Marketo Better Than Pardot?

Neither is better in general. Marketo fits teams on Microsoft Dynamics or Veeva and teams that want to build their own automation logic and scoring. Pardot fits B2B teams on Salesforce that want built-in scoring and grading and published prices.

Does Pardot Work With Microsoft Dynamics?

No. Salesforce Help says every Account Engagement version requires Salesforce single sign-on and a valid Salesforce connector. Marketo syncs with Dynamics: leads and contacts in both directions, accounts and opportunities from Dynamics to Marketo.

Is Marketo Still Called Marketo?

Yes. Adobe's documentation calls it Adobe Marketo Engage. Its attribution product, formerly Bizible, is now Marketo Measure, and Adobe renamed Marketo AI to Coworker for Marketo Engage in August 2026.

How Much Does Marketo Cost?

Adobe doesn't publish Marketo prices and quotes each customer. Its product description licenses the Select, Prime and Ultimate packages per 1,000 contacts. Adobe's pricing page shows four packages (Growth, Select, Prime and Ultimate) with different user numbers and features.

Is Pardot Being Replaced by Marketing Cloud Next?

No. Salesforce's pricing FAQ says there are no end-of-life, end-of-sale or end-of-roadmap plans for Pardot. Marketing Cloud Next is the option Salesforce recommends to new customers, and current Pardot editions include access to it under Salesforce's conditions.