6sense vs. Demandbase: Head-to-Head Comparison (+ Better Options)

Your data should tell you which accounts are ready to buy. Instead, your sales team is spending hours chasing leads that aren't ready, while missing signals from genuine prospects.

Many B2B companies struggle with this – they can't pinpoint their ideal customer profiles, their lead qualification process leaks time and money, and their outreach falls flat because they can't personalize it effectively.

That’s where platforms like 6sense and Demandbase come in. 

As two of the biggest names in predictive marketing and sales intelligence, they help businesses spot buying signals, orchestrate account-based engagement, and optimize conversion strategies.

• 6sense stands out for its predictive analytics engine and account-based orchestration. The platform excels at spotting buying signals and helping teams act on opportunities faster.
• Demandbase focuses on comprehensive account identification and engagement. They also have a robust ABM platform that helps teams target and connect with high-value accounts more effectively.

But here's what most comparison guides won't tell you – these powerful platforms come with equally substantial price tags and complexity. 

While they’re excellent for predictive analytics and account targeting, their success depends heavily on your specific needs, existing tech stack, and company size.

We’ll break down the key differences between 6sense and Demandbase and compare their strengths, weaknesses, and pricing. Plus, we’ll explore other options that might be a better fit, depending on your needs.

6sense vs. Demandbase: General Overview

Before we get into the comparison, here’s a quick general overview of both platforms.

Overview of 6sense

6sense is an AI-driven predictive marketing and sales intelligence platform that B2B organizations can use to find, engage, and convert high-value accounts. The platform processes buyer intent signals and anonymous behavioral data to predict which accounts are actively in-market and likely to make a purchase.

Teams can then create personalized buying experiences through targeted content and advertising, while sales teams get detailed intelligence about decision-makers and their engagement patterns.

6sense also integrates with major CRM and marketing automation platforms including Salesforce and HubSpot, so marketing and sales teams can operate with synchronized data and insights.

Overview of Demandbase

While Demandbase started in account-based marketing, it now delivers a full-fledged account-based experience (ABX) platform that unifies marketing, sales, and customer success efforts.

Demandbase helps companies find their best potential customers by analyzing multiple signals - company details, tech stack usage, buying patterns, and similar. Their advertising platform then targets decision-makers at these companies across business websites, social media, and professional content.

Sales teams can track exactly how target accounts engage with their content, while marketing teams can deliver personalized experiences across websites, emails, and other channels.

All of this activity feeds into Demandbase's analytics, which shows teams exactly how their account-based efforts are performing and which strategies are driving results.

Key Differences

6sense:

• Primary focus on revenue intelligence and predictive analytics
• Strong emphasis on AI/ML to predict buyer intent and outline accounts most likely to purchase
• Provides deep sales intelligence with actionable insights into key contacts, engagement patterns, and buying behavior to support more targeted outreach

Demandbase:

• Evolved specifically from ABM into an all-in-one account-based experience (ABX) platform
• Greater focus on coordinated experiences across the entire customer lifecycle
• Offers robust ABM analytics to track campaign performance, measure ROI, and refine account engagement strategies

Why HockeyStack is a Better Option

• Unified data platform: HockeyStack unifies all your marketing, sales, and product data in a single source of truth – no need to stitch together data from different tools.
• Single platform for both B2B analytics and attribution: While competitors force you to use multiple tools for different analytics needs, HockeyStack combines marketing attribution, product analytics, and revenue reporting in one cohesive platform with a single interface.
• Flexible and customizable reporting: Users can build custom reports and dashboards without relying on technical teams, which makes it easier to analyze data in ways that matter for their specific business.
• Cookieless tracking: HockeyStack uses cookieless tracking technology to provide accurate insights without privacy concerns or data loss due to browser restrictions.
• Significantly more cost-effective solution: HockeyStack offers enterprise-grade analytics capabilities at a fraction of the cost of traditional platforms, which makes it accessible for growing B2B companies as well.
• Attribution across the entire revenue cycle: HockeyStack provides true multi-touch attribution from first touch through to revenue, so teams can understand exactly which channels and campaigns are driving actual business results.

6sense: Features, Use Cases, Pricing, Pros & Cons

Let's break down everything you need to know about 6sense - from its core features and main use cases to pricing. 

Key Features

• AI-powered predictive analytics: 6sense's predictive analytics leverages AI and machine learning to analyze billions of buying signals and help companies find accounts that show purchase intent and predict which prospects are most likely to convert.
• Account identification and scoring: With firmographic, technographic, and behavioral data analysis, 6sense helps businesses pinpoint and rank target accounts. Instead of chasing every lead, teams can focus on high-value prospects that match their ideal customer profile (ICP).
• Buyer journey orchestration: Through its buyer journey orchestration capabilities, companies can deliver perfectly timed, personalized content and messaging across channels, while automatically adjusting campaigns based on specific account engagement and journey stage.
• Real-time sales intelligence: The sales intelligence feature provides real-time insights to sales teams, including detailed account activity, engagement patterns, and contact information for key decision-makers, so reps can prioritize outreach and personalize conversations.
• Comprehensive platform integrations: 6sense offers deep integrations with major platforms like Salesforce, HubSpot, Marketo, LinkedIn, and Microsoft Dynamics, so businesses can count on seamless data flow and automated workflows across the tech stack. 
• Revenue AI & forecasting: 6sense's revenue AI engine combines historical win/loss data with current market signals to generate revenue forecasts and outline potential pipeline risks.

Main Use Cases

• B2B marketing teams: Marketing teams use 6sense to find high-intent accounts through behavioral analysis, orchestrate personalized multi-channel campaigns based on buyer journey stages, and accurately measure campaign ROI by connecting marketing activities directly to pipeline and revenue.
• B2B sales teams: Sales professionals can leverage 6sense's AI-driven insights to prioritize accounts showing buying signals, access detailed engagement data and contact information for key decision-makers, and time their outreach perfectly with real-time alerts about prospect activities.
• Demand generation teams: 6sense helps demand gen teams to outline in-market accounts before they reach out and create highly targeted campaigns based on intent data and buyer behavior.
• Account-based marketing (ABM) teams: ABM practitioners use 6sense to build and refine their target account lists using artificial intelligence insights and coordinate personalized multi-channel engagement strategies.
• Executive teams: Leadership gets a clear view of pipeline health, revenue impact, and marketing efficiency. 6sense’s reporting tools help executives make data-driven decisions and optimize go-to-market strategies.

Pricing Plans

6sense has a range of pricing plans for different business needs:

• Free plan: For individual users, this plan includes 50 credits per month and provides access to features such as Buyer Discovery, Contact & Company Data, Alerts, List Management, and a Chrome Extension.
• Team plan: For small to medium-sized teams, this plan encompasses all features of the Free Plan and adds Technographics, Psychographics, Web, CRM, and SEP Apps, the ability to add contacts to CRM/SEP, and Dashboards. Pricing for this plan is customized based on specific requirements.
• Growth plan: This plan includes all features of the Team Plan, plus 6sense Intent (Keywords), Third-Party Intent, Corporate Hierarchy, and Prioritization Dashboards. It is suitable for growing organizations that need more advanced capabilities. Just like the team plan, the pricing is custom based on your specific needs.
• Enterprise Plan: For large organizations, the Enterprise Plan offers all features of the Growth Plan, along with Predictive AI Models, AI-recommended actions, and CRM & MAP Activity. Pricing is customized based on the organization's scale and requirements.

The factors that influence 6sense’s pricing are your company size, number of users, desired features, and required credits. 

For more specific details, companies should talk to 6sense's sales team.

Pros of 6sense

• Integrations are seamless and easy to manage: 6sense offers plug-and-play integrations with major CRMs, marketing platforms, and sales tools, so there’s minimal technical expertise to set up and maintain. The platform's native connectors bring reliable data synchronization and automated workflow creation across the entire tech stack. [Read Full G2 Review]
• Very detailed and accurate predictive insights: Users appreciate the platform's AI engine that processes billions of buyer intent signals to provide highly accurate predictions about account behavior. [Read Full G2 Review]
• Consolidating audiences between all ad platforms can save a lot of time: 6sense's unified audience management system allows teams to create, manage, and synchronize target audiences across multiple advertising platforms from a single interface. Users prefer this centralized approach because it removes the need to create a manual audience on each platform. [Read Full G2 Review]

Cons of 6sense

• Data is comprehensive, but it can be hard to digest and interpret: The sheer volume and complexity of data available in 6sense can be overwhelming for new users, and your teams may need training and a solid data strategy when approaching it. The learning curve can be steep, especially for teams transitioning from simpler marketing tools. [Read Full G2 Review]
• Refined persona targeting can get expensive quickly: While 6sense offers powerful targeting capabilities, narrowing down audiences with detailed filters can drive up costs. [Read Full G2 Review]
• Limited data export on reports: The platform's reporting functionality has some restrictions on data export capabilities, which can make it tough to perform detailed custom analyses or create specific report formats outside the platform. Customer support isn’t of much help here. [Read Full G2 Review]

Demandbase: Features, Use Cases, Pricing, Pros & Cons

Now, let's look at Demandbase - we’ll cover its features, practical applications, costs, and key advantages. 

Key Features

• Account identification and targeting: Demandbase's AI-powered platform combines first- and third-party data to spot and prioritize high-value accounts while continuously refining ICPs based on real-time intent signals and historical performance data.
• Advertising solutions: Demandbase One offers precision B2B advertising capabilities that set up targeting of specific accounts and buying committees across advertising channels, including email, display, and social media platforms. 
• Sales intelligence: The platform provides comprehensive account intelligence, including real-time buyer intent signals, detailed company profiles, and engagement tracking across channels. Sales teams can access contact data enrichment, automated lead-to-account matching, and personalized sales plays based on account engagement patterns.
• Engagement & orchestration: Demandbase One delivers dynamic website personalization and cross-channel orchestration that automatically adjusts content and messaging based on account characteristics, intent signals, and journey stage. 
• ABM analytics: Their analytics suite offers deep insights into account engagement, pipeline impact, and revenue attribution through customizable dashboards and reporting templates. The platform provides account-based metrics that track the entire customer journey, from first touch to closed revenue, with detailed ROI analysis for each campaign and channel.
• Customizable prescriptive sales dashboards: Demandbase One uses AI to offer customizable dashboards that provide visibility into the most promising accounts, contacts, and buying groups. These dashboards deliver daily updates based on real-time buying signals.

Main Use Cases

• Marketing teams: Marketing teams use Demandbase One to create scalable ABM programs through their intent-based account discovery, so they can identify and prioritize accounts actively researching relevant topics.
• Sales teams: Demandbase equips sales teams with comprehensive account intelligence that includes company profiles, relevant news updates, and buying committee insights. Sales reps can track account engagement across touchpoints and use this to personalize their outreach.  
• Demand generation teams: Demandbase helps demand gen teams align their efforts with high-value accounts by providing insights into account engagement patterns and buying stage progression.
• Account-based marketing (ABM) teams: ABM teams leverage Demandbase One to design and execute comprehensive account-based strategies, from the first account selection through engagement and measurement.
• Executive Teams: Executives use Demandbase to monitor ABM program performance, track account engagement metrics, and measure the impact on pipeline and revenue growth. The platform provides clear visibility into program ROI and helps leaders make informed decisions. 

Pricing Plans

While exact pricing isn’t publicly disclosed, the platform’s structure consists of a clear platform fee that covers core software and services, along with a flat per-user fee for businesses to scale as needed.

Companies can’t buy standalone marketing and sales solutions, since Demandbase is built to unify go-to-market (GTM) teams under a single system. 

However, you can work on a customized package that fits your specific GTM needs.

For specific pricing, businesses should contact Demandbase directly to receive a custom quote based on their size, feature requirements, and use case.

Pros of Demandbase

• Sales teams get actionable data about prospect behavior patterns and specific interests: Demandbase provides clear insights into account engagement patterns and buying intent signals, so sales teams can instantly understand exactly what their prospects care about. [Read Full G2 Review]
• Easy to customize experiences with custom lists: The platform offers straightforward account list creation and management, so teams can segment and organize target accounts based on multiple criteria. You can quickly create and modify custom lists for different campaigns. [Read Full G2 Review]
• Prediction scores are of huge help during outreach campaigns: Demandbase's predictive scoring helps teams prioritize accounts by combining intent signals, engagement data, and fit characteristics into actionable scores. With these scores, teams can work on more efficient outreach and see which accounts are most likely to respond positively. [Read Full G2 Review]

Cons of Demandbase

• Account data isn't always 100% accurate: The platform occasionally shows discrepancies in company information and account details, so it may require manual verification. This can be particularly noticeable with smaller companies or those that recently had organizational changes. [Read Full G2 Review]
• You can get similar insights from more affordable alternatives: Many of Demandbase's core features like intent tracking and account identification are available through less expensive platforms. [Read Full G2 Review]
• Contact information is occasionally out of date: The contact database sometimes contains outdated information about decision-makers and buying committee members. Teams often need to cross-reference contact details with other sources to ensure accuracy. [Read Full G2 Review]

How HockeyStack Compares to 6sense and Demandbase

HockeyStack is a leading B2B analytics solution that combines marketing attribution, product insights, and revenue tracking in a single platform. 

While traditional ABM solutions often require multiple tools and complex setups, HockeyStack delivers comprehensive analytics that helps teams understand their entire customer journey - from first touch to revenue.

For companies looking for powerful analytics without enterprise-level complexity, you should take a closer look at how HockeyStack stacks up against platforms like 6sense and Demandbas. 

Let's explore what makes HockeyStack different and how it might better serve your business.

Key Features

• All-in-one analytics solution: HockeyStack combines marketing attribution, product analytics, and revenue tracking in a unified platform. Teams can track the complete customer lifecycle from acquisition to revenue without switching between multiple tools.
• Comprehensive website Intelligence: With web analytics, HockeyStack gives businesses real-time insights into traffic patterns, website visitors, user engagement, and conversion behavior. It tracks key metrics like bounce rates, session durations, and click-through rates, so you can see what’s driving conversions and where users drop off.
• Buyer journey visualization: HockeyStack visualizes the entire buyer journey from the first impression to closed won. You can filter by industry, account tiers, company size, and any other filter you need to see the companies you want to see.
• Multi-touch attribution analysis: Using multi-touch attribution models, HockeyStack connects with your entire tech stack and website to reveal what’s driving the pipeline. This way, you can measure the revenue influence of each page, paid media, blog post, video, webinar, e-book, case study, whitepaper, and any other content you have on your website.
• Advanced funnel analytics: With HockeyStack, you can create funnels with any data point you want and see which stages cause drop-offs and which stages have higher conversions. You can use this data to optimize each stage of your funnel for better conversion rates.
• AI-powered insights with Odin: HockeyStack’s Odin AI serves as your marketing analyst, building new reports from text, analyzing your dashboards, brainstorming with you, and sending you a weekly email with insights.

• Contact identification: HockeyStack also shows who is visiting your website on the contact-level, so your sales reps can not only see the company but also understand which specific individuals from that company are on which page (Only available in the US).
• Lift analysis for marketing impact: HockeyStack measures the influence of specific marketing activities on variables like demos, subscribers, sales, or revenue by comparing people who experienced the activity (exposed) vs. those who didn't (control), then measuring the difference – no complex experiments needed, only lift analysis.
• Cookieless tracking for a privacy-first future – HockeyStack uses a cookieless tracking system that works without relying on third-party cookies. Instead, it creates a hashed, non-identifiable fingerprint to track user interactions and ensure businesses stay compliant with data regulations.
• Customizable reporting & dashboards: HockeyStack offers real-time, no-code dashboards that combine data from every channel into one view. Users can create role-specific reports, schedule automated insights, and export key metrics for deeper analysis.
• Seamless integrations: The platform integrates with CRMs, paid ad platforms, social media, and analytics tools, so businesses can sync sales and marketing data effortlessly.

Why HockeyStack Outperforms the Competition

• Transparent pricing structure: HockeyStack offers clear and upfront pricing, starting at $2,200 per month, which includes a comprehensive integration catalog, multi-touch attribution models, and paid ads analysis. In contrast, neither 6sense nor Demandbase publicly discloses their pricing, so customers have to engage in sales discussions to get this information.
• All-in-one, unified analytics platform: While 6sense and Demandbase focus primarily on account-based marketing and sales intelligence, HockeyStack offers a broader analytics solution that combines marketing attribution, product analytics, and revenue tracking in one platform. 
• No cookie dependency: 6sense and Demandbase still rely heavily on third-party cookies for tracking, while HockeyStack's cookieless tracking solution ensures continuous data collection even as browsers phase out cookie support.
• Faster time to value: While 6sense and Demandbase often require months of implementation and complex integrations, HockeyStack can be fully implemented in four weeks (average). The platform's straightforward setup process and intuitive interface mean teams can start getting value from their data immediately.
• Revenue-driven analytics instead of lead-based tracking: Many platforms, including Demandbase, still prioritize lead-scoring models that aren’t always tied to actual revenue. HockeyStack directly connects marketing and sales efforts to pipeline and revenue, which also makes it easier to prove ROI.
• More control over attribution models: Many companies force users into predefined attribution models, which limits flexibility. HockeyStack lets businesses customize their attribution approach, whether you need first-touch, last-touch, time-decay, or a fully custom multi-touch model.

Who Is HockeyStack Ideal For?

• Growth marketing teams: Best suited for marketing teams focused on scalable growth who need granular attribution data and ROI tracking across all channels. HockeyStack helps these teams understand which marketing actions drive actual revenue and optimize their spending accordingly.
• Data-driven B2B companies: Ideal for B2B businesses that want to track the complete customer journey from first touch to revenue, especially those with longer sales cycles that need multi-touch attribution and account-based advertising analytics.
• Scale-up SaaS companies: Perfect for growing SaaS companies that need to monitor both marketing performance and product usage metrics in one platform. HockeyStack's unified analytics helps these teams understand how marketing efforts impact product adoption and revenue.
• Mid-market companies scaling analytics: Ideal for mid-sized businesses ready to graduate from basic analytics tools like Google Analytics but don't need (or want to pay for) enterprise-level platforms. HockeyStack provides sophisticated analytics capabilities without enterprise-level complexity and cost.

How to Choose the Right Platforms for Your Needs?

Here are the factors you should consider when picking a platform:

Define Your Needs

When selecting the right analytics and marketing platform for your business, you need to determine the following:

• Objectives: Outline your primary goals for implementing a platform. Are you looking to improve lead quality, increase sales efficiency, measure marketing ROI effectively, or optimize your marketing spend?
• Data requirements: Consider what types of data are most important for your business. This could include accurate contact information, company profiles, technographic data about tools companies use, buying signals, or intent data that shows research behavior.
• Ideal customer profile: Be clear about exactly who you're trying to reach. Think about target industries, company sizes, key job titles, and geographic locations that matter most to your business.
• Attribution models: This might include first-touch for brand awareness campaigns, last-touch for direct response, linear for equal distribution, W-shaped for key milestones, or time decay for recent touchpoints.
• Integrations: List all the tools and data sources you'll need to connect. Common integrations include your CRM system, marketing automation platform, and sales engagement tools.
• Team size and structure: Outline who needs access to the platform. Consider the size of your team, how your sales organization is structured, and which departments (marketing, sales, executives) will be using the tool regularly.
• Budget: Set a clear budget for your platform, including implementation costs, ongoing subscription fees, and any additional resources needed for maintenance.

Evaluate Platforms

Let’s do a quick recap of the strengths and considerations of these three platforms:

6sense

• Strengths: AI-powered predictive analytics helps spot in-market accounts before they engage, so sales and marketing teams can act proactively. Advanced account scoring, buyer journey orchestration, and deep sales intelligence make it a strong choice for large B2B organizations with complex sales cycles.
• Considerations: The platform comes with a high price tag and requires extensive setup and integration to fully leverage its capabilities. It may be overkill for smaller companies or those without a dedicated data team to manage the insights effectively.

Demandbase

• Strengths: Comprehensive ABX platform with powerful features like precise account identification, targeted advertising, and multi-channel engagement.
• Considerations: Enterprise-level pricing and complexity make it better suited for larger organizations with established ABM programs.

HockeyStack

• Strengths: Powerful all-in-one platform that provides true end-to-end revenue attribution, product analytics, and marketing insights with transparent data and customizable reporting. Offers enterprise-grade capabilities at a fraction of the cost
• Considerations: While constantly expanding features, some specialized ABM tools may not be as extensive as legacy enterprise platforms that focus solely on account-based marketing.

Other Providers

Depending on your specific business needs, alternative solutions may be worth considering:

• ZoomInfo – Good choice for B2B contact enrichment and sales intelligence.
• Lusha – Useful for prospecting and lead generation with accurate contact data.
• Terminus – Strong ABM platform with digital advertising, email personalization, and sales intelligence for B2B marketers.
• RollWorks – Focuses on account-based targeting, segmentation, and engagement, which is particularly useful for mid-market companies looking to scale ABM efforts.
• Foundry ABM – Known for content-driven ABM strategies, it can help companies get better engagement through intent-based marketing campaigns and personalized content experiences.

Compare Pricing and Features

You’ll run into different pricing structures, including per-user pricing, feature-based pricing, or usage-based models (e.g., data limits or API requests).

Some platforms charge a flat fee for the entire organization, while others scale costs based on the number of seats or features activated. Make sure the pricing model aligns with your team size, budget, and feature needs to avoid unexpected costs.

Most platforms offer free trials, demos, or sandbox environments to help you see if it’s the right choice before committing. Take advantage of these trials to test features, integrations, and reporting capabilities in real-world scenarios.

And if a platform has a lengthy sales process just to access a demo, it may mean there’s a more complex implementation or higher pricing.

Consider User Experience

Pay attention to the following factors to ensure the best possible user experience:

• Ease of use: Your platform should have an intuitive interface that both marketing and sales teams can easily operate without extensive training.
• Data visualization: Look for platforms that offer clear, customizable visualizations that show trends, insights, and performance metrics in a digestible way.
• Reporting and dashboards: You need real-time reporting to track campaign performance, sales pipeline movement, and attribution. Check whether the platform allows you to customize dashboards, automate reports, and pull the exact data you need (without IT or engineering support).
• Data accuracy and compliance: Platforms that rely heavily on third-party intent data may suffer from inconsistencies, while tools that use first-party tracking tend to be more accurate. Also, check whether the platform complies with GDPR, CCPA, and other data privacy regulations, especially if you’re operating in multiple regions.

HockeyStack — A Better Alternative to 6sense and Demandbase

6sense and Demandbase are two of the most well-known platforms in the account-based marketing (ABM) and sales intelligence space, but they come with several drawbacks.

6sense's enterprise price tag and months-long implementation process put it out of reach for many growing companies. While it excels at spotting early buying signals, it falls short of showing you exactly which marketing activities drive revenue.

And Demandbase's broad ABX approach, while comprehensive, often includes features many companies don't need, which leads to excessive costs and unnecessary complexity.

Both platforms also demand a major investment and months of implementation time before you see any value.

If you need to clearly understand and prove your marketing's impact on revenue, HockeyStack is the smarter choice.

We strip away the complexity and cost of traditional ABM platforms to deliver what matters—accurate attribution, transparent analytics, and clear insights into what drives your business results—all at a price point that makes sense for growing companies.

Here’s precisely how HockeyStack can help:

• Get started quickly with transparent pricing starting at $2,200/month and implementation in weeks, not months.
• Track your complete revenue journey with an all-in-one platform that combines marketing attribution, product analytics, and revenue tracking.
• Future-proof your analytics with cookieless tracking that works reliably even as browsers phase out third-party cookies.
• Measure actual revenue impact instead of vanity metrics with direct pipeline and revenue tracking for all marketing activities.
• Customize attribution models to match your specific sales cycle, from first-touch to complex multi-touch approaches.
• Unify all your marketing and revenue data in one place without the enterprise-level price tag of traditional platforms.
• Start getting value immediately with an intuitive interface and straightforward setup process.

Book your demo today and see why marketing teams are switching to HockeyStack for clear insights that drive real results.

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