Salesforce Experience Cloud is the best customer portal product for thousands of external users, because it is the one vendor here that publishes a license sold by the monthly login instead of by the named person. A custom portal built by Black Badger ranks second, and it moves ahead once any fee per login or per member has become the largest line in your portal budget.
The ranking, entry by entry
1 Salesforce Experience Cloud
Best for large customer bases where most people log in occasionally
For thousands of users the license model matters more than the feature list. Salesforce is first because its login license fits a large customer base that signs in occasionally. You buy a number of monthly logins, and each unique login in a day uses one. Salesforce states a ratio of 1 monthly login to 20 provisioned login licenses, so 1,000 monthly logins cover up to 20,000 login licenses. The listed price is $4 a login.
Watch for. Member licenses are $10 a member a month and are assigned to named users, so mixing the two types takes planning. It only makes sense if Salesforce is your system of record.
- Price
- Service Portal $4 a login or $10 a member a month Salesforce's pricing page calls this plan Service Portal and does not use the name Experience Cloud. Prices are in USD, the page says they may change and to contact sales for detailed pricing. Experience Cloud also has Customer Community, Customer Community Plus, Partner Community, External Apps and External Identity licenses, and the page shows no prices for those.
- Main limit
- Priced per login or per named member, and object access starts restricted
2 Custom build by Black Badger
Best for companies where login or member fees are the largest portal cost
A custom portal ranks second for a large customer base, and the reason is the fee structure. Black Badger, which publishes this guide, builds portals with no charge per customer, per login or per staff seat. You pay for the build once and then the running costs of the services it uses, such as hosting. Whether 500 customers sign in or 50,000 do, there is no license to count. You own the code and the accounts.
Watch for. Running costs such as hosting grow with heavy use, and we size that during discovery. The build starts with a written scope.
- Price
- One-time build scoped in writing, no per-seat fee After launch you pay running costs such as hosting, database and email. There are no licenses, so adding a person adds no fee.
- Main limit
- Needs a scoping call first, and suits companies of 50 or more employees
What a custom build involves, and how to ask about one
3 Zoho Creator
Best for companies that will build their own portal for a large user base
Zoho Creator is third because it is the only platform here that lists a portal user tier as high as 100,000. Tiers start at 250, so the product is meant for a large outside audience on a portal you build yourself. It is not higher because Zoho does not publish what those tiers cost, and this list ranks by the fee per user.
Watch for. Ask for the add-on price at your expected tier and the tier above it. A custom domain and SAML single sign-on are included only on Enterprise.
- Price
- Standard $8 a user a month billed yearly, plus portal add-on Standard is $12 a user a month billed monthly, Professional $20 billed yearly or $30 monthly, and Enterprise $25 billed yearly or $37 monthly. Portal users are a separate add-on sold in tiers from 250 to 100,000 portal users, and the pages read show no add-on prices. Flex is quoted.
- Main limit
- Portal users are a paid add-on, and Standard allows one application
4 Zendesk
Best for large customer bases that log in mainly for help and tickets
Zendesk ranks fourth, and for a help center its pricing suits a large customer base. Its pricing is per agent, so ten thousand customers reading articles and following tickets cost the same as one thousand. The customer portal is marked for Suite Professional, at $115 an agent a month billed yearly, and that plan allows up to five help centers. It ranks fourth because it is a help center and does not give customers an account area.
Watch for. It does not suit a company that wants customers to see orders, projects or invoices from its own systems. Host mapping to your own subdomain is included.
- Price
- Suite Professional $115 an agent a month, billed yearly Prices are per agent. Suite Professional is $149 an agent a month billed monthly. Suite Team is $55 billed yearly and $69 monthly, and Suite Enterprise plus Copilot is not listed, so contact sales. The customer portal row on the comparison table is marked for Suite Professional only.
- Main limit
- Customer portal starts on Suite Professional, priced per support agent
5 Moxo
Best for high-volume customer processes where nobody needs an account
Moxo is fifth. It avoids the user count question a different way. Pricing is tied to process capacity, which Moxo calls flows, and to an AI allowance, and external participants act through a magic link with no account to create. For thousands of customers who each complete a process once, that model can fit. The Team plan includes 100 flows a year, so thousands of customers need the quoted Scale or Enterprise plans.
Watch for. Moxo is not for a persistent account area with order history and self-service reports. Its pricing page shows no prices.
- Price
- Team plan $5,000 a year, per Moxo blog Moxo's pricing page shows no prices, only trial and demo buttons. The Team figure comes from a Moxo blog post, which says Team includes 100 flows a year, an AI allowance and unlimited seats. Scale and Enterprise are custom quotes.
- Main limit
- Priced by flows a year and AI use, not by people who log in
6 SuiteDash
Best for services firms that want a flat price whatever the client count
SuiteDash ranks sixth. On price alone it would be first, since the page states one price per account with unlimited clients and staff, and the top Pinnacle plan is $99 a month. It ranks sixth because the fit is narrow. It suits a smaller services company that wants clients, files, invoices and projects in one tool, and it is not for a company whose portal must read live data from its ERP or order system.
Watch for. Storage is the cap that grows with clients. Pinnacle includes 2TB, and extra storage is $5 a month per 250GB.
- Price
- Start $19 a month, or $180 a year, flat per account The page says one price per month or year and not per user. Thrive is $49 a month or $480 a year, and Pinnacle is $99 a month or $960 a year. The pricing page also lists a one-time century option and SuiteDreams at $1,499 one time plus $49 a month, which includes Pinnacle.
- Main limit
- Plans differ mainly by storage, 100GB on Start to 2TB on Pinnacle
7 Softr
Best for portals that will stay under 500 customer logins
Softr is seventh, and it is on this list to show where its plans stop. Client users are capped at 250 on Pro and 500 on Business, with extra users at $1 and $2 each a month, and larger numbers need the custom Enterprise plan. A company with thousands of customers already exceeds the published plans. It remains a quick option for a pilot with one customer segment.
Watch for. Users with free email domains count as client users, and the same email across several apps counts once. Check how your customers sign in.
- Price
- Basic $19 a month billed yearly, $25 billed monthly From Softr's docs, since the pricing page did not load as text. Pro is $99 billed yearly or $119 monthly, Business is $329 yearly or $395 monthly, and Enterprise is custom. Basic allows 5 team users and 5 client users with no add-on. Pro allows up to 250 client users, and Business up to 500.
- Main limit
- Client users are capped, at 250 on Pro and 500 on Business
How this list was ranked
We ranked for a company with thousands of customers who each need their own login. The first test was how the vendor charges for those people, whether by named member, by login, by agent on your side, by plan allowance or not at all. The second was whether the published plans reach that many users.
Where a vendor does not publish the price of external users, the entry says so. We did not estimate any figure.