If you’re wondering where Pardot fits into Salesforce’s evolving marketing roadmap, you’re not alone. Since the introduction of Agentforce and, more recently, Marketing Cloud Next, Salesforce’s priorities have shifted toward AI-powered, agentic marketing. Based on what we’ve seen at Dreamforce 2026 and in the Winter ’27 release notes, that shift now extends to B2B marketing too.

Salesforce has stated that it has no plans to retire Account Engagement, and it continues to update it. At the same time, Account Engagement customers can already use Marketing Cloud Next, so the practical question is how to get the most from both.

This blog post clarifies where Account Engagement stands today and helps you chart a path forward on your own timeline. Let’s get started.

Is Pardot still the right B2B marketing automation tool?

Account Engagement is still a strong fit for B2B teams whose sales process runs through Salesforce CRM. It handles the core lead-to-opportunity work well, such as tracking prospects, scoring and grading them, nurturing them, and handing them to sales with their history attached.

Marketing and sales look at the same lead and contact records, so a rep can see which emails a prospect opened and which pages they visited. For many B2B teams, that shared view matters more than any single feature.

Where Account Engagement does its best work

Account Engagement is strongest when:

• Buying cycles are long, with several touchpoints before a sales conversation.
• Programs are email-led, backed by forms, landing pages and website tracking that starts before a prospect fills in a form.
• Leads are qualified on both engagement (score) and fit (grade), and the MQL rules agreed with sales run automatically.
• Marketing and sales run account-based programs aimed at a named list of target accounts, alongside inbound lead generation.
• Nurture programs get a lead ready for a sales conversation, with content that changes to show each prospect the example or answer that fits where they are.

For Innovative Capital, a US commercial lending firm that depends on a network of brokers, lenders and referral partners, Mavlers replaced manual, ad-hoc partner outreach with segmented, automated Account Engagement programs. Partner outreach reached three times as many contacts without adding headcount, and 26% of dormant partners re-engaged.

Teams with short, transactional sales, or little investment in Salesforce CRM, may not use much of what Account Engagement does well, such as grading, multi-step nurtures and the handoff to sales. Its value comes from the process and CRM work around it.

When to look at the newer tools as well

Some needs are outside what Account Engagement was built for. That doesn’t mean replacing it. It usually means turning to Marketing Cloud Next through Account Engagement+, the Marketing Cloud Next access included with your Account Engagement license. Look closer if you need:

• More channels in one journey: SMS and WhatsApp alongside email, with two-way replies an agent can answer.
• Journeys that reach beyond marketing: Flow-built journeys that use sales and service touchpoints, update Salesforce records, assign leads and branch by channel preference.
• Segments and personalization on all your data: Data 360 brings in event, product and support data from other systems.
• AI agents for campaign work: Building campaigns from a brief and finding missing buying group members.
• Consistent branding: Brand settings in the Marketing Cloud Next email builder are managed in one place, instead of template by template.

What does the Account Engagement roadmap look like for 2027?

Account Engagement continues to receive updates, and Account Engagement customers also gain new capabilities through Marketing Cloud Next. The most recent releases are below:

Release	What changed for Account Engagement users
Dreamforce 2026 (Oct 2026)	Campaign Agent and Account Discovery Agent announced for Marketing Cloud Next, both marked generally available in October 2026
Winter ’27 (Oct 2026)	Controls to turn off open and click tracking per business unit; Marketing Cloud Next features extended to Account Engagement customers, including Agentforce for campaigns, deliverability monitoring and completion actions
Summer ’26	Six Agentforce actions for Account Engagement; Engagement Studio can trigger Salesforce flows

Here’s what to expect in 2027:

• Both sets of release notes matter: Changes that affect Pardot teams can land in either product, so read the Account Engagement and Marketing Cloud Next notes each release.
• Marketing Cloud Next will keep evolving quickly: Re-check any gap each release before working around it.
• The connections between the two will improve: Consent sync and content sharing have limits today, so avoid custom workarounds you’d later unwind.
• Credits become a budget line: As more of the team uses Marketing Cloud Next, usage-based spend grows, so name an owner for it now.

Our advice? Plan around what is generally available, and treat everything else as upside.

How do Pardot, Marketing Cloud Next and Agentforce fit together?

Account Engagement handles B2B lead management. Marketing Cloud Next adds Flow journeys, more channels and personalization using Data 360. Agentforce works in both: as agent actions inside Account Engagement and as agents in Marketing Cloud Next. Data 360 connects their data, and a shared Salesforce content library lets both reuse the same emails.

How does Account Engagement+ work?

Salesforce adds permission set licenses (switches an admin assigns to give users access to features) to your current Account Engagement org. You don’t buy a separate product or renew on a new contract. Your team keeps one login, both apps work from the same Salesforce records, and content can be shared between them.

How do the two products share work today?

Running both side by side works well once you know where the joins are:

• Emails move one way: An Account Engagement email opened in the new email builder is copied into Salesforce CMS, where Marketing Cloud Next can use it. Emails built in Marketing Cloud Next can’t be sent back to Account Engagement.
• Consent isn’t shared by default: Account Engagement Optimizer has an email consent matching option that keeps opt-in status in sync for active prospects. Marketing Cloud Next also tracks consent more strictly, by channel and by subscription, so plan this before you send.
• Nurtures can cross over: Engagement Studio can trigger a Salesforce flow, which lets an existing Pardot program add an SMS or WhatsApp step.
• Advanced personalization sends from Marketing Cloud Next: Emails that use Data 360 data for personalization are sent from Marketing Cloud Next.
• Segments can flow back to Pardot: A segment built in Data 360 can be used in Account Engagement. That means a Pardot program can target an audience defined with data from outside Salesforce.
• New records need a moment: Data 360 has to process a new record before Marketing Cloud Next can use it for personalization. For instant messages, such as a form confirmation, use an event-triggered flow that reads the form data directly.

Pardot vs Marketing Cloud Next: which handles what for a B2B team

Both products work from the same Salesforce records, so for most Pardot customers the useful question is which jobs each one should own.

	Account Engagement (Pardot)	Marketing Cloud Next
Built for	B2B lead generation, nurturing and sales handoff	Multi-channel marketing for B2B and B2C on the Salesforce platform
Data it works with	Prospects, plus Salesforce leads and contacts	Anything in Data 360, including data from non-Salesforce systems
Channels	Email, forms, landing pages; SMS and WhatsApp through third-party tools	Email, SMS and WhatsApp natively; messaging is paid with usage credits
Automation	Engagement Studio, automation rules, completion actions	Salesforce Flow, with completion actions added in Winter ’27
Personalization	Merge fields and dynamic content	Cross-object merge fields and rule-based dynamic content using Data 360 data
Consent	Opt-out tracked on the prospect record	Consent tracked by channel and by subscription
AI	Einstein features by edition, plus Agentforce actions added in Summer ’26	Campaign Agent, Account Discovery Agent and other Agentforce features
How you pay	Annual license per org	Included through Account Engagement+; usage paid with credits

How does B2B reporting differ between the two?

Account Engagement measures marketing influence through Salesforce campaigns. Its B2B Marketing Analytics multi-touch attribution dashboard relies on Connected Campaigns and Campaign Influence being set up.

Marketing Cloud Next includes B2B analytics for marketers, built on Tableau Next. Its attribution credits engagement signals, such as email clicks, form fills, website visits and Data 360 data, rather than campaign member status. Its account-based marketing dashboards flag high-value accounts with low marketing engagement. That gives marketing and sales a shared list of accounts to act on.

Which jobs should stay in Account Engagement?

Our view: Keep the lead-to-opportunity engine in Pardot, and move work to Marketing Cloud Next only when it needs data or channels Pardot can’t reach. In practice, that means keeping:

• Email nurture programs that are performing and tied to your scoring model.
• Scoring, grading and the rules that decide when a lead goes to sales.
• Forms, form handlers and landing pages that your website relies on.

This split is a starting point, not a rule. Teams with simple email programs can stay mostly in Pardot. Teams with complex data and channel needs will likely move more work to Marketing Cloud Next sooner.

Where does Agentforce fit for B2B marketing teams?

Agentforce gives Account Engagement teams AI agents in two places: agent actions inside Pardot, which read and update prospect records and manage nurture tasks, and agents in Marketing Cloud Next. Either way, the marketer’s job shifts from building campaigns to reviewing drafts, which only works when the data underneath is clean and connected.

Which agents matter most for B2B teams?

With Account Engagement+, agents in Marketing Cloud Next are open to every Account Engagement edition, including Growth. Agentforce campaign creation is included from the Growth+ tier up. The agents most relevant to B2B teams span marketing and sales:

• Campaign Agent: You describe a goal in plain language, such as “a three-email nurture for mid-funnel financial services prospects who downloaded our ROI guide but haven’t booked a demo,” and it drafts the brief, audience, content and channels for you to review. The brief is saved as a record the team can reuse, and you can also start from a Word or PDF brief. Generally available since October 2026.
• Account Discovery Agent: It reviews engagement across an account and suggests high-potential accounts and buying group members you may be missing. Generally available since October 2026.
• Buyer Engagement agent: Named in the Winter ’27 release notes for lead generation and nurturing.
• Piper: picks up where Pardot nurtures leave off. Salesforce’s inbound AI SDR agent, from its Qualified acquisition, engages inbound leads, qualifies them and books meetings, though it isn’t built for complex objections.
• Hunter: the outbound counterpart for Sales Cloud, which researches accounts and drafts outreach, asking reps for approval on judgment calls. In pilot, with general availability planned for November 2026.

What does it cost to use Marketing Cloud Next features as a Pardot customer?

Beyond your Account Engagement license, what you pay for is usage, measured in credits. As of October 2026, Salesforce lists these prices per org per month. 

Edition	List price	Marketing Cloud Next edition included	Highlights listed by Salesforce
Growth+	$1,250	Growth	Agentforce campaign creation, lead nurturing and scoring
Plus+	$2,750	Advanced	AI-powered scoring, B2B Marketing Analytics
Advanced+	$4,400	Advanced	Business units, dedicated IP address
Premium+	$15,000	Advanced	Premier Success, all capabilities

Prices vary by region and contract, so treat these as a reference point, not a quote.

How do credits work?

Marketing Cloud Next charges for usage across messaging, segmentation, data storage and AI. The main credit types are:

• Einstein Request Credits for AI and agent features.
• Messaging credits for SMS and WhatsApp. Salesforce lists both from $10 per 1,000 credits. SMS also needs a setup and a leased short code.
• Data 360 credits for bringing data in, unifying it and building segments.

The starter credits that come with Salesforce Foundations may be enough to test a first use case. You can track all usage in Digital Wallet, Salesforce’s free usage tracker, which is built into the Marketing Cloud Next app and shows what you’ve used against what your contract includes.

Unused credits expire at the end of your contract term, so buying a large block up front only pays off if you’ll use it. 

For a fuller breakdown, see our guide to Salesforce Data Cloud pricing.

What should B2B teams on Pardot do now?

The right next step depends on what your team needs. Most Pardot customers fall into one of three paths: keep improving Account Engagement, run it alongside Marketing Cloud Next, or shift more work to Marketing Cloud Next over time. All three are valid, and every team should know which path it would take next.

Our view: Unless most of your data is stored outside Salesforce, we’d start with Path 2.

Path 1: Stay and optimize Account Engagement

If you want better results from your current setup, the fix is often inside it:

• Review scoring and grading rules that haven’t changed in years.
• Clean up old lists and unused assets.
• Check that sync errors between Pardot and Salesforce aren’t dropping records.
• Check how much your scoring relies on email opens and clicks. Security scanners click links automatically and privacy features hide opens, and the effect varies by company, so some accounts look hotter than they are.
• Give more weight to actions a bot can’t fake, such as form fills and return visits to key pages. The Winter ’27 release also lets you turn off open and click tracking per business unit where it’s no longer reliable.
• Make sure Pardot campaigns are connected to Salesforce campaigns, so you can report the pipeline and revenue each program influences.

Our guide to Pardot scoring vs grading is a good place to start.

Path 2: Run both side by side

Pick one use case that Account Engagement can’t handle on its own. Set up Data 360, the connector and consent matching for that use case only. Keep everything else running in Pardot. Test in a Marketing Cloud Next sandbox first, which Salesforce now supports. Expand once the first use case works.

Path 3: Shift more work over time

For teams whose needs grow beyond email and Salesforce CRM data, this path makes sense over time. Move programs across gradually as Marketing Cloud Next fits more of your needs, and rebuild only what benefits from the move.

Before rebuilding anything, do two clean-up jobs. One, cut old lists down to the ones still in use. Two, find every web page that posts to your form handlers.

8 questions to answer before you switch anything on

• Which single use case will prove value first?
• Is the data that use case needs complete and current in Salesforce or Data 360?
• Where does consent live today, and how will it carry over?
• Who on the team will own Salesforce Flow and Data 360?
• What is the monthly credit budget, and who watches it?
• When does your Account Engagement contract renew?
• How much of your automation depends on Pardot-specific features, such as Engagement Studio programs and completion actions?
• Does the team have time to run this change alongside day-to-day campaigns?

How can a Salesforce partner help with Pardot and Marketing Cloud Next?

As a lifecycle marketing agency and certified Salesforce partner with 100+ clients served, we have helped B2B teams using Pardot turn marketing signals into revenue. In practice, Mavlers’ Pardot specialists help with:

• Implementation: setups built around your ideal customer profile and sales qualification model.
• Scoring and nurture: scoring and grading checked against closed-won deals, and nurture programs built around buyer stages.
• Salesforce sync: clear field mapping and ownership rules that keep data clean.
• Reporting and attribution: campaign and pipeline reporting that ties marketing to revenue.
• Ongoing support: campaign execution, scoring upkeep and regular strategy reviews.

Whichever path you take, the most valuable parts of your setup are the agreed definition of a qualified lead, the clean records behind it and a handoff that sales trusts. Build them well, and they keep paying off as your marketing stack grows.

Not sure which path fits your Pardot setup? Talk to Mavlers’ Pardot team about where your account stands today and what to plan for next.