Introduction: platform vs purpose-built

Salesforce is the Swiss Army knife of CRMs—flexible, powerful, and backed by a massive ecosystem. Stax.ai is a specialized TPA CRM + client experience platform that shows up with payroll, census, and compliance built in. This isn’t a fight between equals; it’s a decision between building a TPA system and buying one ready to run. For the broader context, see our Best CRM for TPAs guide.

Where Salesforce shines

Enterprise-scale customization, deep reporting, layered permissions, and the AppExchange. If you have a seasoned internal admin team (and budget), you can shape it to your processes.

Where TPAs need more—and how Stax.ai answers

• Payroll/census intake: Salesforce needs objects/flows or partner apps. Stax.ai includes 200+ payroll integrations and AI upload standardization out of the box.

• Plan Sponsor portal: Salesforce typically requires an add-on; Stax.ai ships with a white-label portal..

• Trust accounting: Stax.ai has a Trust Accounting module; Salesforce needs an external solution, a lot of TPAs using Salesforce use Stax.ai for Trust Accounting (can be purchased separately with the CRM/CX).

Time to value and total cost

A realistic Salesforce rollout is months when you add partners and apps. Stax.ai goes live in weeks, usually in phases (portal + census first, then automation and BI). When you model total cost over 24–36 months—including consulting and app subscriptions—Stax.ai’s “done on day one” approach is hard to ignore.

Bottom line

Pick Salesforce if you want a general platform and you’re ready to invest (potentially hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars!) in tailoring it.

Pick Stax.ai if you want a purpose-built CRM + CX stack that handles payroll/census, sponsor collaboration, and trust accounting on day one.