# Salesflare vs SugarAI (SugarCRM)

> SugarAI scores 49.5 (D) to Salesflare's 48.5 (D) for crm records. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/salesflare-vs-sugarcrm
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/salesflare-vs-sugarcrm.md (~2,750 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/salesflare-vs-sugarcrm.min.md (~680 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/salesflare-vs-sugarcrm.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-09

SugarAI (SugarCRM) scores 49.5 (D) on agent readiness against Salesflare's 48.5 (D), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Salesflare leads on schema & documentation and payments & pricing. Both do crm records.

- Salesflare: grade D, 48.5/100, rank #812 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/salesflare.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/salesflare.json
- SugarAI (SugarCRM): grade D, 49.5/100, rank #793 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/sugarcrm.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/sugarcrm.json
- Best CRM and customer-platform tools for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/crm/index.md
- All 136 crm comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crm/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Salesflare (D)

Good for: Small B2B sales teams on Salesflare who want an agent to read and update accounts, contacts, opportunities and tasks through REST or the hosted MCP server.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 57 against 48
- Payments & pricing, 30 against 10

Also in its favour:
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
- Free to start without a card

Watch for: No rate limit numbers found. The API introduction lists 429 among its status codes with no limit, Retry-After or backoff guidance

### SugarAI (SugarCRM) (D)

Good for: Companies already running Sugar Sell, Serve or Enterprise that want an agent to read and write records under a named user's roles, and that have Sugar's approval for the integration.

Ahead on:
- Agent ergonomics, 69 against 49
- Security & auth, 51 against 44
- Transparency & trust, 71 against 58

Watch for: The AI Supplemental Terms forbid connecting customer-owned or third-party AI systems, agents or MCP connectors to the Services or APIs except through functionality Sugar has approved. This matters before any probe is run


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Salesflare | SugarAI (SugarCRM) | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 63 | 61 | Salesflare +2 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 57 | 48 | Salesflare +9 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 49 | 69 | SugarAI (SugarCRM) +20 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 44 | 51 | SugarAI (SugarCRM) +7 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 30 | 10 | Salesflare +20 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 25 | 22 | Salesflare +3 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 58 | 71 | SugarAI (SugarCRM) +13 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **48.5 · D** | **49.5 · D** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Salesflare | SugarAI (SugarCRM) |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Salesflare BVBA | SugarAI Software Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.salesflare.com` | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth |
| Pricing | Paid | Paid |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under Salesflare's Terms of Service | Proprietary service under the SugarAI Customer Terms of Service |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-10-08 | none |
| Terms last updated | no date given |  |
| Privacy policy last updated | couldn't be read | no date given |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text |  |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text |  |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text |  |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text |  |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text |  |

## Verdicts

**Salesflare.** The REST API has a public Swagger 2.0 file covering 71 operations, with typed filters on every list call and a 30-day trial that needs no card. No rate limit numbers, API changelog, SDK or audit log were found in the reviewed documentation, and API keys carry no documented scopes.

**SugarAI (SugarCRM).** The REST reference covers 350 endpoint pages with filters, field selection, bulk calls and upsert by `sync_key`. SugarAI's AI Supplemental Terms forbid connecting a customer's or third party's AI agent or MCP connector to the APIs unless Sugar has approved it, tokens carry no scopes, and no OpenAPI file, trial or SLA was found.

## Before you call either

### Salesflare

1. Send `Authorization: Bearer <API key>` to `https://api.salesflare.com`. A person creates the key in Settings, API keys
2. Set `limit` on every list call. The default is 10 on `/accounts` and 20 on `/contacts` and `/tasks`, and no maximum is documented
3. Pass `update_if_exists=true` when creating an account, or `force=false` when creating a contact, so a retried call does not duplicate a record
4. Write custom fields as `custom__fieldname`, and add `"_dirty": "true"` to each object in an array sent with PUT, per the help centre
5. Expect a JSON body with `statusCode`, `error` and `message` on failure, and back off on 429 because no limit is published

### SugarAI (SugarCRM)

1. Confirm that Sugar has approved the agent integration before connecting. The AI Supplemental Terms forbid unapproved AI agents and MCP connectors on the APIs
2. POST to `/rest/v11_27/oauth2/token` with `grant_type` `password` and a `platform` other than `base`, `mobile` or `portal`, or the login can end the user's own session
3. Send the access token in the `OAuth-Token` header. It lasts 60 minutes by default, so store the refresh token and not the password
4. Stay under 20 requests a second on SugarCloud and reuse one session for batches. Over-limit traffic is blocked by IP address until support lifts it
5. Page with `max_num` and `offset` until `next_offset` is -1, and pass `fields` to keep responses small
6. Use `PATCH /integrate/:module/:sync_key_field_name/:sync_key_field_value` for writes that may be retried, since it inserts or updates by `sync_key`

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Salesflare or SugarAI (SugarCRM)?

SugarAI (SugarCRM) scores 49.5 (D) on agent readiness against Salesflare's 48.5 (D), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Salesflare leads on schema & documentation and payments & pricing.

### Do Salesflare and SugarAI (SugarCRM) need an API key?

Salesflare takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in. SugarAI (SugarCRM) uses an OAuth sign-in.

### Can an agent call Salesflare and SugarAI (SugarCRM) without installing anything?

Salesflare has a hosted endpoint at https://api.salesflare.com. No hosted endpoint is listed for SugarAI (SugarCRM).


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/salesflare-vs-sugarcrm.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/salesflare-vs-sugarcrm.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "salesflare", "b": "sugarcrm"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare salesflare sugarcrm`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/salesflare.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/sugarcrm.json

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