Koala vs. Demandbase: Which should you choose?

About Koala

Koala tracks visitors on your website — then uses AI to identify which companies are visiting and prioritize the hottest accounts for sales follow-up. It connects only to HubSpot, Salesforce, and Apollo, costs $350/month after a free tier, and focuses entirely on first-party website behavior rather than broader market intent signals.

About Demandbase

Demandbase is an enterprise ABM platform that combines first-party website data with third-party intent signals and firmographic information to help B2B companies identify and engage target accounts. It offers account intelligence, advertising capabilities, website personalization, and CRM integration in a single platform — though it requires custom enterprise pricing and can be seriously complex to implement.

What do users say?

Users praise Koala for its streamlined approach to identifying website visitors, with many describing the workflow as faster and more efficient than traditional ABM tools. The platform consistently receives praise for its excellent workflow and capabilities, with users finding it superior to more expensive alternatives that cost $1,000+ monthly but deliver a more difficult and slower experience. Many users recommend pairing Koala with existing CRM workflows for maximum impact while maintaining the app's streamlined approach.

Based on user reviews, Demandbase receives generally positive feedback for its ABM capabilities and robust feature set. Users praise the platform as the most accurate for identifying anonymous website visitors and highlight its superior account-based advertising capabilities compared to competitors — with many appreciating features like account scoring, sales signal detection, and the ability to tailor messaging based on site analysis data. However, some users express strong skepticism about the platform's core value propositions, questioning the reliability of intent data and suggesting that the $150k+ annual cost may not provide better ROAS than traditional organic/paid marketing strategies. Concerns include bot clicks, low IP identification confidence rates, and inflated attribution claims.

Comparison

Koala

Koala delivers first-party website intent data with AI-powered account prioritization — making it easy to identify which companies are visiting your site and their level of engagement. The platform has limited integrations (primarily HubSpot, Salesforce, and Apollo) and focuses exclusively on website behavior rather than broader market intent signals.

Demandbase

Demandbase provides a comprehensive ABM platform combining first-party and third-party data with extensive integrations across CRM, marketing automation, and advertising platforms. The platform offers end-to-end ABM capabilities but comes with enterprise-level complexity and pricing that can be prohibitive for smaller teams.

Choose Koala if you're a small to mid-sized B2B company that wants to quickly identify and act on website visitor intent without significant upfront investment or complex implementation. Its strength lies in simplicity and speed-to-value — making it ideal for sales development teams that need immediate alerts when target accounts show interest. Pick Demandbase if you're an enterprise organization with mature ABM strategies that require comprehensive account orchestration across multiple channels, extensive customization capabilities, and the budget to support a full-featured platform.

Here's the problem: neither tool excels at contact-based marketing. Both focus primarily on account-level intelligence rather than individual contact engagement and nurturing. This represents a significant gap for marketers who need to execute personalized, contact-specific campaigns — because most B2B buying decisions involve multiple stakeholders who require tailored messaging based on their role, interests, and stage in the buyer's journey. Organizations using these tools typically need to supplement them with dedicated contact databases and marketing automation platforms to achieve comprehensive contact-based marketing capabilities.

Do you need account-based marketing, or something else?

Here's the revelation that's flipping ABM on its head: your funnel isn't about anonymous accounts. It's about the decision-makers and influencers within those accounts.

That's what makes contact-based marketing (CBM) a breakthrough. Instead of focusing on broad account intent signals, contact-based marketing pinpoints the EXACT people engaging with your content in real-time — even when they don't convert.

How does this solve the traditional tension of intent-based marketing? It clears up the ambiguity.

With contact-level data, you can reveal high-priority leads by identifying the individuals behind key touchpoints. Deliver hyper-targeted ads based on specific contact behaviors. And bridge the gap between marketing and sales alignment with actionable, lead-level insights.