Lead scoring has become a crucial strategy for modern sales teams, with companies that implement it seeing up to 70% higher ROI from conversions.
Einstein Lead Scoring gives Salesforce users AI-powered lead prioritization. But it comes at a steep price.
This guide walks you through setting up Einstein Lead Scoring, reveals its key limitations, and shows how spreadsheet-based alternatives deliver better results at a fraction of the cost.
Setting up Einstein lead scoring in Salesforce
Einstein Lead Scoring helps sales teams identify high-potential leads based on historical patterns. Here’s how to set it up:
Steps to Enable Einstein lead scoring
If you have access to Einstein features:
- Step 1: Go to Setup in Salesforce and search for Einstein Lead Scoring under “Einstein Sales”
- Step 2: Toggle on Einstein Lead Scoring
- Step 3: Choose between default or custom settings:
- Default: Einstein analyzes all fields for converted leads to identify patterns
- Custom: Define specific fields or exclude certain data for more tailored scoring
- Step 4: Verify you have sufficient historical data (at least 1,000 leads and 120 conversions in the past six months)
- Once enabled, Einstein will automatically assign predictive scores to leads
Einstein lead scoring pricing and availability
Einstein Lead Scoring requires premium Salesforce editions that come with substantial price tags:
Edition | Monthly Price | Einstein Lead Scoring | Additional Features |
Enterprise | $165 per user | $50 extra per user | Advanced automation, API access, custom reporting |
Unlimited | $330 per user | Included | 24/7 support, unlimited custom apps, all AI features |
Performance | Custom pricing | Included | All Unlimited features plus industry-specific tools |
Additional costs for Enterprise users:
- Einstein AI features: $50 per user monthly
- Live agent support: $75 per user monthly
- Enhanced analytics: Varies by implementation
These costs add up quickly for growing sales teams. A 10-person sales organization could easily spend $40,000+ annually just to access Einstein’s lead scoring capabilities.
Limitations of Einstein lead scoring
While powerful, Einstein Lead Scoring has several constraints that impact its effectiveness:
- Data quality dependency
It relies on high-quality data. If your records are messy or you lack enough historical leads, the predictions can suffer.
You might need extra tools for data enrichment. Organizations often need third-party tools to enhance their data quality before Einstein can provide reliable scores.
- All-Inclusive Data
By default, it considers every field in your CRM—even the ones that aren’t really useful. The inclusion of irrelevant data points can create confusion when Einstein identifies correlations that don’t actually impact conversion likelihood.
- Limited Insights
While you get a score and a rundown of the influencing factors, it doesn’t always explain why those factors matter. This “black box” nature might leave you scratching your head.
This lack of contextual information can reduce team trust in the scores, especially if they contradict intuition.
- Resource Heavy
Setting up and tweaking the system isn’t plug-and-play. You’ll need someone with good Salesforce know-how, which can be a challenge for smaller teams.
- Lack of Cross-Cloud Integration
Einstein mainly works within the Salesforce ecosystem. If you use other marketing or analytics tools, you’ll have to manually import that data, which can slow things down.
This limitation becomes increasingly significant as organizations adopt specialized tools across their customer journey.
Einstein Lead Scoring Alternative for SMBs & Startups – Coefficient
Enter Coefficient – the smart connector that turns your spreadsheets into powerful lead scoring engines. Why pay thousands for Einstein when your existing spreadsheets can do more at a fraction of the cost?
Spreadsheet-based scoring isn’t just cheaper – it’s better. You maintain complete control over your scoring logic, can pull data from any source, and get results immediately instead of waiting months for AI models to stabilize.
All without the premium Salesforce pricing.
Here’s how to build a superior lead scoring system in just minutes:
Step 1. Define your ICP and data needs
Start by clarifying who you’re targeting:
- Identify key traits of your ideal customer (industry, company size, budget)
- List both demographic data (location, title) and behavioral signals (page visits, email engagement)
- Align with sales and marketing teams on which signals truly matter
Step 2. Build your scoring tables in Google Sheets and pull in CRM data
Create your scoring framework:
- Map each attribute to point values in a simple spreadsheet (e.g., “Director level = 15 points”)
- Use Coefficient to automatically import Salesforce lead records
- Make the model accessible to teams so everyone understands the logic
Step 3. Apply your scoring logic
- Create formulas that evaluate each lead against your scoring criteria
- Factor in both static attributes and dynamic behaviors
- Use a master score column to calculate total points and flag high-value prospects
Step 4. Automate your updates
- Schedule Coefficient to refresh your spreadsheet daily or weekly
- As lead details change in Salesforce, their scores update automatically
- Maintain consistency across sales and marketing without manual work
Step 5. Export updated scores back into Salesforce
- Push scores and custom fields back to Salesforce with Coefficient’s export feature
- Set up Salesforce to trigger workflows based on these scores
- Monitor performance and adjust scoring criteria as needed
Free Salesforce Leads Dashboard Template
Track and analyze your leads with our free Salesforce Leads Dashboard Template that automatically connects your CRM data to both Google Sheets and Excel.
This template removes the need for manual reporting and gives you instant visibility into your lead pipeline, helping you find your most valuable prospects and improve your conversion strategies.
- Complete lead tracking (new leads, conversion rates, pipeline value)
- Source analysis showing which channels bring the best leads
- Geographic and industry breakdowns with clear visualizations
- Lead aging reports to help you follow up at the right time
- Automatic updates that refresh your data without manual work
Download Your Free Template Here
Take control of your lead scoring today
Einstein Lead Scoring offers powerful capabilities for Salesforce users with large budgets and clean data. But for many organizations, spreadsheet-based scoring provides greater flexibility, transparency, and cross-platform integration. The best approach often combines Einstein’s predictive power with the customization of spreadsheet models.
Ready to build your own lead scoring system that connects all your data sources? Try Coefficient for free and connect your spreadsheets to your most important data sources today.
Frequently asked questions
How much is Einstein lead scoring?
Einstein Lead Scoring is available in:
- Sales Cloud Enterprise ($150-$175 per user/month)
- Sales Cloud Unlimited ($300+ per user/month)
The Enterprise edition includes Lead Scoring, Opportunity Scoring, and Activity Capture, while Unlimited offers all Einstein capabilities including Forecasting and Insights.
While Einstein helps prioritize sales leads, Coefficient can complement this by connecting your Salesforce data directly to spreadsheets. This allows teams to build custom lead scoring models, analyze Einstein scores alongside other metrics, and create automated reports that refresh with the latest data.
What is Einstein behavior scoring?
Einstein Behavior Scoring analyzes prospect engagement history to determine conversion likelihood. It:
- Tracks website visits, email opens, and form submissions
- Assigns scores from 0-100 reflecting overall engagement
- Compares individual prospect activity to your broader audience
- Adapts over time to improve accuracy through machine learning
With Coefficient, you can bring these behavior scores into your spreadsheets alongside data from multiple systems. This provides a more complete view of customer engagement, allowing teams to create custom dashboards showing behavior trends, set up automated alerts for high-scoring prospects, and share insights across departments.
How do I activate Einstein lead scoring?
To enable Einstein Lead Scoring in Salesforce:
- Go to Salesforce Setup
- Turn on Einstein Lead Scoring
- Choose default or custom settings
- If using custom settings, select your lead conversion milestone (accounts/contacts or opportunity creation)
After activating Einstein Lead Scoring, use Coefficient to pull your scoring data into spreadsheets. This lets you create custom reports combining lead scores with other metrics, set up automatic refreshes to always see the latest scores, and configure alerts to notify your team when high-scoring leads appear.
What is the Einstein opportunity scoring model?
Einstein Opportunity Scoring uses data science and machine learning to score opportunities by likelihood of closing. This provides a simpler, faster, and more accurate solution than traditional rule-based approaches by analyzing historical patterns to identify which deals are most likely to succeed.
Coefficient enhances Einstein Opportunity Scoring by bringing this data into your spreadsheets. Teams can build custom dashboards combining opportunity scores with other sales metrics, automate reports that refresh with real-time data, and create custom visualizations to better understand scoring patterns. This helps sales leaders make faster, more informed decisions about resource allocation.