Salesforce.com Editions

Overview

Salesforce has a [sc:link id=http://www.salesforce.com/crm/editions-pricing.jsp text=”wide variety”] of licensing options.  This article will focus on the Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, and Force.com license types.  The list of features referenced below is not exhaustive; it is simply intended to give a flavor of each edition.

Developer Edition (DE)

Developer Edition is similar in functionality to Enterprise Editions listed below (but has much lower storage), and include a limited number of a variety of licenses (Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Community, etc.).  These accounts are used exclusively for testing and development, and are provided for free by Salesforce to encourage the community to build and test on the platform.  They cannot be converted to any other edition and do not expire.

Sales Cloud Editions

  • SalesforceIQ Starter – Limit Max # Users
  • Professional Edition (PE) – Campaign Management
  • Enterprise Edition (EE) – Workflow, API, Flow, Record Types, Developer Sandbox
  • Unlimited Edition (UE) – Higher Limits, Full & Developer Pro & Developer Sandboxes, Premier Admin/Support/Training
  • Performance Edition – Higher Limits, Full & Partial & Developer Pro & Developer Sandboxes, Premier Admin/Support/Training, Knowledge, Live Agent
    • No longer offered as of Aug 25, 2016

[sc:link id=http://www2.sfdcstatic.com/assets/pdf/datasheets/DS_SalesCloud_EdCompare.pdf text=”Selecting the right Sales Cloud edition”] (See Comparison Chart)
[Must / Medium / Salesforce.com]

Service Cloud Editions

  • Professional Edition
  • Enterprise Edition
  • Unlimited Edition
  • Performance Edition
    • No longer offered as of Aug 25, 2016

[sc:link id=http://www2.sfdcstatic.com/assets/pdf/datasheets/DS_ServiceCloud_EdCompare.pdf text=”Selecting the right Service Cloud edition”] (See Comparison Chart)
[Must / Medium / Salesforce.com]

Force.com Editions

Force.com licenses can grant users access to custom objects and applications at a much lower price than Sales or Service Cloud licenses – however, access to CRM objects is limited.

[sc:link id=http://www2.sfdcstatic.com/assets/pdf/datasheets/DS_Forcedotcom_EdCompare.pdf text=”Force.com meets every business need”]
[Could / Short / Salesforce.com]

Other Clouds & Products

There are a [sc:link id=http://www.salesforce.com/crm/editions-pricing.jsp text=”wide range”] of other products and licenses offered by Salesforce.com (Marketing Cloud, Analytics Cloud, Data.com, Desk.com, etc.).  These are not discussed in this article, as these products are not included in the scope Salesforce administration and certification.

Mixing and Matching Licensing

You can mix and match only licenses of the same edition within a single org for Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, and Force.com editions.

For instance, I could add Professional Edition Service Cloud licenses to an org with existing Professional Edition Sales Cloud licenses.  However, I could not add Enterprise Edition Service Cloud licenses to an existing org with Professional Edition Sales Cloud licenses.

It is often possible to purchase specific features of other editions, rather than upgrading outright.  For example, workflow rules are available in Professional Edition for an additional cost.

Upgrading and Downgrading Editions

While you can easily upgrade editions (e.g. Professional to Enterprise), downgrading editions is not possible.

63 thoughts on “Salesforce.com Editions”

  1. Hi John, I could not find Performance edition on the comparison sheet. Also, on Service cloud, it list Professional, Enterprise and Unlimited. Unlimited is not listed here. Lastly, the edition names are Lightning . Maybe Salesforce is pushing hard to switch to Lightning and no more classic.

    1. Unlimited is still listed- the top-end offering seems to be a bit of a moving target (unlimited was swapped for performance, then unlimited was brought back, now performance has been dropped).

      Thanks – materials updated

  2. The App Packs link no longer works. The following error is received when the link is accessed: “Error: The document was not found”

  5. Under “Mixing and Matching Licensing”, the link to App Packs loads with an “ERROR
    Error: The document was not found.” message. I tried to search within the site to give you a working link, but none were found. Maybe it’s been removed entirely?

  6. I See most of the comments are update requests. I’m studying from this so I don’t know if it’s missing something but by the looks of it, there’s a good chance so my question is, is this updated?

  9. Hi John, if you have time to update this section (Part Sales Cloud Editions) please update the Sandbox information for Unlimited and Performance Editions (Summer 15):

    Unlimited Edition (UE) – Full Sandbox, Dev Pro Sandboxes
    Performance Edition – Full Sandbox, Dev Pro Sandboxes, Partial Sandbox

    Thanks so much, Kristine

  10. Small issue with the training overall. There should be a Next Section and Previous Section at top and bottom of pages. Especially when finishing a quiz or evaluation.

  11. Hi John,

    Not sure if you have time to update this section or not, but looks like only Sales Cloud and Service Cloud are covered in the Spring 15 exam. There is no mention of Salesforce Editions anywhere in the objectives list. No doubt it’s good that an admin have some sense of the capabilities and limits of Salesforce Editions, but it appears Salesforce has totally reworked its product groupings/marketing of it various offerings.

    I’d like to upgrade to the paid version of Certification on Demand, but can you give assurances that it is indeed up-to-date as of Winter 15, if not Spring 15?

    CoD really is a great site – just trying to ensure it continues to be.

    Thanks so much.

    1. Hi JD,

      What do you mean by “but looks like only Sales Cloud and Service Cloud are covered in the Spring 15 exam”?

      The official study guide is very condensed. You definitely need to know the basics on what editions of Salesforce are out there, even if it is not explicitly stated.

      This guide was last completely updated for Winter 15. The changes between releases are typically fairly minor – make sure to catch up on the release notes before your exam. Cheers,

      John

      1. Thanks! Much appreciated! Just trying to wrap my head around everything and determine the scope. I will definitely check out the release notes.

        Best,

        JD

  15. Are the prices listed on the Salesforce page for each individual product only? Or if you get the Sales Cloud, does it automatically come with the Service Cloud?

    E.g. If you purchased Performance Edition for the Sales Cloud, and Performance Edition for the Service Cloud, would it be $300/user or $600/user?

    1. I think it depends on how it is negotiated and is probably somewhere in the middle. For example if you had a user that was both a sales and service cloud user, I would not expect for you to pay double but I would expect you to pay slightly more than a sales only user.

  16. Hi John, Besides it being displayed in the title bar of my browser, is there anywhere else in Salesforce where i can find out what edition my company is using?

    Thanks 🙂

    1. I just added a blurb to articulate that this is article is not attempting to explain all of the license types in the entire product suite – just everything that pertains directly to Force.com administration. I just checked the rest of the article and it appears to be up to date.

  22. So, I don’t see anything about editions anywhere on the study guide (summer 14 is currently up). Maybe they dropped these objectives? Anyone take it recently? Thanks– less minutiae to memorize the better!

    1. Currently Winter 14 – listed on the home page currently (CertifiedOnDemand.com). Any releases not referenced in the materials will have a reference to SFDC release training in the final section to ensure bases are covered.

  23. John,
    Excellent section! Under what conditions would I purchase Force.com licenses? Do organizations ever just purchase Force.com licenses and create their own apps and objects to bypass the Sales and Service Cloud apps? I assume Force.com licenses are used to supplement Sales/Service the apps.

    1. It all depends.

      If all you want to do is build a custom application on the platform – use Force.com licenses only.

      More commonly – you are a current SFDC CRM customer. You build a custom app that many of your current CRM users will use in addition to CRM. Suddenly you realize that other users (not sfdc users) need access to this app as well. Force.com licenses are a great way to introduce that app to a subset of users without paying the full CRM license.

      Hope that helps!

  24. Would I be correct in assuming edition licenses are different than user licenses? You can have a variety of user licenses (standard, chatter, etc.) but they have to be of the same edition? Or, can you have lower edition licenses added on to your higher edition org for limited functionality?

    For example, if I have a core team of 5 people on an Enterprise edition that have full licenses, and I wanted to add 25 people with Read-Only Access to one app, could this be done with Professional Edition licenses? (I’m assuming not.)

    And are feature licenses automatically included in user licenses for certain editions? Would an Enterprise Org that purchases 50 licenses automatically get 50 marketing licenses?

  25. I am using a Developer edition.

    When trying to import a bunch of users into my Org, I assigned the License Type = Chatter Free.
    However during the import, get an error “License Limit Exceeded”.

    I cannot assign a Salesforce license either since there are only 2 available. How do we go about importing users to the Org please ?

    1. I would create the user manually to see if the error message was the same when importing. Then I would check the license count under company information. If the license count is there but you’re getting a licensing error, then something else is causing it. The import may not be properly specifying the license type.

    1. Thanks – updated! Made it more generic, the specific number isn’t as important as understanding the broader implications of each edition. All the same, want to make sure there aren’t any errors in information!

  27. “For instance, I could add Professional Edition Service Cloud licenses to an org with existing Professional Edition Service Cloud licenses.”

    Repeated, I assume it should say PE service cloud vs. PE sales cloud.

      1. This information is a little dated. The editions from the links do not match the editions listed.
        Service Cloud Editions are as follows from the link:
        1. Lightning Professional
        2. Lightning Enterprise
        3. Lightning Unlimited
        Sales Cloud Editions are as follows from the link:
        1. SalesforceIQ CRM Starter
        2. Lightning Professional
        3. Lightning Enterprise
        4. Lightning Unlimited

Leave a Reply