Different Types of Salesforce Licenses

Many businesses make use of Salesforce to manage and streamline sales, service, and marketing processes, but not everyone takes a close look at how Salesforce licensing model works. This can result in spending more than you need to on additional features and services you aren’t currently using. Choosing the right licensing can help your business minimize costs while still retaining access to the features you need. This blog will help you by providing important information to help pick the right license.

Different Types of Licensing

S.No	Types of User Licenses
1	Salesforce Full Access
2	Salesforce Platform
3	Force.com One App
4	Force.com App Subscription
5	Knowledge-only
6	Identity
7	Chatter Free
8	Chatter External
9	Chatter Only
10	Guest User

There are four major types of licensing offered by Salesforce. These include user licenses, permission set licenses, feature licenses, and usage-based entitlements. The most important type of license is the user license. The key types of user licenses offered by Salesforce are summarized in the table below:

User Licenses

User licenses are the fundamental modules that allow you to access a set of features for a particular Salesforce platform such as Sales, Service, or Marketing. Every user within your organization must have a unique user license. User licenses can be sub-categorized into different types, including Full Access, Salesforce Platform, Force.com, and Knowledge-only, among others. You need to decide whether you need a Full Access to the system (all of the features based on your platform and edition), which includes the Force.com app and the CRM system, or if you only need specific subscriptions such as app-only access.

Permission Set Licenses

On top of the basic user licenses, Salesforce also allows you to customize permissions. For instance, if one member of your sales team requires access to additional permissions, such as the ability to chat, they may employ a permission set license rather than a full platform license. This license can be extremely important if you have large teams with discrete responsibilities or if you want to restrict certain users from editing your Salesforce data. You can also clone permission set licenses for different users by creating user groups. These features can prove to be extremely beneficial if you want to customize permissions.

Feature Licenses

You should also be aware of features licenses. These licenses allow users to access additional features. For example, if one of your sales users wants to access the marketing features of Salesforce to send email campaigns to prospects. A feature license can be extremely useful in these situations, enabling you to add a discrete feature to a user or set of users without paying the full licensing fee.

Usage-based Entitlements

These are limited resources that can be used by your organization for a set period of time. For instance, you purchase 50 subscriptions to access a partner community. Each time a user logs in to a community, one of these 50 logins will be used up. The remaining logins will be accessible for a fixed period of time based on your agreement. Usage-based entitlements can be useful in case you want to regulate user activity on the platform or need access to an allotment of services.

Conclusion

Based on the wide variety of licenses available, it’s important to review your users and their unique needs, and then ensure each user has the right license type. If some features are only be used by a small team or are only used over certain periods, a special license type can save you money.

KORCOMPTENZ can help with figuring out the right Salesforce license costs and services. Contact us today for a free consultation.

Korcomptenz is a Salesforce Registered Consulting Partner. We’ve been in business for almost 17 years and can get you started on Salesforce by procuring the software, implementing and customizing the platform, importing and integrating your data, and providing full service support. Our seasoned teams of strategic thinkers also help map out your business processes and implement them in Salesforce, all at very cost-effective price points.