Sales Cloud is for internal sales reps managing the sales process. Internal users only.
Experience Cloud (formerly Communities) is for external users — customers, partners, vendors. Built on the Salesforce platform but with separate licensing and external-facing UI.
When you need both:
- Sales Cloud for your internal sales team.
- Experience Cloud for partners (Partner Community) to see their leads, register deals, view commissions.
- Or for customers (Customer Community) to access their Account info, submit cases, track orders.
Common combinations:
B2B with channel sales:
- Sales Cloud for internal AEs.
- Partner Community for resellers / referral partners.
SaaS with self-service:
- Sales Cloud for new business.
- Customer Community for users to manage subscription, support cases, knowledge.
Manufacturing with distributors:
- Sales Cloud for direct accounts.
- Partner Community for distributor portal.
Architectural considerations:
- Shared data, separate UX — both clouds work on the same Account/Contact/Opportunity/Case objects but show different views to different audiences.
- Sharing model — separate OWD column for external users; Sharing Sets for HVPU patterns.
- License costs — Customer Community / Plus per external user; Partner Community per partner user.
- Performance — external users add load; tune accordingly.
When you don't need Experience Cloud:
- Pure internal use — Sales Cloud alone.
- External-facing function handled by another tool (e.g., dedicated portal product).
- Limited external use case (just need a feedback form — Web-to-Case suffices).
Hybrid pattern:
- Sales Cloud + Service Cloud + Experience Cloud, all integrated.
- A customer in Experience Cloud sees their Account / Cases.
- Internal Sales/Service reps see the same data via Sales/Service Cloud.
Senior consultants think early about external user needs — they shape the sharing model and licensing strategy from day one.