Salesforce licensing is complex; oversimplification:
Internal user licenses:
- Salesforce (full CRM) — most expensive, full platform access.
- Salesforce Platform — limited objects (no standard Sales/Service objects), good for line-of-business apps.
- Lightning Platform Starter / Plus — newer; cheaper than full Salesforce.
- Customer Community / Customer Community Plus — external users, customer-facing.
- Partner Community — external users, partners.
- External Apps / Self-Service — newer external licenses with different access models.
- Identity — login-only, no CRM access.
- Chatter Free / Chatter Only — limited; mostly retired.
Add-on licenses:
- Sales Cloud / Service Cloud edition tiers (Essentials, Professional, Enterprise, Unlimited).
- CPQ, Marketing Cloud, Field Service, Industry Clouds — separate add-ons.
- Permission Set Licenses (PSL) — feature unlocks.
Choosing:
- Internal Sales/Service users -> Salesforce (full CRM) license.
- Internal users on a custom app only (not touching Account/Contact/Opp) -> Salesforce Platform.
- External customers -> Customer Community / Plus.
- External partners -> Partner Community.
- Read-only viewers -> Login + Identity-only license.
Pricing varies by edition and negotiation. Mid-market pays ~$150/user/month for Salesforce; Communities cheaper.
Senior consultants help clients optimize: pay only for what's needed, use lower-tier licenses for read-only or Platform-only users.