Salesforce licensing is one of the largest line items in enterprise IT. Optimisation matters.
Audit current state:
- Per-user license assignment — who has what.
- Login frequency — users with full Salesforce licenses but rare logins.
- Feature usage — users with advanced licenses (Sales Cloud Unlimited) but using basic features only.
- Inactive users — still licensed.
- Permission Set Licenses (PSLs) — assigned but unused.
Use Lightning Usage App + custom reports for this analysis.
Optimisation moves:
1. Right-size per user.
- Move infrequent users to lower tier — Salesforce Platform / Lightning Platform Starter.
- Identity-only license for read-only or login-only users.
- Customer Community / Plus for external users that don't need full Salesforce.
2. Deactivate unused.
- Inactive 90+ days -> deactivate. License is freed.
- Reassign to someone who needs it.
3. Feature licensing.
- PSLs only assigned where features are used.
- Audit unused PSLs; reduce purchased count at renewal.
4. Sandbox optimisation.
- Full sandboxes are expensive; downgrade unused ones to Partial Copy.
5. Negotiate at renewal.
- Salesforce expects to grow contracts; if you're stable, renegotiate.
- Multi-year deals for discount but lock-in.
- Bundle deals (Salesforce + Mulesoft + Tableau) for volume discount.
6. Consider edition mix.
- Enterprise Edition for most users; Unlimited only where needed (more sandboxes, more API).
- Performance Edition rare except for high-volume orgs.
Communities:
- Customer Community vs Customer Community Plus vs High Volume Portal User — pick by access needs and volume.
- HVPU is dramatically cheaper for read-mostly external users.
Hidden costs:
- Add-ons: CPQ, Marketing Cloud, Service Cloud features priced separately.
- Compute and storage above included quotas.
- Premier Support: included or upsell.
- Trailhead Academy training credits.
Strategic considerations:
- Vendor lock-in — Salesforce relationship deepens with each add-on.
- Multi-year commits lock in pricing but reduce flexibility.
- License model evolution — Salesforce restructures licensing every few years.
Senior consultant move: licensing audit annually. Recovery often pays for the audit several times over. Salesforce won't proactively suggest optimisation; you have to advocate.
Surprise findings are common: 30% of licenses unused, 20% PSLs unassigned, multiple inactive users still on full licenses. Money on the table.