Definition
A Salesforce license type for Experience Cloud sites that supports large numbers of external users (hundreds of thousands to millions) with limited object access, using a special sharing model based on foreign keys rather than roles.
Real-World Example
a business analyst at Clearwater Inc. uses High-Volume Portal Users to improve how the organization tracks relationships and interactions. By setting up High-Volume Portal Users properly, the team gains better visibility into their customer base, which leads to more informed decisions and stronger customer relationships across the board.
Why High-Volume Portal Users Matters
High-Volume Portal Users (sometimes called High-Volume Customer Portal users in newer terminology) is a Salesforce license type for Experience Cloud sites that supports very large numbers of external users (hundreds of thousands to millions). To scale to these volumes, the license uses a special sharing model based on sharing sets and share groups (which leverage foreign key relationships) rather than the standard role-based sharing model that doesn't scale to those numbers.
Standard external user licenses include users in the role hierarchy, which works well for thousands of partners or customers but breaks down at higher volumes due to recalculation overhead. High-Volume licenses skip the role hierarchy entirely, which makes them scale to massive user counts at the cost of some sharing flexibility. They're appropriate for self-service customer portals, partner sites with hundreds of thousands of partners, and similar large-scale external user scenarios. Configuring them requires understanding the sharing set model, which is different from standard sharing rules and takes some learning to get right.
How Organizations Use High-Volume Portal Users
- •Vertex Global — Uses High-Volume Portal Users for their consumer-facing self-service portal supporting millions of customers, with sharing sets controlling what each customer can see.
- •Skyline Consulting — Helps clients evaluate when to use High-Volume licenses versus standard external user licenses based on user count and sharing complexity needs.
- •NovaScale — Built a partner ecosystem on High-Volume licenses to support 500,000 partners, which would have been impossible with role-based sharing.