Finding the best-fit software for your business is about more than picking the right software provider. Many solutions, like Salesforce Sales Cloud, offer different levels of functionality across multiple tiers. 

Whether you’re interested in purchasing Salesforce Sales Cloud or are curious if you’ve outgrown your current edition, you’ve come to the right place. Let’s review the features, cost, and best-fit qualifications for each Salesforce Sales Cloud edition. We’ll also cover when you might want to change editions.

 

Salesforce Essentials Edition

Cost: $25/user/month

Key Features: 

• Account, Contact, Lead, and Opportunity Management
• Email Integration with Gmail or Outlook
• Mobile Application
• Report and Dashboard Customization

Best Fit: Small businesses on tight budgets

Edition Summary: Basic sales functionality for up to 10 users   

Essentials is the base edition of Salesforce Sales Cloud that comes with core features for sales teams. While it lacks the bells and whistles of the other editions, Essentials is a powerhouse when it comes to managing leads, accounts, contacts, and opportunities. Its interface is highly customizable from the start, allowing teams to tailor the solution in a way that streamlines processes and feels familiar.

If your business requires more users, more advanced features, or has a higher budget, it’s worthwhile to skip Essentials and opt for an edition with more functionality and flexibility.

Salesforce Professional Edition

Cost: $75/user/month

Key Features: 

• All Essentials Features
• Lead Registration and Rules-Based Lead Scoring 
• Collaborative Forecasting 

Best Fit: Small and midsize businesses with moderate budgets and general sales needs

Edition Summary: Reasonable customization for unlimited users

Salesforce Professional is a step-up from Essentials in several ways. Professional includes new features to manage lead registration and scoring, making it easier for sales teams to get contacts into the sales funnel. The rest of the sales funnel is managed by collaborative forecasting features, which teams can use to predict and plan the sales cycle from start to finish. All of the Essentials features are included in this edition, and with no user limits, Professional is a popular choice for small and midsize businesses to manage sales.

The main drawback of Salesforce’s Professional edition is that, despite its more robust features compared to Essentials, it lacks many customization features found in the Enterprise and Unlimited editions. If your sales processes are multi-faceted or complex, or if your business has multiple sales teams, a more advanced edition that allows for automation and customization is a better choice.

Enterprise

Cost: $150/user/month

Key Features: 

• All Essentials and Professional Features
• Workflow and Approval Automation 

Best Fit: Midsize and enterprise businesses with several business units or departments

Edition Summary: An automation powerhouse and Salesforce’s most popular edition

Enterprise is Salesforce’s most popular Sales Cloud edition for a reason—its powerful automation capabilities save time for large businesses across the entire sales funnel. Like the Professional edition, Enterprise boasts unlimited users and high flexibility, the latter of which is further improved by more rules and custom fields. The automation capabilities save even more time for large organizations with complex workflows.

Enterprise has enough features for most organizations. However, large enterprise-level organizations operating at full capacity may push the edition’s limits. That’s where Salesforce’s Unlimited edition comes in.

Unlimited

Cost: $300/user/month

Key Features: 

• All Essentials, Professional, and Enterprise Features
• 24/7 User Support 

Best Fit: Enterprise organizations with multiple locations and sales departments

Edition Summary: A full-fledged CRM experience with unlimited support

With hundreds more custom fields available and 24/7 access to Salesforce’s support team, the Unlimited edition is one of the most powerful sales CRM solutions available. However, the name isn’t entirely accurate—Salesforce caps the number of custom fields at 2,000 in the Unlimited edition. Even so, this is ten times more than what is available in the Enterprise edition.

The Unlimited edition is best for large organizations with high budgets. The sheer number of features included in the Unlimited edition of Salesforce causes it to be the most expensive option, which is why it’s usually not the best fit for midsize or enterprise companies that are a bit more conservative with software purchases.

Other Considerations

The features you want will determine the edition you purchase. Unfortunately, the sticker price is not indicative of the overall cost you will pay for the software. From licensing tiers to add-on fees, there are plenty of other costs that will be tacked on to your software total. So, expect to pay more for the features you want. 

If you’re unsure how an edition’s cost fits into your business budget, check out our Salesforce Sales Cloud pricing calculator for an estimate. 

Conclusion

The best Salesforce Sales Cloud edition for your business will depend on the level of functionality you need, the size of your organization, the complexity of your processes, and your budget. If you’d like to learn more about Salesforce Essentials, Professional, Enterprise, or Unlimited, reach out to a dedicated Salesforce consulting partner like Cargas.