Data Cloud offers a powerful way to consolidate diverse data, creating a comprehensive customer profile that enables personalised interactions and business expansion. However, a solid grasp of its credit-based pricing structure is essential to effectively managing expenses. This guide aims to clarify Data Cloud's credit system, providing a framework for estimating your investment.
Estimate Your Credit Consumption
Salesforce Data Cloud pricing is consumption-based, meaning you pay for the services you use, using Data Services Credits and Segmentation & Activation Credits. This means that different actions consume varying amounts of credits, so understanding the implications of your actions is paramount for precise budgeting and cost optimisation.
We’ve developed a custom calculator to help you navigate this credit-based model. By providing details about your anticipated usage, you can generate a tailored estimate of your credit consumption and associated costs.
Want to build your understanding of the credit system before using the calculator? Read on for a general overview.
Important Note: Salesforce's credit pricing is dynamic and dependent on various factors. Our calculator provides an estimate to inform your planning. Always confirm precise credit costs and usage rates with Salesforce directly.
Costs are directly proportional to the consumption of your platform resources and features, including data processing, segmentation, and activation. This is why understanding your data model is crucial for accurate credit estimation.
Let's explore this in more detail:
What it is: Data processing encompasses all the operations performed on your data within Data Cloud to make it usable and valuable. This includes:
Ingestion: Bringing data into Data Cloud from various sources (e.g., APIs, connectors).
Harmonisation: Transforming and standardising data into a consistent format and structure. Think of this as cleaning and organising your data.
Identity Resolution: Matching and merging records from different sources to create a unified view of each customer. This is crucial for avoiding duplicates and getting a complete picture.
Transformation: Deriving new data or calculations from existing data (e.g., calculating customer lifetime value).
Data processing, especially in large volumes and with complex transformations, consumes Data Services Credits.
The more data you ingest, transform, and unify, the more processing power (and therefore credits) you use.
The type of data you use will also influence the cost eg batch or live streaming.
Identity resolution, which often involves complex matching algorithms, can be a significant consumer of Data Services Credits and can be much more expensive.
For example: 1000 credits are used per million rows processed for data ingestion compared to 100000 per million rows processed for identity resolution.
What it is: Segmentation is the process of dividing your customers or prospects into groups (segments) based on shared characteristics. This allows you to target them with more relevant and personalised messages and offers.
Examples:
Creating a segment of customers who have purchased a specific product.
Segmenting customers based on their location, demographics, or purchase history.
Building segments of high-value customers for loyalty programs.
Creating, modifying, and refreshing segments consumes Segmentation & Activation Credits.
The complexity of the segmentation criteria and the size of the segments influence credit consumption.
A simple segment based on a single field might consume fewer credits than a complex segment with multiple criteria and calculations.
Segment costing is directly tied to the volume of data processed (number of rows), meaning analysing a single object incurs lower costs compared to analysing multiple objects. This cost structure prioritises the breadth of the segmentation over its inherent complexity.
Refreshing segments regularly to keep them up-to-date also consumes credits.
What it is: Activation is the process of taking the segments you've created and making them actionable. This involves sending those segments to other systems or platforms to be used for marketing, sales, or service activities.
Examples:
Sending a segment of customers to Marketing Cloud for email campaigns.
Activating a segment for targeted advertising on social media.
Making a segment available to sales representatives in Sales Cloud for personalised outreach.
Activating segments to various destinations consumes Segmentation & Activation Credits.
The number of records you activate and the type of destination significantly impact credit consumption.
For example, sending one million records to a platform in a single request will consume far more credits than sending one record to the same platform every hour throughout the day. Similarly, sending a segment to one platform might consume fewer credits than sending the same segment to multiple platforms simultaneously.
Real-time activation (e.g., triggering actions based on immediate customer behaviour), due to its immediate processing demands, generally consumes more credits than batch activation.
Salesforce offers a range of Data Cloud editions, each with varying features and associated credit allocations. Understanding the differences between these editions is crucial for aligning your investment with your specific needs and usage patterns.
For customers with Enterprise Edition or above, Data Cloud Provisioning is available at no cost. This complimentary provisioning provides a significant set of resources to get started, including 250,000 Data Services credits, allowing you to leverage key Data Cloud functionalities. You'll also receive 1 TB of data storage, 1 Data Cloud administrator license, 100 internal Data Cloud identity users, 20,000 Data Cloud permission set licenses (PSLs), and 5 integration users.
Customers with the Unlimited Plus Edition receive an even greater allocation of 2,500,000 Data Service credits within their no-cost Data Cloud Provisioning.
Please note that the 2 Tableau Creator licenses are a separate offering and can be quoted by your Account Executive.
Salesforce's "Data Cloud Starter for Marketing" is a marketing package that unifies data into a single customer profile, at the list price of €108,000 Euros per org, per year, when billed annually.
This paid edition unlocks a wider range of Data Cloud capabilities, including those that directly consume credits. Credit-based pricing is applied to:
Segmentations and Activations: The volume and complexity of segmentation and activation activities directly influence credit consumption.
Data Services: Utilising Data Services within Data Cloud involves credit expenditure.
Ad Audiences: Activating audiences for advertising platforms incurs credit charges.
Data Storage: While not directly credit-based, the amount of data stored within Data Cloud can affect overall costs.
This edition may also support integration with an external data lake, which could introduce separate cost considerations.
Several add-ons are also available to enhance your capabilities
Segmentations & Activation: For creating segments and distributing them to activation targets, the list price is: €1,000 EUR per 100,000 Credits.
Data Services: To increase or acquire extra data services credits, beyond those included with the starter package, the list price is: €1,000 EUR per 100,000 Credits.
Ad Audiences: To activate segments on advertising platforms, the list price is: €2,400 EUR per audience.
Data Storage: For supplementary storage, exceeding what is provided by the starter package, the list price is: €1,800 EUR per TB.
Data Spaces: To structure data within Data Cloud, enabling business processes across various brands, departments, and geographical areas, the list price is: €60,000 EUR per Data Space.
It's worth noting that discounts may be available: For example, charities typically receive a 50% discount. Additionally, Account Executives often have some flexibility to offer lower pricing based on the overall size and scope of the deal. It's always recommended to discuss pricing options with your Account Executive to explore potential cost savings.
This edition offers integrated Marketing Cloud on core. The precise details of credit allocation and usage within this bundle should be confirmed with Salesforce, as it varies. At the time of writing, these costs are as follows:
Data Cloud Services Card: To acquire supplementary credits to facilitate data retention, query execution, and other platform operations: $1,000 per 100,000 credits
Additional Data Cloud Storage: So you'll never run out of storage: $150 per TB
Data Cloud access and credit allocation can vary depending on the specific Salesforce "cloud" product (e.g., Sales Cloud, Service Cloud). For up to date pricing, please contact Salesforce directly.
This edition focuses on leveraging Data Cloud for commerce-related use cases, potentially influencing credit consumption through commerce data integration and activation activities.
Salesforce Data Cloud for Commerce Cloud pricing is consumption-based, meaning you pay for the services you use via Data Services Credits and Segmentation & Activation Credits, with a basic cost of $1,000 per 100,000 credits.
Salesforce offers industry-specific Data Cloud solutions (e.g., Health Cloud, Financial Services Cloud), and credit usage may vary depending on the specific industry requirements and functionalities.
Salesforce provides a digital wallet feature that allows you to monitor your organisation's credit usage. This tool enables you to track credit consumption across different Data Cloud processes, facilitating cost optimisation and informed decision-making.
Integrating customer data across platforms has the potential to significantly impact credit consumption, but achieving cost optimisation heavily depends on how the implementation is managed. Simply connecting systems isn't enough; strategic choices are key.
For instance, businesses can control credit usage by filtering data to integrate only what is essential, rather than ingesting entire datasets, or by performing data pre-processing and preparation in upstream systems before integration occurs.
Furthermore, the way data segments and transformations are designed, organised, and set up within the integration process represents one of the most significant levers for reducing costs.
By thoughtfully implementing these strategies, automating relevant data tasks, and streamlining processes, businesses can effectively reduce their credit usage and optimise overall expenditures.
If you want to see how to optimise your implementation, reach out here.
While not directly credit-based, security and governance considerations can indirectly influence Data Cloud costs. Implementing robust security measures and data governance policies may require specific configurations or add-ons that carry associated expenses. Data Cloud itself is built on the secure Hyperforce infrastructure.
Engage with Salesforce: The most accurate and up-to-date information on credit pricing and usage rates should be obtained directly from your Salesforce account executive.
Define Your Use Cases: Clearly articulate your intended use cases for Data Cloud, as this will significantly influence your credit consumption. Our team can actively support you in this process, helping you define and refine these use cases effectively. Click here to reach out.
Estimate Credit Usage: Based on your defined use cases and anticipated data volumes, we can collaborate closely with you to estimate your credit consumption. To facilitate this, we can utilise our internal calculator, walking you through the projections to provide a more concrete understanding of potential usage. Reach out to access our calculator.
Factor in Implementation and Support Costs: Consider the costs associated with implementation (e.g., consulting, development, training) and ongoing support, as these can contribute substantially to the overall investment.
Utilise Our Calculator (for Estimates): Our custom calculator provides a valuable starting point for estimating credit consumption and associated costs, but it should be used in conjunction with direct engagement with Salesforce.
A thorough understanding of Data Cloud's credit system is essential for effective cost planning and maximising your return on investment. By leveraging our calculator for initial estimates and engaging directly with Salesforce for precise details, you can make informed decisions and strategically deploy Data Cloud to achieve your business objectives.
Fill in the Salesforce Data Cloud Calculator form to get started.
Commonly Asked Questions
Data Cloud is a unified data platform designed to integrate all your data and all your enterprise data to create a 360-degree view of your customers. It integrates various data sources, from demographic to behavioural data, collected from different data points. It achieves this by integrating data from diverse sources, systems, and interactions, making it readily accessible and actionable within the Salesforce ecosystem
Salesforce offers a range of features and benefits that enable businesses to unify their customer data, drive personalised experiences, and improve growth. Some of the core features of Data Cloud include:
Here are some of the core benefits.
