Just a month after we sat down with Salesforce to discuss whether Data Cloud would experience the same price changes that affected Agentforce, new pricing updates have taken effect.
This includes more flexibility, better visibility into real-time usage, a new calculator, and more.
How Does Data Cloud’s Pricing Currently Work?
As a reminder, Data Cloud – Salesforce’s primary data solution that collates all of your company’s data in one place – currently operates on a consumption-based pricing model that adapts to your business needs.
The three main elements in this are credits, storage, and premium add-ons, which are as follows:
- Consumption credits: You buy credits and spend them across key Data Cloud functions. They can be bought on an as-needed basis and are fungible across all features. For reference, it costs $500 for 100,000 credits.
- Data storage: A monthly fee is charged for storing data in Data Cloud. It is priced separately, so you only pay for what you store.
- Premium add-ons: These are optional features like Data Spaces and Data Cloud One that are available for advanced use cases.
This model, according to Salesforce, is designed to give businesses flexibility, transparency, and predictability. These three pillars have been a considerable consideration when coming up with the new pricing changes, aimed at “removing even more friction from the process.”
Rahul Auradkar, EVP & GM, Unified Data Services & Einstein at Salesforce, has announced that these updates are a direct result of listening to customer feedback.
“By simplifying pricing, removing Salesforce ingestion costs, and increasing transparency, we’re making it easier for organizations to unlock the full value of their data and scale AI across their business with confidence.”
The Changes to Data Cloud Pricing
From today, users and businesses can expect four primary changes to Data Cloud. These are:
Ingest Structured Salesforce Data for Free
Formerly, customers would need to use Data Cloud credits in order to bring data in from other Salesforce products. Now, you can bring in structured data from Salesforce at no extra cost, and it includes data ingested from four connectors:
- Salesforce Core (Sales and Service Cloud)
- Marketing Cloud Engagement
- Marketing Cloud Personalization
- Commerce Cloud
This also means that you can now ground your AI agents in your structured data without using up credits.
Simplified Credit Model
One of the most important updates here is that the four original credit types that were segmented across sandbox and production have now been consolidated into one.
This flexible, exchangeable credit can be used across all Data Cloud functions, and all existing sandbox and/or segmentation and activation credits have been merged into Data Service Credits.
This essentially means that businesses do need to predict exact usage amongst multiple categories to determine specific use cases, and allows for a more seamless scoping experience.
Salesforce also stated that sandbox credit multipliers are set at a 20% discount compared to production to encourage more testing and development.
Better Visibility into Real-Time Usage with Digital Wallet
Previous feedback about Data Cloud has centered on the confusion around consumption, which is why the Salesforce Digital Wallet was introduced. This wallet is now enhanced by providing insights into spending on a more granular level.
Digital Wallet now provides detailed usage tagging insights, revealing the exact consumption drivers for each meter at a specific feature level. Users can leverage out-of-the-box reports or create custom ones to analyze data as needed. Additionally, consumption threshold alerts can be set up to receive timely notifications.
New Pricing Calculator
Lastly, Salesforce has also released a new external pricing calculator to help customers understand their specific Data Cloud pricing requirements.
There is now also more information available to help customers understand the different factors that influence costs, and what businesses should consider at different stages of their journeys, including advice on data-driven agents and zero-copy federation.
Final Thoughts
Looking back at our most recent conversation with Salesforce on Data Cloud, although the answers were not entirely definitive, they all focused heavily on flexibility and listening to customer feedback.
Salesforce has shown that they are aware of the biggest issues impacting their customers and this cloud, so now is an important time for both the community and Salesforce.
Play around with the new features, see how they work for you, and as always, tell Salesforce if something isn’t working.
