Salesforce Editions Comparison: Choosing the Right Edition for Your Business

A Detailed Walkthrough of Salesforce Editions Comparison

Salesforce offers multiple CRM editions like Essentials, Professional, Enterprise, and Unlimited – each of these Salesforce editions are geared towards specific business needs. Designed for small businesses to large enterprises, the CRM is packed with comprehensive features that will help you enable real-time communication, enhance customer experiences, drive sales and make better business decisions. However, to make the most out of Salesforce, you need to be sure you choose the correct edition of CRM that best fits your unique business needs. So here’s a deep dive into each of the Salesforce editions comparisons to help you decide which one is right for you.

Here are the Four Salesforce Editions for Every Purpose:

• Essentials
• Professional
• Enterprise
• Unlimited

Lightning Essentials ($25.User/Month)

This Edition is more suitable for small companies that need basic CRM software with standard features. Salesforce Lightning Essentials comes with the following functionalities that may be enough to solve the vital needs of your sales and marketing teams.

Account management
Contact management
Opportunity management
Customizable sales process
Task and event tracking
Lead management
Salesforce mobile app
Customizable reports and standard dashboards
Chatter for employees’ collaboration
Case management

Limitations of Salesforce Editions – Lightning Essential

No Action Plans
No Categories: maximum default categories and hierarchy levels
No Category groups
No Certificates
Unlimited Custom Apps
Limit of 100 Custom Big objects
Limit of 100 Custom fields per object
5000 Custom Labels
No Custom Objects
No Custom permissions
2 Custom Profiles
No Custom settings
No Divisions
No Entitlement processes and milestones
No External objects
Field history tracking for maximum of 20 custom or standard field objects
No Ideas: maximum size of HTML idea comment
No Ideas: maximum size of HTML idea description
No Lightning Apps
10000 Omni-Channels: maximum pending routing requests
30000 Omni-Channels per hour: maximum queued work items
No Opportunity Teams
5 Permission Sets
300 Sharing Rules per object
No Territories: maximum account assignment rules
No Visual Workflow
Max of 55500 new cases every 24 hours
Max of 55500 new leads every 24 hours
No Custom report types
No Dashboard Filters
No Dynamic Dashboards Per Org
No Reporting Snapshots
No Scheduled dashboard refreshes

Don't forget to check out: All You Need to Know About Salesforce Editions

Lightning Professional ($75/User/Month):

Unlike the Lightning Essentials, Lightning Professional has no user limits. This edition is a suitable solution for mid-sized companies with finite product or service offerings and a single sales unit.

Campaign management
Rules-based lead scoring
Lead assignment and routing
Mass emails
Contract management
Products and price books
Quote and order management
Case management
Google apps integration (Gmail, Calendar, Sheets, etc.)
Process builder to automate business processes
Developer Sandbox to develop and test new functionalities

Limitations of Salesforce Editions – Salesforce Professional

Below is a list of features NOT available in Lightning Professional Edition.

Analytics

No Joined Reports
No Bucket Fields
No Cross Filters (e.g. Accounts without Opportunities)
No Dynamic Dashboards
No Scheduled Dashboards (you can schedule a Report)
50 Custom Report Types vs. 200 in Enterprise Edition

Sales (Sales Cloud)

No Account Assignment Rules
No Territory Management
No Sales Teams (aka Opportunity Teams)

Configuration / Security / Administration

Limit of 20 Validation Rules per Object
Limit of 100 Custom Fields per Object
Limit of 20 Custom Fields on Activities
Limit of 10 Custom Tabs
Limit of 50 Custom Objects
No Workflow/ Approvals / Visual Workflow
No Ability to mass Grant Login Access to a System Administrator
No Data Export (Weekly Export Service to backup your Salesforce org)

Support (Service Cloud)

No Service Cloud Console
No Salesforce Knowledge
No Live Agent

Extending Salesforce / Community / Portals

No Partner or Customer Portal
No Websites (aka Site.com / Force.com Sites)
To use Chatter Plus (Chatter Only) licenses in Professional Edition, you’ll need to contact Salesforce support and have Profiles enabled
No Salesforce Communities

Custom Development and Sandboxes

No Change Sets
No API (thus no ability to use the Data Loader or build custom integrations)
No Partial Copy Sandbox
Limit of 10 Developer Sandboxes

Other Limits

5 Process Builder processes
2 Permissions Sets
2 Custom Profiles
3 Record Types (Per Object)
2 Page Layouts
10 Developer Sandboxes

Get the complete list of Salesforce Editions pricing and features here https://www.salesforce.com/editions-pricing/sales-cloud/

Lightning Enterprise ($150/user/month)

Most companies choose between Professional and Enterprise Editions and the choice between these two Salesforce editions is usually the toughest one. You need to opt for Lightning Enterprise if you require the Enterprise exclusive features below.

Security – Lightning Professional gives you limited access when it comes to configuring security. You can only create two custom profiles. Every other user is given the standard profile, which cannot be edited. In the Enterprise version, you have absolute control over what your users can or cannot do in Salesforce.

Salesforce Lightning Integration – If you have multiple systems that need to integrate with Salesforce, you need the Enterprise version. You can integrate limited systems using Lightning Professional through third-party apps. However, if you can’t find the right app, you’ll need the Salesforce API, which is an Enterprise level function.

Automation – The web-to-lead automation feature is available with all Salesforce Editions. However, the Lightning Enterprise Edition (EE) in addition to web-to-lead automation and Process Builder, offers Workflow rules, additional processes in Process Builder and Visual Workflow.

Customization – The level of customization is another huge difference between Professional and Enterprise Edition. With EE, you get mode validation rules, custom apps, custom fields, custom reports, mass mailings analytics and dashboards. Find below a breakdown of the customization options between PE and EE.

Validation Rules per object: 20 vs. 100 (PE vs EE respectively)
Custom Fields per object: 100 vs. 500
Custom Fields on Activities: 20 vs. 100
Custom Tabs: 10 vs. 25
Custom Objects 50 vs. 200
Custom Apps: 5 vs. 10
Custom Reports: 50 vs. 200

Check out another amazing blog by DemandBlue here: Success Stories – How DemandBlue Helped Its Clients Improve Revenue Recognition with Salesforce Revenue Cloud Implementation

Advanced Reporting – The features of Advanced Reporting include history tracking, bucketing, joined reports and cross filters.

Custom Profiles, Page Layouts, Roles & Permissions – These features let the administrator set different levels of User object and field-level access in the system. The Professional Edition allows up to 2 of each whereas the Enterprise Edition comes with unlimited options.

Record Types – Record Types enable administrators to set up different page layouts, picklists and processes for different users. While Professional Edition (PE) allows up to 3 Record Types per object, Enterprise Edition (EE) offers unlimited options.

Process Builder – It allows the administrator to automate business processes within the Salesforce platform. While PE allows up to 5 processes per org, EE offers unlimited options.

Workflows & Approvals – This allows the administrator to automate items based on certain criteria such as creating tasks automatically, updating a field or sending email notifications. This is available only with the Enterprise and Unlimited Salesforce Editions.

Web Services API – It allows you to connect your Salesforce org with other systems and platforms such as ERP, Accounting or Marketing system. Though many of these options work with the Professional Edition, some do not. If you need a custom Salesforce integration with your backend systems, you will need to leverage the API capabilities within Salesforce, and APIs are only available in Enterprise and Unlimited Salesforce Editions.

Sandboxes & Data Storage – PE comes with 10 Developer Sandboxes, 20 MB of Data storage per user and 612 MB of file storage per user, whereas EE offers 1 Partial Sandbox, 25 Developer Sandboxes, 20 MB Data storage per user and 2GB file storage per user. Read more on Dynamic solutions for challenges in Sandbox environment.

Limitations of Salesforce Editions – Lightning Enterprise

Limit of 260 Custom Apps
Limit of 500 Custom fields per object
Limit of 300 Custom settings: maximum fields per setting
Limit of 100 Divisions: Maximum
Limit of 25 Lightning Apps
Limit of 1000 Reply: maximum characters
Limit of 200 Custom report types
Limit of 5 Dynamic Dashboards Per Org
Limit of 1 Reporting Snapshot

Lightning Unlimited ($300/User/Month)

The Salesforce Unlimited Edition is suitable for large companies with thousands of users. You can opt for Lightning Unlimited if you need the ultimate functionality, customizability, and support. The Enterprise and the Unlimited Salesforce Editions have the following limit differences:

100 vs. 500 validation rules
500 vs. 800 custom fields per object
200 vs. 2000 custom objects
25 vs. an unlimited number of lightning apps, etc.

In addition to the ultimate functionality, you’ll get 24/7 toll-free support, access to the premium knowledge database, developer support that facilitates custom code development and multiple Developer Pro Sandboxes for the development and testing of new functionalities.

Limitations of Salesforce Editions – Lightning Unlimited

Limit of 300 Custom settings: maximum fields per setting
Limit of 100 Divisions: Maximum
Limit of 1000 Reply: maximum characters

Find the Salesforce Edition that Perfectly Matches your Business Needs with DemandBlue

Choosing the right Salesforce edition for your business is crucial, as changing Salesforce editions could be daunting if you want to downgrade. Salesforce editions can only be upgraded and not downgraded. For instance, in Sales Cloud, you can upgrade from Group Edition to Professional and then to Enterprise Edition and later on to Performance Edition, but you cannot go the opposite way. If you want to downgrade, you need to export all the data in CSV files, subscribe to a new edition, import CSV files, and cancel the current Edition license. As this is a time and resource-consuming task, it’s pivotal that you have a detailed walkthrough of the Salesforce editions comparison before you decide.

Considering all these factors, it is ideal to evaluate your current and future business needs and choose an appropriate solution. At DemandBlue, we assist you in finding a Salesforce edition that fulfils your organization’s needs and stays relevant for years to come through. This creates room for development and helps you expand your organization along with the Salesforce ecosystem. Our experts will conduct discovery sessions with your stakeholders to understand their expectations and operational pain points to choose a Salesforce edition that sets your business operations on the path to success.

We hope this blog will have offered you more insights into Salesforce editions comparison. If you still have doubts about choosing the right Salesforce edition for your business, our experts could help you.

Schedule a call today!