Salesforce Data Cloud Pricing Advice

3rd May 2024

Salesforce Data Cloud pricing is consumption based and on lots of different types of consumption. Fortunately, this is very similar to many cloud services. AWS, Azure and more all have consumption-based charges, so it's not new territory. The same issue applies though, if you're an IT leader, CFO or similar: how can I budget for the realistic use of these kind of products when you don't know how they work?

First, let's recognise that the understanding of these costs develops over time. Initial numbers can be estimated with just a few hours of work, if the company can access its own resources and data sizes. If not, then it's a good idea to invest in a discovery project with a partner to help guide and uncover these needs. After that, costs can be estimated quite well and initial budgets set.

But wait! There are three vital areas that a great partner will help you with:

1. Technical design for cost optimisation: you can design Data Cloud to be a lot more efficient if it is designed with cost optimisation in mind. An experienced Data Cloud consultant understands the right decisions to make to reduce consumption of credits AND give the business what they need
2. Start small to model usage: starting small with data cloud is essential! Using a subset of your data to work out any kinks with unifying profiles (the most expensive type of usage) is essential before you spend a load of credits doing it on your full data set
3. Monitoring of usage and optimisation: once data cloud is deployed it's essential to monitor and continue to optimise based on real business usage and needs.

Do yourself a favour and don't engage with a partner that is new to data cloud unless you really trust them.