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User Licenses
Every user requires a user license to access Salesforce. Depending on your product, edition, and add-ons, there are various types of user licenses available. See how user licenses work to ensure you’re allocating them appropriately and effectively.
Required Editions
| Available in: both Salesforce Classic and Lightning Experience |
| Edition requirements vary for each user license type. |
• Looking for guidance on the types of user licenses that are available? See User License Type Options.
• Need help with managing user licenses, such as changing or deactivating assigned licenses? See the end of this topic.
• Looking for license purchasing information? See the Salesforce Product Pricing page. To purchase or reduce paid licenses, contact your Salesforce account representative.
How User Licenses Work
Each type of user license provides a baseline level of access to features and functionality in Salesforce. Each user can have only one user license. When deciding which user license type to assign, consider the person’s job functions and the permissions they need for their day-to-day tasks. For example:
- Allison needs access to custom apps, but not the full range of CRM functionality. Assign Allison a lower-cost Lightning Platform user license. This license type provides access to custom apps and objects, plus platform features like reports and workflows. CRM objects like opportunities and cases aren’t available.
- George needs full access to standard CRM apps and objects, so assign him a Salesforce user license. This license provides comprehensive CRM functionality, including accounts, contacts, opportunities, cases, and reports and dashboards.
Turn on more functionality for a user via permission set licenses, or by purchasing feature licenses or usage-based entitlements. With profiles and user permissions, you can adjust a user’s level of access to features and data. For example, some users only read records while others also create and delete records or create objects.
When adding a new user to your org, assign their user license as part of the creation process. For existing users, change the current user license by editing a user’s profile. Keep in mind that changing a user's license also removes any permission sets and permission set licenses currently assigned to them.
For help with the tasks discussed here, see the end of this topic.
Member or Seat-Based Licenses vs. Login-Based Licenses
Some license types are available in both member-based (or seat-based) and login-based versions. The difference is in how you purchase and consume them.
Member- or seat-based licenses:
- Your org requires one license per user.
- Users have unlimited logins.
- Best for users who access Salesforce regularly.
Login-based licenses:
- Your org shares a set of monthly logins across your pool of users. You decide how many licenses to purchase.
- When a user logs in, they consume one login per day. This allocation is true even if they switch between sites or log in multiple times in that day (referred to as a unique login).
- Best for external users or internal users who only access Salesforce occasionally.
- Available for these user license types: Customer Community, Customer Community Plus, Partner Community, External Apps, Channel Account, and Salesforce Platform Login.
Salesforce calculates login credits differently depending on the license that you’re using. For more information, see Experience Cloud User Licenses and Salesforce Platform Login License Details.
User Licenses Available for Your Org
Salesforce packages licenses in stock-keeping units (SKUs) to sell to customers. SKUs contain one or more licenses and capabilities. Generally, the name of the SKU and the license match, but not always. You can see the licenses that you’ve purchased from the Company Information page in Setup. Your Salesforce org also lists licenses that Salesforce still supports but no longer sells.
To learn which SKU and license combination is best for your business needs, or to purchase user licenses, contact your Salesforce account representative.
Find Help for User License Management Tasks
- Review the user license types that are available to your org, including how many of each you’re currently using and the number still available. See View Your Org’s User Licenses.
- Assign a different license type to a user. See Update a User's License.
- Reassign user licenses from existing users if you don’t have enough available licenses for new users. See Deactivate Users.
- Create a custom report type to report on the user licenses currently assigned to users. See See User License Assignments with a Custom Report Type.
- Turn on more functionality for users. See Permission Set Licenses, Feature Licenses Overview, and Usage-Based Entitlements.
- Adjust the levels of feature and data access that users have via profiles and user permissions. See Give Users the Functionality They Need in Trailhead.
