As an admin who's managed Salesforce for healthcare, manufacturing, and financial services clients, I've seen license costs balloon while functionality remained underutilized. The good news? You can slash costs by 25-40% without crippling your org. Here’s how—no fluff, just actionable tactics.
1. Audit & Eliminate Inactive Users (The Low-Hanging Fruit)
Run this SOQL daily for 30 days to find dormant users:
SELECT Id, Name, LastLoginDate FROM User WHERE LastLoginDate < LAST_N_DAYS:90 AND IsActive = true
In a healthcare client, this revealed 227 inactive users (32% of total licenses). Deactivating them saved $68k/year. Also, remove test accounts from your sandbox (I’ve seen 15% of sandbox users be test data). Always verify with your security team before deactivating.
2. Right-Size Licenses: Stop Over-Engineering
Mobile Users? Switch to Platform (not Full): A field service team in manufacturing used Full licenses for technicians. Platform licenses (which include mobile) cost 40% less. They only needed the mobile app and standard objects—no need for Full. Saved $34k/year.
External Users? Use Community Licenses: A financial client had 500 partners on Full licenses accessing a partner portal. Community licenses (with custom portals) cost 65% less. They kept all functionality via Lightning Communities. Saved $180k/year.
Internal Users Needing Limited Access? Use Custom: Marketing teams accessing only Leads and Campaigns don’t need Full. Custom licenses cost 25% less. At a retail client, we converted 120 users from Full to Custom without losing access to key features.
3. Kill Permission Sets (Not Licenses) for Feature Access
Don’t upgrade a user’s license to access a new feature. Instead, create a permission set. Example: A sales ops team needed to view a custom pricing object. Instead of upgrading 80 users to Full licenses ($15k/year), we built a permission set with just that object’s permissions. Zero license cost impact.
4. Verify Your Org Tier Isn’t Overkill
Enterprise licenses cost 50% less than Unlimited. If you don’t use all Unlimited features (like unlimited custom objects or advanced reporting), downgrade. In a SaaS client, we moved from Unlimited to Enterprise after verifying they had zero custom objects beyond 200 (the Enterprise limit). Saved $22k/year with no functionality loss.
5. Kill Unused Custom Objects (Indirect Cost Saver)
Every custom object above 200 requires an Unlimited license
📚 Recommended Resource: Salesforce for Dummies — great for anyone learning Salesforce.
📚 Recommended Resource: NIST Cybersecurity Framework Guide — great for anyone security frameworks.
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