How much does Salesforce Data 360 cost in 2026?

Salesforce Data 360 (formerly Data Cloud) has no flat per-user price for the platform itself. It offers consumption-based and profile-based pricing: you pay for the credits metered actions burn (or a flat rate per profile), for the data you store, and for premium add-ons. Additional credits cost $500 per 100,000 in the 2026 structure, and existing Data Cloud contracts keep their terms until the current agreement ends.

TL;DR

• Data 360 offers consumption-based and profile-based pricing: credits, storage, and premium add-ons, not a flat seat fee.
• Additional credits cost $500 per 100,000 in the 2026 pricing structure. Flex Credits can be shared across Data 360 and Agentforce.
• Existing Data Cloud agreements keep their contracted terms until the term ends.
• The bill is driven by row volume, real-time pipelines, and profile-based SKUs.
• Batch ingestion is free; streaming and real-time pipelines still consume credits.

How does Salesforce Data 360 pricing work?

Salesforce renamed Data Cloud to Data 360 in October 2025 and kept the flexible, consumption-based model behind it. Since February 24, 2026, orgs purchasing or renewing can use Flex Credits, a pool shared across Data 360 and Agentforce; Salesforce also offers profile-based pricing. Some orgs may still use Data Services credits. For credit-based pricing, three cost components sit on the invoice, and a fourth sits outside it:

• Consumption credits. What it covers: Platform actions: queries, segmentation, unification, activation, streaming. What drives the bill: Rows processed and how often.
• Data storage. What it covers: The profiles and data Data 360 holds. What drives the bill: Stored data volume and retention.
• Premium add-ons. What it covers: Extra capability tiers attached to the core platform. What drives the bill: Which add-ons you enable.
• Implementation. What it covers: Integrations, identity resolution, agent grounding. What drives the bill: Project scope, not Salesforce list price.

The credit meter is granular. Salesforce's Flex Credits rate card (August 31, 2026) prices Data 360 queries, segmentation, unification, activation and streaming separately, each per million rows processed, with tier multipliers that step down as monthly volume grows and reset on the first of each month. Light, batch-style usage burns few credits. Continuous, real-time pipelines burn many.

Metered usage is the single biggest mental shift for buyers used to per-seat software. A 500-person company that only refreshes a few segments weekly can pay less than a 50-person company streaming events in real time. Headcount predicts almost nothing about the invoice; data behavior predicts most of it.

Profile-based pricing is the alternative for teams that want a predictable bill. It charges a flat $240 per 1,000 profiles a year, or $420 per 1,000 for Enterprise Profiles. Profiles include 1 Flex Credit per profile per year, while Enterprise Profiles include 2.

What do Data 360 credits actually pay for?

Not every action the platform takes is metered. The common ones:

• Queries — reading data out of Data 360, metered per million rows processed.
• Segmentation — building and refreshing audience segments.
• Unification — resolving records into single profiles, one of the most credit-dense common activities.
• Activation — sending segments out to marketing, service or sales tools.
• Streaming pipelines — continuous data feeds, metered per million rows processed.

One common action is no longer on that list: batch ingestion. Salesforce does not charge credits for batch ingestion from any source or for structured data ingested through designated internal Salesforce connectors. Streaming and real-time pipelines are still metered.

Two details from the current rate card matter for budgeting. First, tier multipliers reward volume: the same workload gets cheaper per row as monthly usage grows. Second, sandbox usage is billed at the flat sandbox multiplier instead of production's tiered multipliers. If your team builds heavily in sandboxes, that belongs in the forecast.

Why Data 360 costs vary

Two companies with the same headcount can see very different invoices. The drivers:

• Data volume — millions of rows versus thousands changes row-based charges on the rate card.
• Real-time versus batch — streaming and real-time pipelines are metered per row, while batch ingestion is free.
• Activation frequency — how often segments sync out to other systems.
• Grounding for Agentforce — agents that read unified profiles add query volume to the bill.

The last driver is the one most teams forget. If agents and AI features are part of the plan, their Data 360 data reads are not free — they are queries, and queries are metered. On Flex Credits, agent actions and Data 360 usage draw from the same pool, so budget them together.

What happens to existing Data Cloud contracts?

Salesforce has stated that existing Data Cloud agreements and pricing are honored through the end of the current term. Your solution becomes Data 360 in name; contracted capabilities stay as they are. Orgs that bought before February 24, 2026 may still be on Data Services credits, the older Data 360-only currency. There is no forced migration, but moving to Flex Credits or profile-based pricing means swapping all of your existing Data Services credits, not part of them. Renewal is the moment that matters: compare your old packaging against the new structure before you sign, ideally with your account executive and a partner who has modeled both sides. Teams that wait until the renewal call to do this math are negotiating from someone else's spreadsheet.

How should you budget for Data 360 in 2026?

1. Start with Salesforce's pricing calculator. The Starter SKU lists at $60,000 a year with 10 million Flex Credits and 5 TB of storage; additional credits are $500 per 100,000. If you only need Data 360 turned on for Agentforce or another Salesforce product built on it, the $0 Provisioning SKU includes 250,000 Flex Credits and 1 TB of storage a year. Estimate against your real row volumes, not list-price assumptions.
2. Scope two or three use cases separately. A weekly segmentation pilot and a real-time personalization pilot produce very different credit profiles. Price each on its own before combining.
3. Pilot with instrumentation. Track credit burn weekly during the pilot so the production forecast rests on measured consumption, not vendor estimates.
4. Budget implementation separately. Connecting sources, identity resolution and data quality work sit outside the license, whether your team does them or a partner does — see our data practice.
5. Re-check at renewal. Compare the credit rate card at renewal against your measured usage and renegotiate tiers with real numbers.

Questions to ask before you sign

• Which actions will run daily, and at what row volume? Why it matters: The meter is per activity, not per seat.
• What does the Starter SKU include? Why it matters: It includes 10 million Flex Credits and 5 TB of storage, and overage bills at $500 per 100,000.
• How do tier multipliers apply to our volumes? Why it matters: Per-row cost steps down as monthly volume grows.
• Should we be on Flex Credits, Data Services credits, or profile-based pricing? Why it matters: Flex Credits can be shared with Agentforce, profile pricing makes core profile workloads predictable, and switching moves all existing Data Services credits at once.
• What is excluded and needs a premium add-on? Why it matters: Add-ons change the invoice materially.
• Who owns the credit-burn dashboard? Why it matters: Consumption needs an owner from day one.

Our team works with companies on exactly this scoping — see our Salesforce Data 360 overview for how the platform fits a broader data practice.

FAQ

How much do Salesforce Data 360 credits cost in 2026?

Additional Flex Credits cost $500 per 100,000 credits in the 2026 pricing structure. The Starter SKU lists at $60,000 a year and includes 10 million Flex Credits.

Is Data 360 the same as Data Cloud?

Yes. Data 360 is the new name for Data Cloud. Salesforce made the change in October 2025. The consumption-based pricing model of credits, storage and add-ons carries over under the new name. Orgs purchasing or renewing after February 24, 2026 can use Data Services or Flex Credits, and Salesforce also offers profile-based pricing.

Do I need Data 360 to run Agentforce?

Yes. Data 360 must be provisioned and enabled for any Agentforce use, and the $0 Provisioning SKU covers that. A full implementation is a separate decision. Grounding-heavy agent use cases draw on unified customer data, which is what Data 360 provides, and those reads add query volume to your credit bill.

Can Data 360 use our Snowflake or Databricks data without copying it?

Yes. Zero Copy data federation lets Data 360 read data in place in supported warehouses and lakes, so you avoid paying to duplicate and re-sync the data. It is not free to use, though: queries, segments and other downstream actions can still consume Data 360 credits. With query federation, the external warehouse can also bill its own compute for those reads; file federation uses Data 360 compute instead.

What happens to our existing Data Cloud contract?

Salesforce honors existing Data Cloud agreements and pricing through the end of the current term. Compare old and new packaging before you renew.

Bring us your project if you want Data 360 scoped against your own data volumes instead of list-price assumptions — book a meeting with our team.