New Names, Much Higher Prices

On September 3, 2026, Salesforce put out a big press release about new editions and bundles. Oh, and new prices—but we'll start with the names.

The confusing change here is in naming. These are also new bundles that could have some interesting possibilities for some organizations. And then there are giant price increases.

Let me try my best to disambiguate.

Hello, My New Name Is

The most confusing part of this announcement is that the name we use the most, Enterprise Edition, is going away. (I won't yet say "gone," because there are a lot of contracts out there that haven't renewed yet and these bundles become active for your contract only at renewal time.) What we have called Enterprise Edition (or "EE") for all these years will henceforth be known as "Core Edition."

If I understand it right, Core is actually the name of both the bundle and the edition of Salesforce provisioned for your org. I say this because it's important to understand the edition, as it impacts limits and features.

Advanced is the new name for Unlimited Edition. In case you've forgotten, I feel pretty strongly that [almost] nobody needs Unlimited Edition (or "UE"). Most importantly, nonprofits that get saddled with UE lose their ten donated licenses. So let me put a very fine point on it: I know the name sounds really tempting because it's clearly better than just "core," but you do not need nor want Advanced.

And finally there is Max, formerly Agentforce 1 Edition (and before that Einstein 1 Edition). This is "the works," with all the cost of Unlimited/Advanced, plus even more things you probably won't know how to use even after you pay for them, including Agentforce for Sales/Service, lots more flex credits, and a bunch of other buzzwords.

Summary here:

EE ==> Core

UE ==> Advanced (Which you don’t need!)

Agentforce 1 Edition ==> Max (Which you really really don't need!)

You May Get More Stuff

It's potentially cool that these new names actually indicate new bundled SKUs.

According to the press release every edition now includes Slack. (I assume that's one Slack user per Salesforce license.) So if your company was already paying for both Salesforce and Slack, there may be some savings here come contract renewal time. Make sure you take advantage! Of course, nonprofits were already able to get Slack for free for up to 250 users. That probably blunts some of the bundle benefit for nonprofits. But know that you'll have it in your bundle whether you're going to use it or not.

Every tier also includes Premier Success. I've argued in the past that you don't need this, so perhaps that blunts the excitement. But my argument hinged entirely on whether or not you should pay for Premier Success, or be persuaded to get a higher edition in order to access it. If Salesforce is going to give it to you for free, I see no downside! Caveat for nonprofits here: Premier Success is not entirely donated. It will only be available to you once you make a license purchase. So the P10 donation does not include Premier Success, as such, but once you buy your 11th license it will be activated.

I believe that every tier also includes Tableau Next. That's not specifically mentioned in the press release, but in the pricing section they note "To reflect the added value of enterprise-grade tools like Slack, Tableau, and native data security, we are introducing new pricing..." Lori Freeman, in posting a nonprofit-specific update about the announcement mentioned Tableau Next. If you've got people that know how to use that, it's probably pretty handy.

The release also mentions "enterprise security." In that TBC thread the company has clarified that means Data Detect and Security Center. I'm not real clear on what those are or how useful. But they're free, so why complain?

You Will Pay More, Especially Nonprofits

Now for the bad news. In announcing these new bundles/SKUs, Salesforce is also taking the opportunity to significantly raise prices. Get ready for double-digit increases.

As a regular reader of my blog, I hope you already have base pricing pretty well memorized. (No? Spend some time with the Crowdsourced Price Guide.) Here are a few quick refreshers on the pricing as of the beginning of 2026:

Enterprise Edition Sales Cloud license: $2,100 at list price

- discounted for nonprofits to $495.

Unlimited Edition: $3,960 list price

- $864 for nonprofits

Nonprofit Cloud License (Enterprise Edition Industries Cloud): $720

Those are all going way up:

Core list price is $2,340 (about a 12% rise)

- discounted for nonprofits to $585 (75% discount, but an 18% rise from current level)

Advanced = $4,740 (a 19% rise)

- discounted for nonprofits to $1,185 (also 75% off list, but a 37% rise!)

Nonprofit Cloud License = $840 (18% rise)

Sources: The press release I originally linked to and this nonprofit pricing PDF.

Yes, you read that right. Depending on what edition we're talking about list prices went up at least 12% and nonprofit prices went up more than 18%. Call it a price rise for nonprofits or a reduction in the discount, but ouch!

Interestingly, if you go further down that nonprofit pricing guide it would appear that Platform license pricing for nonprofits has gone down.

Don't worry, though: Those paying for the full kit and caboodle have no increase. Max stays the same $6,600/user/year that Agentforce 1 Edition currently costs ($3,300 for nonprofits).

NPC Grantmaking is Off-The-Charts Expensive

If you read that nonprofit pricing PDF carefully you may have also noticed that Nonprofit Cloud for Grantmaking is only available on Max edition. (Hat tip to this TBC thread for noticing that. Technically Lori alluded to it in the first thread I linked, but it was obscured by sales jargon in the "Nonprofit-specific shifts" paragraph.)

Double and triple ouch!

I guess that just makes it clear that the grantmaking product is truly meant for the largest and wealthiest of philanthropies that have multi-billion dollar endowments and can afford to massively overspend on their tech stack. If you work for one of those philanthropies, you may be one of my few readers that already could be an exeption to my advice that "[almost] nobody" needs Unlimited Edition, though it's still quite a jump to go from Advanced to Max.

So let me give another hat tip to that same TBC thread where [my friend] Shari Carlson points out that you can build a custom grant management solution on Core licenses (which you can do on NPC or NPSP). You are only forced onto Max if you want to use Salesforce's out of the box product Grantmaking. (That is a full on product, if you know what I mean.) I've never touched that nor even really looked at its functionality, so I have no recommendations for or against it as a product, other than skepticism about anyone paying $3,300/user/year. I bet you'd save money in the long run by being on a lower edition and spending up front to build your custom solution and maintain it than to pay six times more for every user in perpetuity.