Salesforce vs. Salesforce Commerce Cloud (SFCC): Differences, Pricing, & Integrations

Salesforce has many different products with varying pricing, features, and integrations.

 

Understanding things like how price bundling for different products work, how the Salesforce CRM or Service Cloud may integrate with Commerce Cloud, and how multiple SFDC products can integrate with third party products (and your business’s overall processes) may be difficult even for someone with a deep familiarity with Salesforce products.

Depending on the specific needs of your business, you may need to use some combination of “Salesforce”, which typically means the flagship Salesforce CRM product, and one or more of their cloud products, which include:

• Salesforce Service Cloud
• Salesforce Marketing Cloud
• Salesforce Sales Cloud
• Salesforce Commerce Cloud
• And others

 

To help you make smart buying and integration decisions as you think about the relationship, and differences, between the various Salesforce products, this post will focus on:

• Differences in features & technology across some of Salesforce’s different products
• Pricing differences, as well as price bundling for Salesforce Commerce Cloud and different Salesforce offerings
• Integration considerations and challenges for Commerce Cloud (with SFDC and third party products)

 

What is Salesforce Commerce Cloud? How is it Different from “Salesforce?”

“Salesforce” theoretically could be referring to any Salesforce product, but most often when someone uses Salesforce to describe a product without any additional modifier, they’re referring to the Salesforce CRM.

Meanwhile, Salesforce Commerce Cloud (SFCC – formerly known as Demandware) is an ecommerce platform along the lines of Shopify (though there are some key differences to consider between SFCC and Shopify). 

The Salesforce Commerce Cloud offers a high level of personalized marketing functionality for ecommerce stores (allowing users to show specific products / discounts / sales / etc. to users based on specific activities and customer journeys). Specific features include:

• AI driven personalization
• Order & inventory management
• Checkout
• A/B Testing
• Integration with the Salesforce plugin marketplace

 

Salesforce Clouds Explained: Marketing vs. Sales vs. Service vs. Commerce

Understanding pricing and integration nuances across Salesforce products starts with understanding the basic functionality of the different cloud products. Here’s a quick run-down of each:

• Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC)
  It is a marketing automation platform that offers Email, social media marketing, and SMS tools.
• Salesforce Sales Cloud 
  It is a sales-focused CRM with features like account / contact / lead management, sales automation and engagement, and forecasting tools.
• Salesforce Service Cloud 
  It is customer service software that offers features like case management, field service, and self service (chatbot, knowledge base, etc.) tools.
• Salesforce Commerce Cloud 
  It again is a B2C & B2B commerce platform with tools for payments, order and inventory management, personalization, etc.

 

Here’s a quick table overview of the basic functionality of the various products:

Feature	Salesforce Marketing	Salesforce Sales	Salesforce Service	Salesforce Commerce
Lead Management	Yes	Yes	No	No
Contact Management	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Account Management	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Opportunities Management	No	Yes	No	No
Forecasting and Pipeline Management	No	Yes	No	No
Quotes and Orders Management	No	Yes	No	Yes
Case Management	No	No	Yes	No
Knowledge Management	No	No	Yes	No
Campaign Management	Yes	No	No	No
Product Management	No	No	No	Yes

 

Commerce Cloud Pricing

As you might guess based on the variability of different Salesforce products, the pricing from one product to another can be completely distinct. Salesforce’s CRM is priced per user (or seat) while Commerce Cloud charges a percent of revenue.

You can get a lot of detail on Salesforce pricing on their site for the traditional SMB and sales CRM products (which are generally anywhere from $25 to $300 per user depending on the feature set). Commerce Cloud pricing is listed there also, it breaks out as a percentage of sales and varies based on the edition of Commerce Cloud you’re using in the following way:

• B2B Commerce Pricing 
  1% to 2% of Gross Merchandise Value (depending on number of storefronts / SKUs)
• B2C Commerce Pricing 
  1, 2, or 3% of Gross Merchandise Value (depending on number of sites / usage)
• B2B2C Commerce 
  1% GMV
• Order Management 
  $.15, $.30, $.50 per order (depending on features and number of locations)

 

While Salesforce does offer some custom bundle pricing for Service and Sales Cloud on the site, nothing is mentioned there about price bundling for those two products publicly on the SFDC website.

As with most software companies Salesforce is particularly incentivized to close out fiscal quarters and years with sales, and Salesforce reps are generally measured based on the total ARR they’re able to extract from your company and are compensated on bundled contracts and multi-year plans, so leveraging the right timing and the fact that you’re using multiple products in negotiations with a representative can potentially get you a better-than-sticker-price deal if you’re using multiple Salesforce products.

Commerce Cloud Integrations

As you might expect, if you’re already using Salesforce CRM an advantage for Commerce Cloud is easy integration. 

While you can integrate Salesforce CRM with platforms like Magento or Shopify via third-party connectors, you can often run into issues such as:

• A lack of two-way data sharing
• Inability to sync with all Salesforce products and features
• Unanticipated issues with data or functionality being inconsistent across platforms

You can also develop a custom connector to help smooth out issues that you may have connecting Salesforce to a third party ecommerce platform, but be sure to consider the cost of development and maintenance versus going with Commerce Cloud.

This type of analysis is a major value add for Argano in working with businesses considering various Salesforce products. As platform-agnostic experts in ecommerce integrations we’re able to help our clients evaluate the pros, cons, and costs of different options without “pushing” them towards one specific platform.

Frequently Asked Questions

Here are a few related questions we often see asked related to SFCC and the Salesforce product suite:

What is the difference between Salesforce and Salesforce Commerce Cloud?

“Salesforce” theoretically could be referring to any Salesforce product, but most often when someone uses Salesforce to describe a product without any additional modifier, they’re referring to the Salesforce CRM.

Meanwhile, Salesforce Commerce Cloud (SFCC – formerly known as Demandware) is an ecommerce platform along the lines of Shopify.

Is the Salesforce Commerce Cloud the same as Sales Cloud?

No. SFCC and Salesforce Sales Cloud are two totally different products. SFCC is an ecommerce solution similar to Magento or Shopify, and Salesforce Sales Cloud is a sales-focused CRM and sales automation tool.

What is the Salesforce Commerce Cloud?

The Salesforce Commerce Cloud is an ecommerce platform that enables businesses to create online ecommerce storefronts ala Shopify. The product offers features like payment and checkout, personalization and testing tools, merchandizing and order and inventory management. There are multiple editions of the product including B2B, B2C,  B2B2C Commerce, and Order Management.

What is Salesforce Commerce Cloud known for?

SFCC was formerly known as Demandware, and is probably best known for the platform’s personalization features, like being able to show custom related products, pricing, and sales to specific users based on their activity and customer journey, and for being Salesforce’s “Shopify competitor”.