Salesforce Flex Credits: What Are They and How Are They Used?
Salesforce licensing is changing. Alongside the traditional seat-based model, Salesforce is increasingly introducing consumption-based pricing, where costs depend more directly on what is actually done on the platform.
At the centre of this change are Salesforce Flex Credits. They are already relevant especially in Agentforce, Data 360 and Agentforce Marketing use cases, and the same thinking is likely to become more common across the Salesforce ecosystem.
But what do Flex Credits mean in practice? And how can you estimate credit consumption before a solution is live?
From Seat-Based Licensing to Consumption-Based Pricing
Salesforce has traditionally been purchased largely based on the number of users. If an organisation has 50 users, it needs 50 licenses. This model is clear and predictable.
In a consumption-based model, however, cost is not based only on how many people have access to the system. It also depends on what the system does and how often.
For example, credits may be consumed by Agentforce Actions*, Prompt Templates**, Data 360 usage, segmentation, activations and other AI- or data-driven operations. In practice, the licensing discussion shifts from:
“How many users do we need?”
to:
“What do we want Salesforce to do for us, and how often?”
This gives organisations more flexibility, but it also creates a new need for planning. Credit consumption should be considered already when designing use cases, not only after go-live.
*Action: a single operation performed by an Agentforce agent, such as retrieving records or creating a new record. In the context of Flex Credits, an Action also includes the required AI reasoning as well as the use of a Large Language Model (LLM).
**Prompt Template: A Prompt Template provides a predefined structure with placeholders for dynamic information, such as a customer's name, product details, or other record-specific data. When these placeholders are populated with the appropriate data stored in Salesforce, the result is a personalized and contextually relevant prompt.
What Are Salesforce Flex Credits?
Flex Credits are Salesforce’s consumption-based credits. They are deducted when certain Salesforce features or actions are used. A customer may have either:
- A defined number of credits that are consumed as eligible Salesforce actions are performed.
- An open-check or pay-as-you-go model, where billing is based on actual usage instead of credits purchased in advance.
In Agentforce, credits are consumed especially by Actions. An Action can mean, for example, retrieving information, updating a record, generating a summary or carrying out another step in a workflow.
A single use case often consists of several Actions. A simplified example could look like this:
- The agent retrieves the required information.
- The agent creates a proposal, analysis or response.
- The agent updates a record or triggers the next step.
In other words, the cost of an AI agent is not only about whether the agent exists. It is about what the agent actually does.
How Are Flex Credits Consumed in Practice?
Credit consumption depends on the Salesforce product being used and the actions being performed. That is why Flex Credits should be treated as part of solution architecture, not just as a licensing line in a contract.
In Agentforce use cases, consumption is mainly driven by Actions. In Prompt Template solutions, consumption comes from running prompts. With Data 360 and Agentforce Marketing, consumption may be affected by data processing, segmentation, activations and other data-based operations.
A rough starting point for estimation could be:
1. Simple Agentforce Functionality
Typical structure: 3 Actions
Rough consumption estimate: Around 60 credits per run
This type of use case could include a simple agent workflow where the agent retrieves data, creates a response and updates a Salesforce record.
2. One Prompt Template
Typical structure: 1 Prompt Template run
Rough consumption estimate: Around 10 credits per run
Prompt Templates are useful when the organisation wants to generate structured, consistent and context-aware outputs based on Salesforce data.
3. Agent + Prompt Template
Typical structure: Several Actions and Prompts
Rough consumption estimate: Depends on the number of Actions, Prompt runs and the complexity of the use case.
The exact estimate should always be checked against Salesforce’s current price list, the customer’s contract and the final implementation.
Examples of Flex Credit Consumption
Credit usage should be estimated one use case at a time. Below are a few examples of how consumption may build up in Agentforce and automation scenarios.
Automating Sales Processes for Smaller Customers
One possible use case is a high-volume sales process where individual deal values are relatively small. An agent could contact the customer, create an offer, generate an order and update the required information in Salesforce.
A single step, such as creating an offer, could require one or several Actions. One run may be inexpensive, but the total cost depends heavily on volume.
If the same process is run thousands of times per month, credit consumption should be estimated carefully before implementation.
Investigating and Correcting Incorrect Invoices
Another example is identifying and correcting errors in invoices. An agent could analyse the invoice, find the likely cause of the issue, suggest a correction and bring the result to a human for approval.
This type of use case may combine an agent with Prompt Templates. It is also a good example of a workflow where AI handles the background analysis, but a person still makes the final decision.
That balance is often important: Agentforce can reduce manual work, while business-critical approvals remain under human control.
Responding to Repeated Customer Questions
Customer service teams often handle questions that are answered in a similar way again and again. This type of use case can be supported with Data 360 and Prompt Templates.
Relevant customer information can be made searchable through Data 360, while a Prompt Template can generate a response draft for the customer service agent.
Here, the value is not only in reducing manual writing. It is also in improving consistency, helping agents respond faster and making better use of existing customer data.
Summarising Sales Conversations
Salespeople often spend a significant amount of time writing meeting notes and follow-up messages. An agent could create a summary, follow the organisation’s preferred structure and prepare a message for the customer.
The cost should be compared with the time saved and the improvement in quality. If summaries are created automatically after every customer meeting, the business value can become significant.
Creating Competitor Analysis for Opportunities
In some sales processes, a competitor analysis may be needed for each Opportunity. An agent could retrieve information from defined sources, create an analysis and save the result in Salesforce.
For this to work well, the agent needs clear instructions: what information to search for, how the analysis should be structured and where the result should be stored.
The quality of the output depends heavily on the data sources and the Prompt Template design.
Data 360 and Agentforce Marketing Also Use Flex Credits
Flex Credits are not only about Agentforce. Data 360 and Agentforce Marketing also use consumption-based models.
Data 360 helps organisations connect, harmonise and activate customer data from different sources. In Agentforce Marketing, Data 360 plays an important role behind segmentation, customer profiles and personalisation.
From a credit consumption perspective, the key question is not only whether Data 360 or Agentforce Marketing is used. The important question is how they are used.
The number of segments, activation frequency, data volume and AI-driven operations can all affect total consumption.
How Should Flex Credit Consumption Be Estimated?
A practical way to estimate credit usage is to break each use case into smaller parts.
Start by asking:
- How many Agentforce Actions does the use case require?
- How many Prompt Template runs are needed?
- How often is the use case run?
- How many customers, Cases, Opportunities or other records does it apply to?
- Does the use case include Data 360, Agentforce Marketing or other consumption-based Salesforce products?
As a rough rule of thumb, the following estimates can be used:
One use case execution ≈ 3 Actions ≈ 60 credits ≈ €0.60
If a Prompt Template is included, you can add approximately 10 credits, or about €0.10, per Prompt Template execution.
The exact estimate should always be checked against Salesforce’s current price list, the customer’s contract and the final implementation.
Would you like to learn more about credits or get a more detailed estimate tailored to your specific use case? We’d be happy to help!
Writer:
Otto Heikinmäki
Developer Team Lead &
Senior Salesforce Developer
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