Salesforce
Salesforce is a cloud-based enterprise software company that provides customer relationship management applications, data, and agentic AI through its Agentforce 360 Platform, serving 150,000+ enterprise, mid-market, and SMB customers globally via subscriptions and usage-based pricing.
- Company typePublic
- Founded1999
- HeadquartersSan Francisco, United States
- Headcount5,001–10,000
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingSoftware
What Salesforce does
Salesforce is a cloud-based enterprise software company, founded in 1999 and listed on the NYSE under ticker CRM, that provides customer relationship management (CRM) applications and has repositioned around what it calls the Agentforce 360 Platform — an integrated stack unifying apps, data, AI agents, and metadata on a single trusted foundation. The technology layer combines Data 360 (unified customer data with zero-copy federation to external data lakes like Snowflake), the Atlas Reasoning Engine (proprietary retrieval-augmented generation over Data 360), the Einstein Trust Layer (AI governance, data masking, BYO-LLM support for OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google Gemini), MuleSoft for API/integration, Flow for automation, Tableau for analytics, and Slack as the conversational interface. On top of this platform sit Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud Next, Commerce Cloud (including new Headless 360 and Agentforce Commerce), a portfolio of industry clouds (Financial Services, Health, Automotive, Manufacturing, Communications, Public Sector, Net Zero, Education, Nonprofit, Retail, Consumer Goods, Media), and a small-business suite starting at $25/user/month.
The company serves 150,000+ customers globally with a hybrid go-to-market combining enterprise field sales, a self-serve Starter Suite for SMBs, channel partners (PwC, Deloitte, IBM, Gerent, Uptima), and the AgentExchange marketplace. Revenue mechanics span per-seat subscriptions, Agentforce hybrid usage-based pricing (metered per conversation plus Flex Credits plus seat-based), AgentExchange commissions, and professional services. FY2026 revenue was $41.5 billion (+10% YoY) with a 34.7% free cash flow margin; Q1 FY2027 delivered $11.133 billion (+13% YoY) and record 34.8% non-GAAP operating margins. Recent strategy is dominated by an aggressive AI acquisition cadence — 15 AI-focused deals since May 2025 culminating in a $3.6 billion Fin/Intercom agreement in June 2026 — alongside the $8 billion Informatica acquisition to harden the data foundation, while returning capital via a $25 billion senior notes offering funding an equivalent $25 billion accelerated share repurchase (11% of shares retired) in Q1 FY2027.
Salesforce firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- Salesforce
- Legal name
- Salesforce, Inc.
- Website
- https://salesforce.com
- Company type
- Public
- Founded year
- 1999
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 5,001–10,000 employees
- Short description
- Salesforce is a cloud-based enterprise software company that provides customer relationship management applications, data, and agentic AI through its Agentforce 360 Platform, serving 150,000+ enterprise, mid-market, and SMB customers globally via subscriptions and usage-based pricing.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
Salesforce industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Cloud CRM Software
- NAICS
- Software Publishers (5132), Software Publishers (513210), Software Publishers (51321)
- SIC
- Services-Prepackaged Software (7372), Services-Computer Programming, Data Processing, Etc. (7370)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Marketing Automation & Campaign Management CRM (HDAEAFAB)
- akta.pro secondary industry
- Marketing Automation, CRM & Lifecycle Messaging (BPAMALAE)
Keywords
Where Salesforce is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- San Francisco
- HQ country
- United States
- HQ region
- North America
Offices8 records
Markets served
Salesforce business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Personnel, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Operations, Infrastructure
Revenue model
- CRM and Cloud Subscriptions: Recurring subscription revenue from core product lines: Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Commerce Cloud, Analytics (Tableau), Slack, and industry-specific clouds (Financial Services, Health, Automotive, Manufacturing, etc.). Pricing tiers include Free Suite, Starter Suite ($25/user/month), Pro Suite, and Enterprise editions.
- Agentforce (Usage-based and Hybrid Pricing): Agentforce uses a hybrid pricing model with three simultaneous tracks: metered (per conversation and per action, e.g., $2 per conversation), credits, and seat-based. Customers consume agents via Flex Credits, with consumption-based pricing designed to decouple revenue from headcount.
- AgentExchange Marketplace Commissions: Revenue and ecosystem expansion via AgentExchange (formerly AppExchange) marketplace where third-party developers, ISVs, and partners publish apps, agents, and integrations that extend Salesforce.
- Professional Services and Customer Success: Salesforce Professional Services and Success Plans revenue from implementation, transformation, and ongoing support engagements delivered by Salesforce experts and certified partners.
- Freemium and Trial Acquisition Funnel: Free Suite, Developer Edition, and 30-day free trials across products drive bottom-up adoption and land-and-expand into paid subscriptions, particularly for SMBs and developers.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Per seat | Monthly | Starter Suite: built-in AI CRM for sales, service, and marketing with prebuilt agents |
| Per seat | Annual | Pro Suite, Enterprise, and Unlimited editions across all product clouds |
| Usage-based | Pay-as-you-go | Agentforce usage-based and hybrid pricing |
| Freemium | Pay-as-you-go | Free Suite, Developer Edition, and 30-day free trials |
| Subscription | Multi-year contract | Industry Cloud (Automotive, Financial Services, Health, etc.) and Enterprise add-ons |
Go-to-market motion6 records
Marketing channels9 records
Salesforce product offering
Product offeringCore offering
Salesforce provides cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) software delivered via the Agentforce 360 Platform, combining the Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Commerce Cloud, Data 360, and industry-specific clouds with the Atlas Reasoning Engine and Einstein Trust Layer for AI-powered automation. Its product portfolio also includes Slack, Tableau, MuleSoft, Heroku, and Informatica as acquired platforms for collaboration, analytics, integration, app development, and data management. Autonomous AI agents, low-code Agentforce Builder, and the AgentExchange marketplace allow businesses to automate sales, service, marketing, commerce, and industry-specific workflows at enterprise scale.
Product overview
Salesforce offers a unified platform-plus-modules architecture centered on the Agentforce 360 Platform, which combines the Salesforce CRM core, Data 360 (data foundation), the Atlas Reasoning Engine, the Einstein Trust Layer, and Slack as the conversational surface. Layered on this platform are modular Clouds — Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud (Next), Commerce Cloud, and industry Clouds such as Financial Services Cloud, Health Cloud, Education Cloud, Manufacturing Cloud, Net Zero Cloud, Consumer Goods Cloud, Automotive Cloud, Communications Cloud, Media Cloud, Nonprofit Cloud, Public Sector, and Retail Cloud — plus acquired branded offerings including Tableau, MuleSoft, Heroku, and Informatica. The Small Business portfolio packages Starter Suite and Pro Suite for SMBs. Agentforce 360 introduces agentic AI products (Agentforce, Agentforce Builder, Agentforce Voice, Agentforce Dev Tools, Agentforce Operations, Agentforce Commerce, Agentforce Advisor, Agentic Advisor, and Agentforce Coworker) and the AgentExchange marketplace (formerly AppExchange). Inter-agent interoperability is enabled by the Agentic Resource Discovery (ARD) protocol and the Linux Foundation Agent Name Service (ANS).
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Brands
- Agentforce: Salesforce's AI agent platform for building and deploying autonomous AI agents across sales, service, and marketing workflows.
- Agentforce 360
- Slack
- Tableau
- MuleSoft
- Informatica
- Heroku
- Data 360
Products and services
- Sales Cloud
- Service Cloud
- Marketing Cloud
- Commerce Cloud
- Data 360
- Agentforce 360 Platform
- Agentforce
- Slack
- Tableau
- MuleSoft
- Heroku
- Informatica
- Financial Services Cloud
- Health Cloud
- Automotive Cloud
- Manufacturing Cloud
- Net Zero Cloud
- Education Cloud
- Nonprofit Cloud
- Public Sector Cloud
- Communications Cloud
- Consumer Goods Cloud
- Small Business Suite (Starter / Pro)
- Agentforce Builder
- Agentforce Voice
- Agentforce Commerce
- Agentic Advisor
- AgentExchange
- Headless 360
- Agentforce Operations
Quantifiable outcome
- 30% increased revenue after implementing Sales AI
- +13 more outcomes
Companies that use Salesforce
Customer profileNamed customers29 records
Segments21 records
Ideal customer profiles4 records
Salesforce technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- Yes
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Integration22 records
AI capability16 records
Feature8 records
Salesforce partnerships and signals
Strategic signalScale indicators14 records
Recent moves6 records
Expansion highlights6 records
Salesforce competitors and assessment
Company assessmentDirect peers
- ServiceNow: ServiceNow is an enterprise workflow platform with Now Assist AI agents and CRM-like customer-service capabilities. Directly competes with Salesforce Service Cloud and increasingly with Agentforce in agentic enterprise workflows, especially in IT service and customer operations.
- Adobe (Experience Cloud): Adobe Experience Cloud provides marketing automation, customer journey orchestration, and Adobe Sensei/GenStudio AI. Directly competes with Salesforce Marketing Cloud and Commerce Cloud in B2C marketing and now in agentic personalization.
- Zendesk: Zendesk provides customer service and engagement software with AI agents (Zendesk AI). Directly competes with Salesforce Service Cloud and Agentforce in customer support, particularly in the mid-market segment.
- Pipedrive: Pipedrive is an SMB-focused sales CRM with AI-powered sales assistant capabilities. Directly competes with Salesforce Starter Suite and Sales Cloud in the small business sales segment, particularly in Europe.
- SugarCRM: SugarCRM provides sales, service, and marketing CRM with SugarPredict AI. Competes with Salesforce Sales Cloud and Service Cloud, particularly in mid-market and regulated industries.
- Freshworks: Freshworks offers Freshsales, Freshservice, and Freddy AI agents for CRM and IT service. Directly competes with Salesforce Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, and Agentforce in SMB and mid-market segments.
- HubSpot: HubSpot is a leading CRM platform targeting SMBs and mid-market with sales, service, marketing, and operations hubs, plus AI-powered Breeze agents. Directly competes with Salesforce's Starter Suite, Pro Suite, and Marketing Cloud in the SMB/mid-market segment and increasingly in agentic AI.
Broad incumbents
- Oracle (Oracle CX / Fusion): Oracle offers Oracle CX (Sales, Service, Marketing, Commerce) integrated with its broader Fusion Applications suite and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. Competes with Salesforce's enterprise CRM and is now embedding agentic AI; broader portfolio spans database and infrastructure.
- SAP (SAP CX / Business AI): SAP offers Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, and Customer Data Cloud as part of its CX suite alongside S/4HANA and Business AI/Joule. Competes with Salesforce in enterprise CRM, especially in manufacturing, automotive, and industrials verticals.
- Microsoft (Dynamics 365 + Copilot): Microsoft bundles Dynamics 365 CRM/ERP with Copilot and OpenAI models across the Microsoft 365 enterprise base. Directly competes with Salesforce Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, and Agentforce in enterprise CRM and now agentic AI workflows, with structural advantages in productivity distribution and model access.
Market position
Strengths5 records
Weaknesses5 records
Competitive moat7 records
Key risks5 records
Key highlights7 records
Customer concentration
Salesforce social profiles
Digital presenceSalesforce financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
Salesforce leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles24 records
Salesforce subsidiaries and ownership
Company hierarchySubsidiaries16 records
Salesforce funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds8 records
Investors10 records
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Salesforce M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A97 records
Investments81 records
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about Salesforce
What does Salesforce do?
Salesforce provides cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) software delivered via the Agentforce 360 Platform, combining the Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Commerce Cloud, Data 360, and industry-specific clouds with the Atlas Reasoning Engine and Einstein Trust Layer for AI-powered automation. Its product portfolio also includes Slack, Tableau, MuleSoft, Heroku, and Informatica as acquired platforms for collaboration, analytics, integration, app development, and data management. Autonomous AI agents, low-code Agentforce Builder, and the AgentExchange marketplace allow businesses to automate sales, service, marketing, commerce, and industry-specific workflows at enterprise scale.
Is Salesforce a public or private company?
Salesforce is a public company. It is classified as public and is currently operating.
When was Salesforce founded?
Salesforce was founded in 1999. It employs 5,001 to 10,000 people.
Where is Salesforce based?
Salesforce is headquartered in San Francisco, United States, in the North America region.
How does Salesforce make money?
Five revenue lines are on record. CRM and Cloud Subscriptions are the primary driver. The others are agentforce (Usage-based and Hybrid Pricing), agentExchange Marketplace Commissions, professional Services and Customer Success and freemium and Trial Acquisition Funnel.
Who are Salesforce's main competitors?
Direct peers on record are ServiceNow, Adobe (Experience Cloud), Zendesk, Pipedrive, SugarCRM, Freshworks and HubSpot. Broad incumbents are Oracle (Oracle CX / Fusion), SAP (SAP CX / Business AI) and Microsoft (Dynamics 365 + Copilot).
Does Salesforce have an API?
Yes. Salesforce offers a public REST API (referenced as 'Salesforce REST API' in security architecture context) for enterprise integration. The platform also exposes Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers/integrations, allowing external agents and tools such as DocuSign and HiBob to connect into Slack and Agentforce contexts. Developer documentation is available via developer.salesforce.com (referenced as 'Documentation for Developers'). Developer documentation is at developer.salesforce.com/docs.
What industry is Salesforce in?
Salesforce's product category is Cloud CRM Software. Its primary akta.pro industry code is HDAEAFAB, Marketing Automation & Campaign Management CRM, with a secondary code of BPAMALAE, Marketing Automation, CRM & Lifecycle Messaging. Its NAICS code is 5132 and its SIC code is 7372.