$25 gets you in the door.
The building is priced for someone else.
Salesforce's small-business pricing is genuinely simple at the bottom: two suites, $25 and $100 per user per month. The decoding worth doing is what each one actually buys, where the famous AI really lives, and what the ladder above them means for a small buyer. Numbers checked August 2026, with Salesforce's own pricing pages as the source of truth.
The Small-Business Suites, As Published
| Edition | Price | What it is | What it is not |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starter Suite | $25 per user per month | Simplified sales, service and email in one bundle with guided setup | Not customisable, not intelligent, no headline AI |
| Pro Suite | $100 per user per month | Starter plus customisation: dashboards, workflow rules, process control | Still a database you feed. AI products remain separate purchases |
| Full Sales Cloud editions | Priced above the suites | The platform proper: forecasting, territories, enterprise admin | Priced and designed for sales organisations with admins |
| Einstein and Agentforce AI | Sold separately | Salesforce’s AI layer, packaged as its own products and add-ons | Not included in the $25 or $100 headline prices |
Suite prices per Salesforce's published small-business pricing, checked 15 August 2026. Salesforce.com is the source of truth, and their editions and AI packaging change more often than most vendors.
Three Things the Tier Table Does Not Say
1. The suites are the platform with things removed
Starter is not small Salesforce. It is Salesforce with the reasons people buy Salesforce, deep customisation, the ecosystem, the admin platform, switched off for simplicity. That is a fair product. It also means the $25 buys a tidy contact database with a famous logo, and the capability everyone associates with the brand starts several rungs up the ladder.
2. The AI is a different product with a different bill
Salesforce's AI story, Einstein features, Agentforce agents, is packaged and priced separately from these suites. Budgeting $25 a seat and expecting the keynote demos is the most common small-buyer surprise. If AI matters to your decision, get the AI line item quoted explicitly.
3. Nothing on the ladder does the consultant's job
The job a consultant needs done, remember what every relationship said, notice the timing, say who to contact today, is not a Salesforce edition. It is a different category. Nynch does that job for $79 per month billed annually at $950, one plan, AI and onboarding included.
Who Each Price Actually Serves
- → Run or plan a sales team that reports numbers upward.
- → Will grow into the platform and eventually staff an admin.
- → Need the ecosystem: AppExchange, integrations, enterprise IT approval.
- → Are one expert whose revenue is relationships and referrals.
- → Would be buying the logo and feeding the database yourself.
- → Expected the AI at the headline price.
- → Want a morning briefing, not a reporting suite.
Salesforce Pricing, Answered
The two editions Salesforce aims at small buyers: Starter Suite at $25 per user per month and Pro Suite at $100 per user per month (checked August 2026, salesforce.com is the source of truth). Starter is a simplified bundle of sales, service and email tools with guided setup. Pro adds customisation: dashboards, workflow rules, sales process control. Above them sit the full Sales Cloud editions, priced for sales organisations, and the AI agent products, which are sold separately.
Starter is Salesforce with the configurability removed: fixed objects, guided setup, the basics working out of the box. Pro Suite returns some of the platform: custom dashboards, workflow automation, more control over the sales process. The four-times price jump buys configurability, not intelligence. Neither edition changes who does the data entry: you do.
The headline AI products are not part of the $25 Starter price. Salesforce sells its AI layer, Einstein features and Agentforce agents, through separate editions and add-ons with their own pricing, generally aimed at teams on the bigger editions. If AI is the reason you are shopping, price the AI product, not the CRM edition, because they are different line items.
Salesforce was built for managers of sales teams: forecasting, pipeline reviews, territory control, reporting up. That machinery is the value, and it needs someone to run it. A solo consultant on Starter gets a famous name and a contact database that still depends entirely on manual entry. The things that decide consultant revenue, relationship memory, timing signals, knowing who to contact today, are not in either suite at any price.
A system shaped like your revenue. Nynch is the AI CRM for consultants and fractionals: it reads email, calendar and LinkedIn, holds both sides of every relationship, and briefs you each morning on who to contact, why, and what to say. One plan at $79 per month billed annually at $950, AI usage and onboarding included. No admin to become, no editions ladder to climb.
Skip the ladder.
Buy the job you need done.
Nynch remembers what every relationship said, watches the timing, and briefs you each morning. Built for the expert the editions ladder was never pointed at.