Salesforce

What is Salesforce Commerce Cloud

Salesforce Commerce Cloud is an enterprise ecommerce and unified commerce platform that combines digital storefronts, order management, point-of-sale (POS) capabilities, and AI-driven personalization on a single platform. It supports both B2C and B2B commerce models, provides options for composable and headless storefronts, and is designed for retailers and brands that must coordinate sales, inventory, and customer data across multiple channels and touchpoints. The platform integrates closely with Salesforce CRM and other Salesforce clouds to share customer and order data for marketing, service, and analytics workflows.

Commerce Cloud is positioned for mid-market to enterprise-scale merchants that require availability and extensibility: the vendor reports multi-billion shopper scale and enterprise-grade uptime and compliance. Implementation options include packaged (starter) suites for faster launch, composable storefronts for headless architectures, and custom implementations backed by Salesforce partners and system integrators. Technical teams can use built-in developer tools, APIs, and integrations to extend storefronts and workflows.

Key deployment choices include use of the legacy B2C Commerce (formerly Demandware) capabilities, the B2B Commerce features targeted at wholesale and complex ordering scenarios, and the newer composable storefront approach that separates frontend experience from commerce logic for greater flexibility. Organisations typically select Commerce Cloud when they need a single vendor to manage commerce infrastructure, omnichannel order flows, and deep CRM integration.

Salesforce Commerce Cloud features

What does Salesforce Commerce Cloud do?

Salesforce Commerce Cloud delivers a set of commerce capabilities across customer touchpoints and internal operations. On the customer-facing side it provides storefront building blocks, support for headless frontends, multi-site and multi-locale capabilities, payment integrations, and AI-powered product recommendations. For operations it includes order management, inventory visibility, fulfillment orchestration, and POS integrations. For business operations it connects commerce events with CRM data to enable segmentation, marketing automation, and service workflows.

The platform provides built-in personalization and merchandising powered by Salesforce AI (often referenced in product materials as Agentforce or Einstein features). These capabilities run product recommendations, search ranking, promotions, and dynamic content to increase conversion and average order value. Commerce Cloud also offers analytics and dashboards to measure conversion, merchandising performance, and fulfillment KPIs.

From a developer and architecture perspective, Commerce Cloud supports RESTful APIs, webhook events, SDKs for common languages, and extensibility via third-party integrations. The composable storefront options enable teams to use modern frontend frameworks while retaining Commerce Cloud as the commerce engine. Administration and business-user interfaces include no-code or low-code tools for content management, catalog updates, pricing rules, and promotions.

Key platform capabilities:

• Unified storefronts and headless/composable storefront support
• Order management and automated fulfillment routing
• Mobile-first POS integrations and in-store inventory visibility
• AI-driven personalization, merchandising, and search
• Integration with Salesforce CRM, Marketing Cloud, and Service Cloud
• Developer APIs, SDKs, and partner ecosystem for extensions
• Multi-site, multi-currency, and multi-language support for global rollouts

Salesforce Commerce Cloud pricing

Salesforce Commerce Cloud offers flexible pricing tailored to different business needs, from direct-to-consumer storefronts to enterprise, multi-channel commerce programs. Pricing is commonly structured as a combination of subscription fees and transaction or revenue-based fees for larger enterprise deployments, and Salesforce typically provides customized quotes based on expected GMV (gross merchandise value), traffic, integrations, and required modules (B2C Commerce, B2B Commerce, Order Management, POS, Composable Storefront). For packaged offers like the Starter Suite there are simplified bundles intended to accelerate time to market.

Organizations should expect pricing to vary by deployment model (hosted vs. composable), modules selected, level of professional services or partner implementation, and service-level agreements. Many enterprise customers also negotiate multi-year agreements and volume-based tiers, which can include discounts for annual commitments. Salesforce publishes program descriptions and resources but generally requires direct contact or a partner to receive firm pricing and contractual terms.

For implementation budgeting, consider these line items:

• Implementation services: partner or integrator fees for setup, migration, and custom development
• Platform subscription: base recurring fees for Commerce Cloud modules and any bundled suites
• Transaction or revenue fees: percent or tiered fees tied to online sales volume in some agreements
• Hosting and scaling costs: included in many packages but can rise with peak traffic and add-ons
• Third-party integrations: payment gateways, tax engines, fraud tools, and logistics integrations

Visit their official pricing page for the most current information.

How much is Salesforce Commerce Cloud per month

Salesforce Commerce Cloud offers custom monthly pricing based on business requirements, traffic, and modules selected. Monthly billing models vary and commonly include subscription fees combined with usage- or revenue-based components for larger deployments; smaller Starter Suite offerings may be quoted as fixed monthly fees. For accurate monthly fees, request a quote from Salesforce or an authorized partner and compare monthly vs annual billing options on their pricing page.

How much is Salesforce Commerce Cloud per year

Salesforce Commerce Cloud offers annual contracts with pricing tailored to company size and scope. Annual pricing typically provides negotiated rates based on expected annual GMV and contract length, and may include discounts for multi-year commitments. Enterprise customers often receive a bundled annual price that combines subscriptions, support, and agreed professional services; consult Salesforce or certified partners for detailed annual quotes via their commerce pricing resources.

How much is Salesforce Commerce Cloud in general

Salesforce Commerce Cloud pricing ranges from packaged Starter Suite offers for small-to-mid implementations to fully customized enterprise agreements. In general, organizations should plan for a mix of recurring platform fees, potential transaction-based fees, and one-time implementation costs. Total cost of ownership depends heavily on the level of customization, third-party integrations, global deployment needs, and ongoing operational staffing or partner support. Visit their official pricing page for the most current information.

What is Salesforce Commerce Cloud used for

Salesforce Commerce Cloud is used to build and operate online storefronts, manage omnichannel order flows, and deliver consistent customer experiences across web, mobile, social, marketplace, and in-store channels. Retailers and brands use Commerce Cloud to centralize catalog management, orchestrate fulfillment, and coordinate promotions and pricing across channels. The platform is purpose-built for both consumer-facing (B2C) and business-facing (B2B) commerce, enabling use cases such as personalized merchandising, complex quoting and contract pricing, and multi-location fulfillment.

Operational teams use Commerce Cloud to reduce friction between sales and fulfillment by consolidating inventory visibility and automating order routing. Marketing and merchandising teams use AI features and CRM integrations to personalize journeys and re-target customers across channels. IT and development teams use the composable architecture options and APIs to integrate commerce logic with custom frontends and external systems such as ERP, tax engines, and payment gateways.

Specific business scenarios include launching new DTC storefronts quickly with the Starter Suite, migrating legacy ecommerce platforms to a single unified platform for inventory and order orchestration, implementing headless commerce for mobile-first or highly customized frontends, and integrating in-store POS with online order management for buy-online-pickup-in-store (BOPIS) and ship-from-store operations.

Pros and cons of Salesforce Commerce Cloud

Pros:

• Enterprise-grade scalability and reliability with reported high historical uptime and global scale that supports large seasonal peaks. See Salesforce platform reliability and metrics in their Commerce Cloud resources.
• Broad, integrated ecosystem connecting commerce with CRM, marketing, and service clouds enabling unified customer data and cross-cloud workflows.
• Strong support for both B2C and B2B scenarios, with purpose-built features for complex ordering, quoting, and multi-site management.
• Composable and headless options let technical teams separate frontend experience from commerce logic for greater flexibility.
• Rich partner and ISV ecosystem for payments, tax, fraud prevention, and logistics integrations.

Cons:

• Pricing and contracting are typically enterprise-oriented and may be higher than self-hosted or smaller SaaS competitors, especially when including implementation services and partner fees.
• Implementation can require specialist partners for complex integrations or extensive customizations; time-to-launch can vary depending on scope.
• The platform surface area is large; teams may face a learning curve to leverage AI personalization, marketplaces, and order orchestration effectively.
• Some customers moving from lightweight platforms may find the feature set and configuration options heavier than needed for simple storefronts.

Salesforce Commerce Cloud free trial

Salesforce does not universally publish a self-serve, time-limited free trial for Commerce Cloud in the same way some standalone SaaS products do; instead, it offers demo environments and guided trial experiences through sales and partner channels. Prospective customers typically engage with Salesforce or a certified implementation partner to evaluate Commerce Cloud through sandbox demonstrations, proof-of-concept (PoC) projects, or trial environments configured for a limited scope.

For teams evaluating the platform, recommended steps include requesting a product demo, asking for access to a sandbox or trial instance via a sales representative, and engaging a partner for a targeted PoC to validate integration points and performance under expected loads. Trailhead resources and product documentation can also serve as hands-on learning tools for feature exploration prior to committing to an implementation.

Is Salesforce Commerce Cloud free

No, Salesforce Commerce Cloud is not offered as a free product for production use. Commerce Cloud is sold through subscription or contract models tailored to business scale and use case, and Salesforce commonly requires contact with sales or a partner to establish pricing and trial options. For individual learning, Salesforce Trailhead provides free guided learning modules that cover Commerce Cloud concepts and implementation patterns.

Salesforce Commerce Cloud API

Commerce Cloud exposes a range of APIs to integrate storefronts, back-office systems, and third-party services. Available APIs include storefront APIs for catalog, inventory, pricing, and checkout flows; order management APIs for fulfilment orchestration and shipment handling; and administrative APIs for site configuration and content management. Many of these endpoints follow REST principles and include event-driven webhook models for asynchronous updates.

Developers can use the API surface to build headless frontends, connect to external payment processors and tax engines, automate product and catalog updates, and integrate BI or analytics tools. The platform also supports SDKs and connectors, and Salesforce publishes developer documentation and best practices for authentication, rate limits, and data synchronization. For advanced integrations, consult the Commerce Cloud developer documentation and engage Salesforce partners familiar with large-scale commerce integrations.

10 Salesforce Commerce Cloud alternatives

Paid alternatives to Salesforce Commerce Cloud

• Shopify Plus — Enterprise-grade version of Shopify that focuses on rapid time-to-market, hosted infrastructure, and a large app ecosystem; suitable for merchants seeking simplicity and rapid deployment.
• Magento (Adobe Commerce) — Self-hosted and cloud-hosted options with deep customization, a large developer community, and strong B2B features; commonly used by merchants needing full control of the stack.
• BigCommerce Enterprise — Offers headless commerce capabilities, built-in integrations, and multi-storefront management aimed at mid-market and enterprise merchants.
• Oracle CX Commerce — Enterprise commerce solution with integration into Oracle's suite of CX and ERP products; fits organizations already invested in Oracle technology.
• SAP Commerce Cloud — Enterprise commerce platform with strong B2B features and deep ERP integration for organizations using SAP back-ends.
• ** commercetools** — API-first, headless commerce platform focused on composable architectures; suitable for teams building microservices-based commerce solutions.
• VTEX — Cloud-native commerce and marketplace platform with built-in OMS and marketplace capabilities, targeted at global retailers and brands.

Open source alternatives to Salesforce Commerce Cloud

• Magento Open Source — Community edition of Magento offering a robust feature set for merchants that want open-source control and extensibility via a large ecosystem.
• Saleor — Modern, GraphQL-first open-source ecommerce platform designed for headless and composable implementations.
• Reaction Commerce — Node.js-based open-source commerce platform focused on real-time, event-driven architectures and extensibility.
• Vendure — Headless GraphQL-based open-source commerce framework built on TypeScript/NestJS, suitable for custom storefronts and composable systems.

Frequently asked questions about Salesforce Commerce Cloud

What is Salesforce Commerce Cloud used for?

Salesforce Commerce Cloud is used for enterprise ecommerce and unified commerce across digital and physical channels. Businesses use it to operate storefronts, orchestrate orders and fulfillment, integrate POS systems, and personalize shopper experiences by connecting commerce events to CRM and marketing workflows.

How does Salesforce Commerce Cloud handle omnichannel order management?

Commerce Cloud provides order management and fulfillment orchestration to route, split, and fulfill orders across channels. It supports real-time inventory visibility, configurable routing rules, and split shipments to optimize cost and delivery time, and integrates with warehouse and logistics systems for end-to-end fulfillment.

Does Salesforce Commerce Cloud include POS capabilities?

Yes, Commerce Cloud integrates with mobile-first POS solutions as part of its unified commerce approach. The POS capabilities connect store inventory and customer data with online orders to enable BOPIS, ship-from-store, and in-store checkout workflows while syncing customer profiles to Salesforce CRM.

Can Salesforce Commerce Cloud be used for B2B commerce?

Yes, Salesforce Commerce Cloud includes B2B Commerce features for complex ordering scenarios. It supports catalog segmentation, contract pricing, guided quoting, bulk ordering, and account hierarchies commonly required by wholesalers and distributors.

Is Salesforce Commerce Cloud suitable for small businesses?

Commerce Cloud is typically targeted at mid-market and enterprise merchants, though Salesforce offers Starter Suite options for smaller DTC businesses. Small companies should evaluate Starter Suite pricing and implementation requirements versus alternative platforms that may provide lower total cost of ownership and faster self-serve setup.

Why do companies choose Salesforce Commerce Cloud over other platforms?

Companies choose Commerce Cloud for its unified platform approach and deep integration with Salesforce CRM and marketing clouds. The combination of commerce, order management, POS, and CRM in one vendor reduces integration overhead and enables consistent customer experiences across channels.

When should a business consider a composable storefront with Commerce Cloud?

Choose a composable storefront when you need full control over frontend experience or must integrate modern frameworks and microfrontends. Composable storefronts allow teams to innovate on user experience while keeping Commerce Cloud as the commerce engine for product, pricing, and order logic.

Where can I find developer documentation for Commerce Cloud APIs?

Salesforce provides comprehensive developer documentation and API references for Commerce Cloud on its developer portal. The portal includes guides for storefront APIs, order management APIs, authentication patterns, and best practices for headless and composable implementations; see the Commerce Cloud developer resources.

How much support and partner resources are available for Commerce Cloud implementations?

Salesforce has an extensive partner network and professional services ecosystem to support Commerce Cloud implementations. Certified consulting partners, ISVs, and implementation specialists offer services for migration, integration, and optimization; enterprise customers can also engage Salesforce consulting and support plans for dedicated assistance.

Does Salesforce Commerce Cloud integrate with third-party payments and tax engines?

Yes, Commerce Cloud integrates with common payment gateways, fraud prevention tools, and tax engines. The platform supports a range of payment providers and connectors to tax calculation services and shipping/carrier providers to support global commerce requirements.

Salesforce Commerce Cloud careers

Salesforce careers related to Commerce Cloud include product management, solution architecture, technical consulting, engineering roles focused on commerce features, and partner implementation positions. Job seekers can find roles at Salesforce itself or across certified partners and system integrators that specialize in commerce implementations. Many roles require experience in ecommerce platforms, integrations, API development, and commerce-specific business processes.

Salesforce Commerce Cloud affiliate

Salesforce does not operate a conventional affiliate program for Commerce Cloud product sales in the same way consumer services do; however, partners and referral programs exist through the Salesforce partner ecosystem. Organizations interested in referral or partner revenue models should consult the Salesforce Partner Community and official partner program documentation to understand certification tiers, referral incentives, and co-selling arrangements.

Where to find Salesforce Commerce Cloud reviews

To research customer reviews and implementation case studies, consult multiple sources: industry analyst reports (for example, Gartner vendor assessments), independent review sites, and Salesforce customer success stories. Useful resources include the Salesforce Commerce Cloud overview for official case studies, and third-party review platforms for user-submitted ratings and implementation notes.

Research and citations

• Salesforce Commerce Cloud product overview and modules: https://www.salesforce.com/products/commerce-cloud/overview/
• Commerce Cloud pricing and packaged offers: https://www.salesforce.com/products/commerce-cloud/pricing
• Commerce developer resources and API documentation: https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/commerce
• Salesforce reported platform metrics and case studies: https://www.salesforce.com/news/stories/