User Licenses in Salesforce

User Licenses:

A user license determines the baseline of features that the user can access. Every user must have exactly one user license. You assign user permissions for data access through a profile and optionally one or more permission sets.

Salesforce has many license types which can get confusing.  To keep things straight, we’ll start with a brief summary of license types and then give more detail below.

Salesforce’s different user licenses give users different access to your data.  (The license type determines which profiles and permission sets are available to the user.)

To view a list of the active user licenses in your Salesforce org,  click Your Name | Setup | Company Profile |Company Information

Here’s the summary of Salesforce user license types:

Salesforce

Full access to standard CRM, custom apps, and AppExchange apps.

Salesforce Platform

Custom apps & core objects (Accounts, Contacts, etc) only; no CRM (no Opportunities or Forecasts).

Force.com – One App

One custom app & read-only for accounts and Contacts; no CRM.

Knowledge Only User

Salesforce Knowledge app only.

Chatter Free

Access to Chatter for people in your company without a Salesforce license.  No additional cost.

Chatter External

Allows your customers to use Chatter groups.  No additional cost.

Chatter Only (aka Chatter Plus).