A Salesforce subscription is usually not cheap. To compensate for this, usa phone number list account managers will likely offer you a discount if you commit to a contract that includes multiple years, multiple seats, and/or multiple products.
Committing to a 3 or 5 year Salesforce contract is very common. But it is also extremely dangerous, because:
You will pay for what you don't use.
It is not possible to reduce the number of licenses.
And you won't be able to cancel your Salesforce subscription or get a refund.
Do you think it won't be that bad? Or that it seems like an obsolete business practice?
Here’s what Salesforce’s Master Subscription Agreement (June 2020 release) provides:
MSA 5.1: "Fees. Customer will pay all fees specified in the Order Forms. Unless otherwise specified herein or in an Order Form, (i) fees are based on subscriptions to the Services and Content purchased and not on actual usage , (ii) payment obligations are non-cancellable and fees paid are non-refundable , and (iii) quantities purchased may not be decreased during the relevant subscription term."
You read that right. <It doesn't matter if you use them all . You have to pay, you can't cancel, you can't decrease the quantities purchased... and you won't get a refund.
Just read what this company shared (July 2018 complaint with the Better Business Bureau ):
"My experience is the same as others. I negotiated a contract with a Salesforce rep who promised us the world, but we found out that it would cost us over $50,000 more to finish the product! We purchased Salesforce for one year, but our rep told us that five years would lock us into a lower rate because Salesforce was aggressively increasing prices, and for a small business like ours, that quarterly savings was a good thing. At no point were we told that we couldn't end our contract with Salesforce. We signed the contract in December 2017 and to this day we have NEVER used Salesforce. We continue to pay over $9,000 per quarter for a product we can't use , nor can we afford to complete."
Technically, it's part of the main subscription contract, but that's not helping this company out of its misery.
Now, even if you have actively used all the Salesforce licenses you purchased at the beginning, every entrepreneur knows that the business situation can change quickly, especially during a 3 or 5 year contract.
And make no mistake: when things change for the worse, you’ll probably still have to pay for your Salesforce contract . That can be a heavy burden to bear.
This is a particularly hard pill to swallow for young businesses, as this startup (filed with the Better Business Bureau in December 2017 ) attests:
"Salesforce is a terrible company to do business with. Startups in particular need to stay away from them. SF sold my company a contract that (at the time) was a greater financial obligation than the company had raised in funding! They also included a clause that after 2 years, payments would become annual instead of quarterly . Oh, and did I mention they locked the company into a 5 year agreement , all under the guise of "best pricing." They refused to reduce our number of seats; they refused to work with us, deferring payments for a few months; they refused to do anything to make the contract work. In fact, they would rather let us go out of business and take $0, than make the contract work and allow us to continue to be a paying customer. Blind adherence to the letter of their one-sided contracts. The 800 pound gorilla taking advantage of the young upstart. Shame on you Salesforce.com. I will never do business with you again."
But... there have to be logical exceptions, right? What happens if you go bankrupt, sell, or liquidate your company? Will they be more lenient?
Just take a look at Article 11.4 of the Salesforce Master Subscription Agreement (and the second part of Article 11.3, to which it refers):
MSA 11.4: "If this Agreement is terminated by SFDC pursuant to the "Termination" section above, Customer will pay any unpaid fees covering the remainder of the term of all Order Forms to the extent permitted by applicable law. In no event will termination relieve Customer of its obligation to pay any fees owed to SFDC for the period prior to the effective date of termination."
