Salesforce has shipped three different ways to pay for Agentforce in roughly eighteen months. All three are still live, which is unusual, and it means the honest answer to “what does Agentforce cost” is a question back: how many actions does one of your conversations actually take?
The short version: Flex Credits bill about $0.10 per agent action (20 credits, sold at roughly $500 per 100,000). Conversation pricing bills about $2 per conversation however many actions it contains. Per-user licences start around $125 per user per month. Below roughly 20 actions per resolution, Flex Credits win. Above it, conversations do.
Why there are three models
Agentforce launched on a flat $2 per conversation. It was simple, and for mid-sized teams it was alarming — a conversation could be a two-second no-op or a twenty-step resolution and cost exactly the same. Customers said so loudly. In May 2025 Salesforce introduced Flex Credits, which bill per discrete action instead, and per-user licensing arrived for teams that wanted a predictable line item.
Rather than retiring the original model, Salesforce left all three running. That is genuinely customer-friendly, and it also means most of the pricing guides you will find are describing whichever model was current when they were written. Check the date on anything you read, including this.
The three models side by side
| Flex Credits | Per conversation | Per user | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unit | One agent action | One conversation | One licensed user |
| Rate | ~$0.10 (20 credits) | ~$2.00 | From ~$125/user/mo |
| Bought as | ~$500 per 100,000 credits | Per conversation | Monthly subscription |
| Predictable? | Scales with usage | Scales with volume | Fully fixed |
| Best for | Short, well-scoped agent tasks | Long multi-step resolutions | Internal agents, steady users |
| Status | Recommended for new builds | Legacy, still available | Available |
The only number that matters: actions per resolution
Every pricing decision here collapses into one figure. At roughly $0.10 an action against a $2 conversation, the break-even sits at about twenty actions. Under that, Flex Credits are cheaper. Over it, conversation billing is.
One qualifier before you run that maths. Salesforce's own pricing page lists the $2 conversation rate without restriction, but several partner write-ups describe it as applying to customer-facing agents rather than internal employee-facing ones. We have not been able to confirm that limit in Salesforce documentation either way. If conversation billing is the model your numbers favour, get it confirmed in writing for your specific use case before you plan a budget around it.
The mistake we see is teams estimating this from intuition. Do it from data instead: take fifty real cases of the type you want the agent to handle, and count the discrete steps a full resolution takes — every record lookup, every field update, every reply drafted, every knowledge article retrieved. A password reset might be three actions. A billing dispute that checks three systems and updates two records might be thirty.
Use the free credits in the Foundations edition — reported at around 200,000 — to measure this on real traffic before you negotiate. That is a genuine pilot, not a demo, and the number it gives you is worth more at the negotiating table than any published rate card.
Things that surprise people on the first invoice
- Sandbox actions still cost credits — around 16 rather than 20. Cheaper than production, but a heavy test cycle is not free.
- Voice actions cost more than text, roughly 30 credits against 20. A voice-first deployment is not the same budget as a chat one.
- An action covers up to 10,000 tokens of processing. Grounding an agent in large documents can push a single logical step over that boundary.
- Flex Credits share one wallet with Data 360. Heavy segmentation or ingestion work draws from the same balance your agents do, so the two budgets are not independent.
- A badly scoped agent that loops or re-queries burns credits invisibly. Consumption monitoring is not optional once agents are live.
The bottom line
Pick the model from your own actions-per-resolution figure, not from which sounds simplest. Most teams deploying focused, well-scoped agents land under twenty actions and are better off on Flex Credits. Teams running long multi-system resolutions sometimes genuinely are better off on conversation billing, and there is no shame in staying there.
One caveat worth stating plainly: consumption pricing moves, and Salesforce has changed this three times already. Treat every figure here as the shape of the model rather than a quote, and confirm current rates with your account team before you sign anything.
Want help modelling it against your real case mix? See our Agentforce services — or send us a sample of your cases and we will count the actions with you.
Frequently asked questions
How much does Agentforce cost?
There are three models running concurrently. Flex Credits cost roughly $0.10 per agent action, sold in packs of 100,000 credits for about $500, with a standard action consuming 20 credits. The older conversation model bills about $2 per conversation regardless of how many actions it contains. Per-user licences start around $125 per user per month. Which is cheapest depends entirely on how many actions your average conversation takes.
Is Agentforce still $2 per conversation?
That model still exists but it is now the legacy option. Salesforce introduced Flex Credits in May 2025 after significant customer pushback that per-conversation billing was unpredictable, and Flex Credits is the recommended model for new deployments. If you signed before mid-2025 you may still be on conversation billing, and it is worth modelling whether you should move.
What is a Flex Credit and what consumes one?
Flex Credits are Salesforce's universal consumption unit, shared across Agentforce and Data 360 in a single digital wallet. A standard agent action consumes 20 credits, which works out at about $0.10, and each action covers up to 10,000 tokens of processing. Voice actions cost more at around 30 credits. Actions in a sandbox consume 16 credits rather than 20, so sandbox testing is cheaper but not free.
How do I estimate my Agentforce bill before committing?
Count actions, not conversations. Take a representative sample of the cases or enquiries you want the agent to handle, and count the discrete steps a resolution actually takes — each lookup, each record update, each reply. Multiply by roughly $0.10 and by your monthly volume. If your average resolution takes fewer than about 20 actions, Flex Credits will usually beat the $2 conversation rate. Above that, conversation billing can be cheaper.
Are there free Agentforce credits for testing?
Yes. The Foundations edition includes a block of free Flex Credits, reported at around 200,000, which is enough to run a genuine pilot rather than a demo. Use it to measure your real actions-per-resolution number before you negotiate, because that single figure determines which pricing model suits you.