What is Data Cloud in Salesforce? - Data 360 Features, Benefits, Pricing Model, Use Cases

Salesforce Data Cloud is the customer data platform (CDP) built into Salesforce.¹ Since October 2025, its official name is Data 360.2 It brings together customer data from Salesforce and from other systems, such as websites, apps, and data warehouses.^1,3 It then matches the records that belong to one customer and builds a single profile from them.⁴

Today, the sales, service, and marketing teams work from that one profile.¹ Salesforce's AI agents draw on the same data, so they answer from the company's own records and documents.⁵

What is Data Cloud in Salesforce?

Data Cloud, now named Data 360, is the Salesforce product that holds the unified customer profiles.^2,3 It runs on the same platform as Sales Cloud and Service Cloud.1 As such, the profiles and insights it builds appear on the account and contact records that teams already use.¹

It became available in 2020 as Customer 360 Audiences, a tool for marketers.⁶ It later became Genie and then Data Cloud, a name that some setup screens still show.^7,8,4

Salesforce bills Data 360 separately from its CRM licenses.⁹ Vegacompass, a CRM-only consultancy and Salesforce Consulting Partner, resells no Salesforce products. That's why our advice on Data 360 is not tied to a sale.

Benefits of Salesforce Data 360

Most companies keep the same customer in several systems, and the records rarely agree. Data 360 gives every team one version of that customer.

Below are the main benefits of Salesforce Data 360:

• One Customer Profile: Every team sees the same history for a customer, so no one acts on half the story.⁴
• Fewer Data Copies: With zero copy, the warehouse data stays where it is, so there are fewer pipelines and duplicate tables to maintain.¹⁰
• Faster Response: A sub-second real-time layer lets teams act while the customer is still on the site.¹
• Direct Activation: Marketers send a segment to the channel that uses it without manual exports.¹¹
• Controlled Access: Tags, access policies, and data masking decide who sees which customer data.¹
• Grounded AI: Agents retrieve the relevant records and documents first, so their replies rest on the company's own data.⁵

Key Features of Salesforce Data Cloud

Each feature of Data 360 covers one step between a raw record and an action.

Below are the key features, in the order the data meets them:

• Connectors and Data Streams: More than 200 connectors feed data in from Salesforce apps and other systems.³
• Zero Copy: Data in Snowflake, Databricks, BigQuery, or Redshift is queried in place instead of copied.¹⁰
• Data Model Objects: Incoming data lands in data lake objects and is mapped to a standard customer model.¹²
• Identity Resolution: Match rules decide which records belong to one person, and reconciliation rules pick the value to keep.⁴
• Calculated Insights: Metrics such as customer lifetime value are computed on the unified data.¹²
• Segmentation and Activation: Segments are published to targets such as Marketing Cloud, B2C Commerce, or ad platforms.¹¹
• Data Actions: A change in the data can fire a platform event, call a webhook, or trigger Marketing Cloud.¹³

Please note that sales, service, and marketing should agree on the match rules. Loose rules merge two different people, and strict rules split one person across profiles.

Salesforce Data 360 vs. a Data Warehouse

A data warehouse, such as Snowflake, Databricks, BigQuery, or Redshift, stores data from across the business for analysts. However, its findings rarely reach the CRM on their own. For instance, a list of customers likely to cancel stays there until someone sends it to sales.

Data 360 starts where the warehouse stops. With zero copy, it reads the warehouse tables in place and acts on them inside Salesforce.^10,3 It can also share data back to Snowflake or Databricks the same way.¹⁰

The difference is simple. A warehouse helps the company study its data, while Data 360 helps the revenue teams act on it. That's why neither replaces the other. Connecting the two is CRM integration work.

Salesforce Data 360 and AI (Agentforce, Grounding, and MCP)

Agentforce, Salesforce's AI agent platform, grounds its answers in Data 360.5 Documents sit in a search index, and a retriever adds the relevant passages to the agent's prompt.⁵ This method is called retrieval-augmented generation (RAG).⁵

Since August 2026, the Data 360 MCP Server has opened this data to authorized agents outside the Salesforce interface.¹⁴ Through MCP (Model Context Protocol), such an agent can build segments or map fields in plain language.¹⁴

None of it fixes a weak process or messy records.

Below is the order that works:

• Process: Agree on what a qualified lead or an urgent case means first.
• Data: Clear the duplicates and stale records, because an agent trusts every record it reads.
• Agents: Start with one small task and one number to hit, then add tasks.

To learn more about AI adoption in a CRM, please read our AI CRM Consulting page.

Salesforce Data 360 Pricing Model

Unlike the rest of Salesforce, Data 360 is priced on credits or profiles, not per user.⁹

Below are the list prices on Salesforce's pricing page, as checked in October 2026:

• Flex Credits: $500 per 100,000 credits, used up by queries, real-time pipelines, and unstructured data processing.⁹
• Profiles: $240 per 1,000 profiles a year, or $420 for Enterprise Profiles, which add data masking and more segments.⁹

As per the same page, bringing data in is free.⁹ Salesforce customers can also start with limited free storage and credits.⁹ The Digital Wallet shows usage in near real time.⁹ Please note that these prices are subject to change, and the contract decides the final bill.⁹

Salesforce Data 360 Use Cases

Each team uses the same profile for a different job.

Below are the main Data 360 use cases by team:

• Marketing: Send segments built on the full customer history to Marketing Cloud or Amazon Ads.¹¹
• Sales: Show propensity-to-buy and engagement scores on the account record, so reps call the right accounts first.^3,1
• Customer Service: Agents see orders and web activity from other systems on the contact record.¹
• Commerce: Publish segments to B2C Commerce, where the store can tailor what each group of shoppers sees.¹¹
• RevOps and Analytics: Track calculated insights such as customer lifetime value, and trigger a Flow when one crosses a threshold.^12,1

Does your business need Salesforce Data 360?

For a business whose customer data sits in several systems, usually yes.

Below is how the decision usually splits:

• Who it suits: Companies that want web, order, or warehouse data to drive work in Salesforce.
• Who should wait: Teams with a CRM full of duplicates, because Data 360 builds profiles from those records.
• For everyone already on Salesforce: Audit the org first, then test one use case on the free allowance.

At Vegacompass, we say the cleanup comes before the first data stream. A CRM audit, generally two weeks long, shows how much CRM data cleanup is needed first.

Vegacompass: CRM-Only Salesforce Consulting Partner

Vegacompass has focused on CRM alone for 11+ years, since 2015. Our team has delivered 120+ CRM projects. We are a Salesforce Consulting Partner.

We cover strategy, technical delivery, and applied AI across Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics 365, HubSpot, ServiceNow, and open-source CRM. AI goes in last, once the process and the data are ready.

We offer the following CRM consulting services:

• CRM Marketing Strategy
• Revenue Operations Consulting
• CRM Audit
• CRM Data Cleanup
• CRM Integration
• Salesforce Implementation
• AI CRM Consulting

Get in touch

Please tell us where you are with Data 360, whether it is live or under review, along with where your customer data sits today.

A senior consultant reads it and takes a 30-minute call with you. The same consultant leads any work that follows, with our delivery team in Pune, Palo Alto, Austin, and Singapore.

Talk to a Salesforce consultant today to find out what to fix before you switch Data 360 on.

References

1. (2026). What Is Data 360 (Formerly Data Cloud)? Salesforce. https://www.salesforce.com/data/guide/
2. (October 13, 2025). Salesforce Data Cloud Renamed to 'Data 360' As Part of 'Agentforce 360'. Salesforce Ben. https://www.salesforceben.com/salesforce-data-cloud-renamed-to-data-360-as-part-of-agentforce-360/
3. (2026). Data 360 (Formerly Data Cloud). Salesforce. https://www.salesforce.com/data/
4. (2026). Unify Your Data. Salesforce Trailhead. https://trailhead.salesforce.com/content/learn/projects/explore-data-cloud-core-functionality/unify-your-data
5. (2026). Agentforce and RAG: Best Practices for Better Agents. Salesforce. https://www.salesforce.com/agentforce/agentforce-and-rag/
6. (September 23, 2020). Salesforce Announces Digital 360 - Transforming Customer Engagement for the All-Digital, Work from Anywhere World. Salesforce. https://www.salesforce.com/news/press-releases/2020/09/23/salesforce-announces-digital-360-transforming-customer-engagement-for-the-all-digital-work-from-anywhere-world/
7. (September 20, 2022). Salesforce Announces Genie - a New Data Platform Powering the World's First Real-Time CRM. Salesforce. https://www.salesforce.com/news/press-releases/2022/09/20/genie-news/
8. (February 16, 2025). Glossary of Salesforce Product Name Changes. Salesforce Ben. https://www.salesforceben.com/glossary-of-salesforce-product-name-changes/
9. (2026). Data 360 Pricing. Salesforce. https://www.salesforce.com/data/pricing/
10. (2026). Data Cloud - Zero Copy Connectivity. Salesforce. https://www.salesforce.com/data/connectivity/zero-copy/
11. (2026). Build a Segment and Report. Salesforce Trailhead. https://trailhead.salesforce.com/content/learn/projects/explore-data-cloud-core-functionality/build-a-segment-and-report
12. (2026). Object Model in Data 360. Salesforce Developers. https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/data/data-cloud-dev/guide/dc-object-model.html
13. (January 23, 2024). Unleashing the Power of Data Actions Using a Webhook as a Target. Salesforce Developers Blog. https://developer.salesforce.com/blogs/2024/01/unleashing-the-power-of-data-actions-using-a-webhook-as-a-target
14. (August 19, 2026). Headless 360 expands across the Salesforce platform. Salesforce. https://www.salesforce.com/news/stories/expanding-headless-360-enterprise-capabilities/