Salesforce Revenue Cloud: Changes, Product Comparisons, Features, and Considerations

Author: Adam Cheslyn, Solution Architect

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One of the biggest topics at Dreamforce 2024, aside from Agentforce and AI, was Salesforce Revenue Cloud. The solution name isn't new, but the product itself is. Not a surprise if you’ve been around the Salesforce ecosystem for a while, as Salesforce has a history of changing up products and/or names as technology progresses. 

Revenue Cloud updates are definitely in our wheelhouse, as our team is full of revenue solution enthusiasts (myself included), and recently conducted an in-depth comparison and needs analysis of Salesforce Revenue Cloud vs. Salesforce CPQ for a client — so, we’ll be sharing the love (and info) in this blog, including:

• A Revenue Cloud/CPQ timeline
• A Revenue Cloud vs. Sales Cloud vs. CPQ comparison
• Revenue Cloud general features 
• How to figure out if Revenue Cloud makes sense for your business
• Next steps

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Salesforce Revenue Cloud Timeline

For years Salesforce Revenue Cloud was made up of two products, Salesforce CPQ and Salesforce Billing. 

• Salesforce acquired Steelbrick CPQ in early 2016 
• Steelbrick CPQ became Salesforce CPQ 
• Salesforce Billing was introduced in 2018

Over time, Salesforce CLM (Contract-Lifecycle Management), which requires Salesforce CPQ and Billing, worked its way into the mix.

• All three products (Salesforce CPQ + Billing + CLM) then fell under the Revenue Cloud umbrella 

As technology, particularly modern AI, began getting more and more integrated into business solutions, Salesforce started developing a revenue lifecycle management (RLM) solution, which they released in March of 2024 (briefly known as Salesforce RLM). 

This solution offers parity to CPQ features, and includes CLM and Billing functionality — but was developed on the Einstein 1 platform (Salesforce’s advanced data architecture and AI), whereas CPQ is a managed package that functions as a ‘bolt-on’ solution.

• Not long after its introduction, Salesforce RLM’s name was changed to Salesforce Revenue Cloud
• To differentiate, the products formerly known as Revenue Cloud have reverted back to their individual product names (Salesforce CPQ, Salesforce Billing, and Salesforce CLM)

*Keep in mind that, depending on when you’re reading this, Salesforce may still be in the process of updating their content and links to reflect this change

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Revenue Cloud Product Comparison and Feature Deep-Dive

Before we get into product comparisons and features it’s really helpful to understand the typical Salesforce journey for a client who is interested in Salesforce revenue and revenue lifecycle management solutions:

• Clients normally begin by transitioning to Salesforce Sales Cloud (which is a world-class CRM, but has a relationship/account management focus)

• When a client’s end-users start going through their quote-to-cash/order-to-invoice process, starting with opportunities, it often becomes apparent that additional tools would help expedite and improve processes further

• In order to move away from manual processes, address additional pain points, consolidate vendors, etc — it’s at this point we usually see clients begin looking at tools like Salesforce CPQ and Revenue Cloud

Salesforce Sales Cloud, CPQ, and Revenue Cloud do have some features that overlap, but there are some pretty major differences: 

• Sales Cloud is the platform for Salesforce revenue solutions, including CPQ and Revenue Cloud 

• CPQ adds functionality as a managed package to Sales Cloud for more complex catalogs, configuration, pricing, and quoting, but requires add-ons to expand functionality further

• Revenue Cloud has the bells and whistles to manage the complete revenue lifecycle through Sales Cloud; it was purpose-built to use next-gen AI, its build is ‘on-core’, it includes more functionality out-of-the-box, and is more end-user focused, advanced, and robust    

A lot of the stuff your friendly-neighborhood Salesforce Admin does with unique groups or workarounds so you can do cool things in CPQ — and a lot of the things the Salesforce community has been asking for (we’re looking at you Ramp Deals and consumption-based selling) — are easier to achieve with Revenue Cloud because it’s using that next-gen technology.

Let’s do a side-by-side key feature comparison for Revenue Cloud, Sales Cloud, and CPQ, followed by a Revenue Cloud deep-dive of standard general features, to illustrate the differences further:

Revenue Cloud general feature deep-dive:

Product Catalog Management - robust catalog searchable by feature attributes; can visually see components bundled together.

• You can go to your catalog, see a product, what’s included, and what’s optional — laid out in a user-friendly flow
• Dynamic attributes can be set up by an Admin, which establish baselines for cloning products of the same type (much faster to get to market than starting net new)

Salesforce Pricing - more definitive and refined ability to price outside of standards; gives organizations the ability to have more complex pricing procedures and end-users the ability to actively run through those procedures in real-time.

• Pricing can be done from your catalog or quoting tool
• Allows for much better version control with pricing tables, as you can create a version of your catalog data that is not active, and switch over to that version at any time — rather than changing data live during an overnight update

Advanced Quoting - offers ability to breakdown quotes into waterfall view of pricing, to see where costs are applied, where discounting is added (if it’s added), etc. 

‍Order Fulfillment Management and Tracking - on-platform functionality for post-sale extension that transitions quote into an asset.

‍Advanced Asset Management* - no more subscriptions, everything is done directly on-platform from the asset, including renewal, amendments, cancellation etc. 

‍Contract Lifecycle Management** - same as existing CLM, but not an add-on and more end-user friendly.

‍Salesforce Billing** - same as existing CLM, but not an add-on and more end-user friendly.

*Subscriptions are assets in Revenue Cloud

**Products included with Salesforce Revenue Cloud and available as a separate purchase if you have Salesforce CPQ

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Figuring Out if Revenue Cloud Makes Sense For Your Business

We mentioned at the beginning of this blog that Kicksaw recently did a Salesforce Revenue Cloud vs. Salesforce CPQ/need analysis for a client  — and we can tell you that a business, process, and solution analysis is 100% necessary before you take any next steps. 

Not because we’re trying to drive business (although we’d love to work with you if Kicksaw is a good fit), but because of the amount of considerations you need to review to understand if Revenue Cloud is a smart investment for your organization. 

If you’re looking into Revenue Cloud or any other revenue solution, including Salesforce CPQ, you can begin by asking yourself:

• What are the key pain points with your existing processes and solution(s)?
• What does your existing technical debt and solution maturity look like?
• When weighing various solution options, how do things like disruption, overall value, cost, resource availability, level of effort, etc. factor into each approach?
• As a continuation of the question above, what is the impact of your existing solution on your overall business operations vs. a completely on-platform solution, vs. something in between?
• How advanced are you getting post-opportunity (i.e., do you need advanced capabilities for product catalog management, dynamic pricing, quoting, CLM, etc. for sustainability and growth)?
• What do your processes look like post-sale (i.e., do you have on-platform functionality for things like order fulfillment and asset tracking)?
• What is your existing solution’s impact on the customer and employee experience?

The optimal candidate for Revenue Cloud will generally fall into this category:

• Okay with a generous timeline, from phase zero to completion
• Okay using an implementation partner with technology expertise to take advantage of advanced modeling, workflows, etc.
• Interested in getting products to market as fast as possible, consumption-based selling, and/or have an ever-evolving pricing table
• Need advanced ERP interfacing with Salesforce for fulfillment and invoicing
• Have a sophisticated catalog with well-defined attribution
• Wants to reduce technical debt

And/or:

• Have CPQ and are considering CLM and Billing
• Are a fast-scaling organization with an internal Salesforce Administration team considering CPQ 
• Have a bloated CPQ instance and are interested in starting over

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Next Steps

We tried to add as much information as possible into this blog without being totally overwhelming, but are happy to fill in gaps, answer questions, and/or offer assistance figuring out next steps.

The last thing we want is for someone to pump themselves up for a solution just because it sounds great (we’ve fallen in love with it at Kicksaw based on what we’ve seen so far, so we totally understand). You can hit us up at the link above for a needs analysis to see if it’s a good fit or if you need to take another direction. 

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