SteelBrick licence cost after the acquisition

SteelBrick is a name you now meet mostly in metadata. The product Salesforce bought in 2016 became Salesforce CPQ, and the objects it installed still carry the SBQQ prefix in every org that adopted it. Salesforce stopped selling CPQ to new customers in March 2025. That single fact shapes the whole licence conversation, because it splits buyers into two groups with different problems: existing customers deciding what to do at renewal, and new customers who are offered Revenue Cloud instead.

This guide covers what you pay Salesforce in each case. It does not cover the project to move quoting from one to the other. That belongs in the SteelBrick implementation cost guide.

#Two products, two kinds of price

The renewal question for an existing CPQ customer and the buying question for a new Revenue Cloud customer look similar and are not.

The Revenue Cloud figures come from Salesforce's Revenue Cloud pricing page, which we read on 13 October 2026, and which states that the editions are billed annually and subject to change. The Billing line is described there as an add-on that is sold separately from its pre-requisite products and requires an annual contract. For existing CPQ we could not find a current public list price, so that cell is deliberately not a number.

#What an existing CPQ renewal is

If you already run CPQ, you are on a contract whose price was set when you bought, adjusted at each renewal. You can keep renewing, adding users and receiving support. What you cannot expect is a public list to check your renewal against, and that changes how you prepare.

Start from the order form, not from the web. Pull the current seat count, the unit price, the term, the renewal date and any uplift cap. Then ask your account executive for three things in writing: the renewal price for the same seats, the price for an extra block of seats mid-term, and how any move to Revenue Cloud would be credited, if at all. Do not assume that years of CPQ spend earn a credit against a new product. Whether you get one is a negotiated outcome, not a published rule.

The renewal is also where shelfware shows up. CPQ seats are often bought during a rollout and never reduced. A quote engine that was licensed for two hundred users when the team was sales plus channel and is now used by sixty is paying for the difference every year.

#What Revenue Cloud is priced on

Revenue Cloud is priced per user per month and billed annually. The page is plain on how it relates to Sales Cloud: "No, Revenue Cloud is a paid add-on. It is a separate product that you purchase in addition to your standard Sales Cloud subscription." The practical consequence is that the all-in cost of a quoting seat is the Sales Cloud licence the user already needs plus the Revenue Cloud line on top. When someone shows you a Revenue Cloud price, ask whether it is being compared with a full CPQ seat or with the incremental cost over what you already pay for Sales Cloud. The two are not the same number.

The page also says of the edition ladder: "This edition requires an annual contract." That is a commitment worth planning around. There is no month-to-month option on the listed editions, so a seat bought in error stays for the term.

The two editions differ in scope. Growth is described as streamlined CPQ and subscription management, with quoting, a configurator, order capture and subscriptions. The upper edition is described as a complete quote-to-cash platform and adds contracts and orders, consumption and invoicing, and AI and analytics. A business that only quotes and renews subscriptions may never need the upper edition, and the US$50 a month difference per user is the price of finding that out too late.

#The seat arithmetic

Per-user pricing makes the sizing exercise concrete, so it is worth a worked example. These are illustrations of list arithmetic, not quotes.

Forty quoting users on Growth is 40 times US$150 times twelve, or US$72,000 a year. The same forty on the upper edition is US$96,000. In Australian dollars the figures are AU$100,800 and AU$134,400. Add the Sales Cloud licences those users already hold, and any support plan that scales with licence value, and the total is larger. Billing, if you take it, is by quote and sits on top.

The sensitivity is what matters. Ten users fewer on the upper edition saves US$24,000 a year at list. Moving twenty users who only ever read quotes onto a cheaper arrangement, if the product allows it, saves more than any discount you are likely to negotiate on the headline price. Ask Salesforce which roles consume a Revenue Cloud licence and which can be served another way, because the answer is not on the pricing page.

#Revenue Cloud Billing is its own conversation

Billing is the one line on the Revenue Cloud page with no figure at all. It reads "Request a Quote", it is sold as an add-on separately from the products it depends on, and it requires an annual contract. The capabilities it lists are usage rating and a digital wallet, an invoicing engine with document production, and an accounting subledger. The price is therefore set in a conversation about what you will rate and invoice, and that conversation depends on your billing models, your volumes and how many entities you invoice from. If you only need quoting and subscription management, you can price Growth and leave Billing for a later year. If you plan to invoice from Salesforce, ask for the Billing quote in the same negotiation as the seat price, since a discount on one is easier to win when the other is on the table.

#What the two Revenue Cloud editions include

The pricing page is specific about the ladder, and the detail is worth quoting back to a seller. Growth is listed with a quoting and configurator capability, order capture and subscriptions. The upper edition is listed as everything in Growth plus contracts and orders, consumption and invoicing, and AI and analytics. A quote-to-cash programme that runs contracts and usage-based invoicing from Salesforce needs the upper edition. A programme that quotes, captures orders and manages subscription renewals does not. Make the seller show which listed capability you are paying the extra US$50 per user for.

#Budgeting the overlap

Moving from CPQ to Revenue Cloud is a rebuild on a different data model, so for a period you may hold both. Budget the overlap explicitly. If forty users sit on both for six months, the Growth licences alone cost 40 times US$150 times six, or US$36,000, on top of the CPQ renewal you still pay. Ask whether the Revenue Cloud contract can start on a ramp, with seats added as teams cut over, and whether the CPQ contract can step down at its next anniversary rather than lapse on the day of go-live. A ramped start and a stepped exit are worth more than a headline discount.

#Right-sizing the licence count

Start by separating who creates quotes from who touches them. In many organisations a small group builds quotes, a larger group approves them, and a still larger group views them. Find out which of those groups needs a paid licence under the contract you hold or are offered, and count them from your own usage data rather than from your headcount.

Pull twelve months of quote creation by user. Users with no quotes in that period are candidates for removal at renewal. Users who create a quote a quarter might be better served by a colleague who builds on their behalf, if your sales process allows it.

Then look at edition fit. List which features you use today: price rules, product bundles, discount schedules, amendments and renewals, usage-based pricing, billing. If you use none of the consumption or invoicing features, the upper edition's extra cost buys nothing you will touch this year.

Finally, plan growth in blocks. Ask for the price of additional seats at the contract rate, so that adding ten users in month seven is not a fresh negotiation at list.

#Contract and renewal mechanics

A CPQ or Revenue Cloud contract has a few terms that matter more than the headline.

The term and renewal. Revenue Cloud requires an annual contract. Ask what notice is needed to reduce seats and whether you can reduce at all during a multi-year term.

The uplift. Ask whether the renewal price is capped and what the cap is. A renewal at list is a different proposition from a renewal at a capped increase on last year's price.

The support plan. Salesforce's pricing pages show the Standard plan included in all licences, the Premier plan as a stated share of net licence fees, and the Signature plan through your account executive. Since Premier scales with the licence value, a seat reduction lowers it too.

The relationship to Sales Cloud. Because Revenue Cloud sits on top of a Sales Cloud licence, a change in your Sales Cloud edition can change what you need. Ask whether any Revenue Cloud features depend on the Sales Cloud edition you hold.

#Comparing offers

You will often be comparing three things at once: renewing CPQ as it is, moving to Revenue Cloud Growth, and moving to the upper edition. Put them in one table with the same columns: seats, unit price, annual cost, term, uplift, what is included, and what is not.

Be careful about what is being compared. A CPQ renewal covers the quoting you have. A Revenue Cloud offer covers a different data model and a different feature set, and a move is a rebuild rather than an upgrade. That does not make it a bad idea, since CPQ is closed to new customers, but the licence comparison is only half of the decision. The other half is the project cost, which sits in the implementation guide, and the timeline over which you would run both.

Ask each seller to price your actual seat count and your actual term, and to state whether the price assumes a credit for your existing CPQ spend. A quote that includes a credit you have not seen in writing is a promise, not a price.

#Where the other questions sit

Scope, hours and partner selection for a quoting project are in the SteelBrick implementation cost guide and on the SteelBrick implementation page. The purchase story is in what happened to SteelBrick. How quotes connect to other objects is in integrating SteelBrick with Salesforce, and whether and when to move is in should I migrate from SteelBrick.