Get Started with Data 360 Credit Consumption

Learning Objectives

After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:

• Explain how Data 360 consumes credits.
  
• Identify strategies to reduce credit consumption.
  

This content only applies to customers with a Data 360 license. Data 360 customers whose orgs are contracted as Customer Data Platform orgs should refer to Customer Data Platform Billable Usage Calculations.

What Are Data 360 Credits?

Data 360 credits are digital currency that you use to pay for Data 360 services. Data 360 pricing is consumption-based, meaning you only spend as many credits as the services you use. You can directly impact your cost by controlling your usage. This makes Data 360 pricing flexible for different use cases. A small company that’s just getting started with Data 360 and has simple projects consumes far fewer credits compared to a company with large datasets and complex projects. With consumption-based pricing, it’s important to plan your usage so you don’t accidentally consume more credits than anticipated.

Depending on your use cases and add-on licenses, there are different types of credits and amounts of data storage.

Refer to Data 360 Billable Usage Types to learn about types of credits in more detail.

Compare Credit Types

You can choose between two types of credits to power Data 360.

Data Services Credits

Data Services credits are unique to Data 360, and can only be used to power Data 360 services. They’re divided into 21 different categories, called usage types, that cover different types of usage. Usage types have different usage rates.

Flex Credits

Flex Credits are interchangeable across Data 360, Agentforce, and several other Salesforce features. They include 11 different usage types for Data 360 services, along with usage types for generative AI, LLM prompts, and other things. Data 360 Flex Credit usage types are each charged at a specific rate for the first 300,000 credits of usage per month, and additional usage in any usage type is automatically discounted.

If your org has both Data Services credits and Flex credits, you’ll have to re-contract to switch to Flex Credits after you use up your Data Services credits.

For more details about the credit types, see Data Services Billable Usage Types for Data 360 and Flex Credits Billable Usage Types for Data 360.

What Consumes Data 360 Credits?

You have a Data 360 license, you have your credits, and you’re ready to start using Data 360. Let’s see how it works.

When you use a service in Data 360, you generate a usage event. Usage events consume credits, and each usage event has a usage type. You can group each usage type under a consumption category.

For example, when you ingest data through MuleSoft in an hourly batch data event, you generate a usage in the Batch Data Pipeline usage type.

It’s important to keep in mind that features can consume credits from more than one usage type. For example, you can probably guess that you consume credits in the Batch Data Transforms usage type when you run a batch transform. However, you might not guess that you’ll also consume credits from the Data Queries usage type when you preview a data transform.

Look for the feature’s billing considerations page to check what usage types the feature consumes. For example, Billing Considerations for Data Transforms.

Calculate Your Cost with Data Services Credits

Each usage type has a unit and multiplier. The unit represents how much data is considered 1 unit of usage. This is 1 million for every usage type. For Data 360, the multiplier represents how many credits are consumed by 1 unit of usage. Multiply this number by your usage to get the total credits consumed. Refer to the rate card linked in the Resources section for current multipliers. To calculate how many credits are consumed in a usage event, you need to know the usage type, the multiplier for the usage type, and how much data was processed.

Assume d represents the total amount of data processed, m represents the multiplier for the usage type, and u represents unit.

Credits consumed = (d/u) × m

Let’s calculate credit consumption for creating a batch calculated insight (CI) on 20 million rows of data. Set d to 20,000,000, m to 15, and u to 1,000,000.

(20,000,000/1,000,000) × 15 = 20 × 15 = 300 credits

Credits are consumed again when the CI refreshes. You set the CI to refresh every day. By the next day, your data grew to 20,200,000 rows.

(20,200,000/1,000,000) × 15 = 20.2 × 15 = 303 credits

The calculated insight costs more and more credits as the data grows.

Calculate Your Cost with Flex Credits

If you're using Flex Credits to power Data 360, the more you use, the more you save. Each usage type still has a unit and a multiplier, and you use the same formula as before.

Credits consumed = (d/u) × m

The difference is that with Flex Credits, the multiplier is discounted as your credit consumption increases. Each usage type moves through four pricing tiers, and the tiers reset at the start of every month.

Let's calculate credit consumption for creating a batch calculated insight (CI) on 20 million rows of data. When you use Flex Credits, batch calculated insights are billed in the Data 360 Prep usage type, which uses the following rates.

Set d to 20,000,000, m to 40, and u to 1,000,000.

(20,000,000 / 1,000,000) × 40 = 20 × 40 = 800 credits

If your Data 360 Prep usage this month is still under 300,000 credits, all 800 credits are billed at the base rate.

Now let's see what happens when a run crosses a tier. Assume your current monthly usage is 299,600 credits and a new run would consume 800 credits.

After this run, your total would be 300,400, which crosses the 300,000-credit threshold. The system evaluates the tier at the start and end of the run, then applies the lower multiplier to the entire event.

So this run is billed at the Tier 2 multiplier of 32.

(20,000,000 / 1,000,000) x 32 = 20 x 32 = 640 credits

The same run costs less than 800 because it fell into the cheaper tier.

Over a heavy month, a single usage type can pass through several tiers, and each threshold you cross lowers the rate for the usage that follows. To estimate and track your usage accurately, use the rate card linked in the Resources section and the Digital Wallet tool.

Make Your Credits Count

It’s important to find ways to optimize your use of Data 360 and accurately meet your needs with what you purchase. Here are strategies to cut back on extra usage.

• Opt for batch over streaming. Streaming processes data continuously, but consumes more credits than batch processing. If your use case isn’t time sensitive, save credits by using batch data.
  
• Deactivate projects that aren’t being used, such as outdated segments that are still running.
  
• Only bring in relevant data for your use case. For example, limit the profiles you bring in to those that were active within the last year.
  
• Process data less often. For example, if the use case for your calculated insight isn’t time sensitive, set it to refresh every day instead of every hour.
  

Look for tips for reducing credit consumption in the billing considerations for each feature.

Monitor Your Credit Usage

Use the Digital Wallet tool to review your credit usage for better budgeting. Learn more in the Salesforce Digital Wallet: Quick Look module.

You can also build reports and dig into your data deeper using tags called Data 360 resource references. Learn more in Data 360 Reportable Resource References.

Taking a proactive approach to credit usage is the first step in designing cost-efficient projects in Data 360. Now you understand how Data 360 consumes credits and how to optimize your Data 360 credits.

Resources

• Salesforce: Data Services Rate Card
• Salesforce: Flex Credits Rate Card
• Salesforce White Paper: Understanding Consumption Billing: Breaking Down an Enriched Related Lists Use Case