Salesforce renewals: the 30-day notice, why licences cannot drop mid-term and how pricing works at renewal

A Salesforce subscription does not simply end when its term does. Under Salesforce's Main Services Agreement, unless your Order Form says otherwise, subscriptions automatically renew for additional one year terms unless either party gives the other written notice, and email is acceptable, at least 30 days before the end of the term. Miss that and you are committed, and paying, for another year.

What makes Salesforce harder than most is that the 30 days in the contract is not the date that matters in practice. Salesforce opens the renewal 90 days before the contract end date, licence quantities cannot be reduced during a term, and a smaller renewal can be re-priced. This guide covers how the term and renewal work, the notice window, what you can add and remove and when, how renewal pricing works, and what happens to your data if you leave. It is based on Salesforce's Main Services Agreement (the version last updated on 1 September 2026) and its help articles as they stood in October 2026. Under the agreement's order of precedence your Order Form comes first, so where it says something different, it wins: read yours alongside this guide.

The term and the default one-year renewal

• Term: the length of each subscription is whatever your Order Form states. Salesforce's renewal FAQ says its standard contract term is 12 months, and that shorter terms need special approval and may not be available in all circumstances.
• Renewal: except as otherwise specified in an Order Form, subscriptions automatically renew for additional one year terms. On the agreement's default, even a multi-year contract renews one year at a time, so check what your Order Form says about the renewal term.
• Billing: charges are made in advance, annually or at whatever billing frequency your Order Form states. The billing frequency is separate from the term, so paying in instalments does not change when the term ends.
• Auto-renew or not: Salesforce's renewal FAQ says some contracts are set to renew manually instead. Those require you to review and sign a new quote before the contract end date, otherwise your Salesforce services will end. You can check which type you have in the Billing Portal under Contracts.

The notice window: 30 days in the contract, 90 days in practice

The agreement's minimum is written notice at least 30 days before the end of the subscription term, from either side, and clause 11.2 says email is acceptable. No reason is needed. If your Order Form sets a different period, that one applies, and the same goes for notice periods on any other contract.

Salesforce's own renewal process starts much earlier. Its renewal FAQ says the renewal window begins 90 days before the Contract End Date, that this is the earliest point at which you can make changes, and that it is also the cutoff for some adjustments. For changes, its standard policy requests at least 30 days' notice from your renewal deadline, and it warns that a request made in the 30 days before the contract end date may be too late. Read together, notice inside the last 30 days is out of time under the default terms, and anything more involved than a straight cancellation, such as changing products, quantities or the term, should start as close to the 90-day mark as you can manage.

How to give notice of non-renewal

For an annual contract, Salesforce's Manage Renewals help article describes the route in the Your Account app. It needs the Manage Billing permission or the Manage Subscriptions in Your Account: Identity User permission set.

1. 1Launch the Your Account app and click Go to Contracts.
2. 2Select the contract, then click Manage Renewal. The button only appears once the contract is within 90 days of renewal.
3. 3Click Don't Renew to cancel the annual contract, Contact Us to send a change request to your Renewal Manager, or Confirm Renewal to renew it as it stands.
4. 4Confirm that you are authorised to cancel, modify and renew the contract.

The same article says Salesforce cannot accommodate cancellation requests until it is time to renew, and that renewal management is unavailable in some cases, when it points you to your Renewal Manager instead. On a monthly Starter subscription, it says to turn off automatic renewal by clicking Log Case on the Salesforce Contract page and selecting the Renewals option, and Salesforce's cancellation article tells anyone with an active paid subscription who wants to cancel to contact its Customer Service Billing Department. Whichever route you take, keep written proof of the date. Because clause 11.2 accepts email, an email to your Renewal Manager saying you will not renew, and their acknowledgement, is a useful backstop. See how to serve a notice of non-renewal for the wording.

Licence quantities cannot go down mid-term

Clause 5.1 of the agreement says that, except as otherwise specified in the agreement or an Order Form, fees are based on subscriptions purchased and not actual usage, payment obligations are non-cancelable, fees paid are non-refundable, and quantities purchased cannot be decreased during the relevant subscription term.

• Bought, not used: deactivating a leaver frees their licence for someone else, but it does not reduce what you pay, because fees follow the quantity purchased. The bill only falls when a smaller quantity is agreed for a new term.
• The renewal is the moment: Salesforce's renewal FAQ lists adding or removing Salesforce products, adjusting your contract term and choosing not to renew among the changes you can make during the renewal window.
• No refund for unused licences: the agreement only refunds prepaid fees for the rest of the term if you terminate for cause, meaning a material breach still uncured 30 days after written notice, or the other party's insolvency.

So the work of reclaiming unused seats has to be done before the renewal window opens, not after: count the licences actually assigned and in use, decide the quantity for the next term, and raise it in the window.

Added licences end with the contract

Adding is easier than removing. Under clause 3.1, unless the Order Form or Documentation says otherwise, subscriptions may be added during a term at the same pricing as the underlying subscription, prorated for the part of the term remaining, and any added subscriptions terminate on the same date as the underlying ones.

Two things follow. A licence added three months before the end date is charged for those three months, at the price you already pay, rather than for a full year. And once added, it is part of the quantity you have bought, so under clause 5.1 it cannot be removed until the term ends. Salesforce's help describes buying more in the Your Account app: click Browse & Buy, select a contract in the Product Catalog, then use the Manage Your Products tab to add licences for a product you already have. If you have several contracts, check you have picked the right one, because added subscriptions end when that contract does. It is the same idea as co-terminating your contracts across vendors, built into the agreement.

What you pay at renewal

Clause 11.2 has two rules about price that matter for the budget.

• Promotional prices end: except as expressly provided in the Order Form, renewal of promotional or one-time priced subscriptions will be at Salesforce's applicable list price in effect at the time of the renewal. If your first term was on a promotion, expect the renewal to be quoted at list unless the Order Form protects the price.
• Shrinking re-prices the deal: any renewal in which the subscription volume or subscription length for any service has decreased from the prior term will result in re-pricing at renewal without regard to the prior term's per-unit pricing. Cutting licences or moving to a shorter term can therefore change the price per licence, so compare the total cost of each option, not just the quantity.

The agreement sets no cap on renewal price rises. If you want one, it has to be written into the Order Form, ideally before you sign; see how to cap a renewal uplift and how to negotiate the renewal.

Leaving: your data and the 30-day request window

Clause 2.2 says that, on a request made within 30 days after the effective date of termination or expiration, Salesforce will make your Customer Data available for export or download. After that 30-day period it has no obligation to maintain or provide any Customer Data, and will then delete or destroy it unless legally prohibited.

Salesforce's help describes some extra time in practice. After a paid subscription expires or is terminated, the org is placed in a LOCKED status that you cannot log in to, and Salesforce retains the data for a 120-day grace period as a courtesy before the org is marked for deletion. A courtesy export from a locked org has to be requested through Salesforce Support, and a System Administrator then logs in to download it. A courtesy is not a contractual right, so do not plan around it.

Export before the end date instead. The Data Export service, found by entering Data Export in Setup's Quick Find box, produces a zip archive of CSV files: weekly on Enterprise, Performance and Unlimited Editions, and monthly on every edition except Database.com. Salesforce deletes the zip files 48 hours after the notification email is sent, not counting weekends, and formula and roll-up summary fields are always excluded, so download promptly and check the export holds what you need.

Make sure the renewal reaches the right people

Salesforce's renewal FAQ says renewal notices are sent to the Billing Contact on your contract, and that if that contact is outdated, such as a former employee's email, the notice may never reach you. To fix it, log in to the Billing Portal, go to Manage Users and confirm the right name and email address are assigned to each contract. Under the agreement, billing-related notices go to the billing contact you designate and all other notices to the Services system administrator, so check both when someone leaves and add them to your offboarding checklist.

A routine for the Salesforce renewal

1. 1For each contract, write down the products, licence quantities, the contract end date, the renewal type shown in the Billing Portal, and any notice period, renewal term or pricing terms in the Order Form.
2. 2About four months before the end date, before the 90-day window opens, review which licences are assigned and in use, and decide the quantities and term you want for the next year.
3. 3When the renewal window opens, 90 days before the end date, raise any changes with your Renewal Manager or through Manage Renewal, and expect a smaller renewal to be re-priced.
4. 4To leave, run a full data export first, then give notice through Don't Renew or in writing, at least 30 days before the term ends and preferably much sooner, and keep the confirmation.
5. 5Check that the Billing Contact on each contract is a current person.

Each vendor in this series handles seats and renewals its own way. If you also run HubSpot or Microsoft 365, read those guides too rather than applying one rule of thumb to every tool.

Tracking Salesforce in StackTrackr

Record each Salesforce contract as its own tool, and split products out where they sit on separate contracts with different end dates. Enter the cost of the full year with an annual billing cycle, even if Salesforce invoices you more often, because the term is annual. Set the renewal date to the contract end date shown in the Billing Portal, and under License key and seats enter the licence quantity on your current Order Form, updating it when you add licences mid-term. If the contract is a manual renewal, switch auto-renew off: there is then no cancellation deadline, and the reminders count down to the end date, when the new quote has to be signed.

For an auto-renewing contract, enter a notice period of 30 days, or the period in your Order Form if it differs. StackTrackr then works out the cancellation deadline, shows it in the register's Cancel by column, and reminds you ahead of it and again on the day. Starter alerts at 30 and 7 days; Team and up use a cadence you set, 90, 60, 30 and 7 days by default, so the 90-day renewal reminder arrives as Salesforce's renewal window opens. If the renewal quote comes in higher, schedule the price change with the date it takes effect so your forecasts include it. Keep the Order Form, the renewal quote and your notice in the tool's document vault. Have a look at what it tracks, or start a free trial and add your Salesforce contracts first.