How to Set Up Salesforce Starter or Pro Suite for Your Team

By the end of this guide your team will have a Salesforce org on Starter Suite or Pro Suite, with the right people set up, email syncing and a few AI-assisted tasks to try. Salesforce is large, so this guide sticks to what a small team needs first.

Before you start

Choose one admin who will own the setup. Salesforce says setup of email sync is shared work between a Salesforce admin and often the Microsoft or Google account admin, so pick someone with access to both. Make a list of your team and your customer records.

Edition	What it adds for a team	Price as listed
Starter Suite	Lead, account, contact and opportunity management, built-in sales flows, lead routing, AI that syncs emails, events and contacts, email marketing	$25 per user per month, monthly or annual
Pro Suite	Everything in Starter plus more customization and automation, sales quoting and forecasting, access to AgentExchange	$100 per user per month, annual
Core and above	More AI and security. AI can be added to Core and above	See the current price on the pricing page

These prices are from Salesforce’s pricing page, which says they are for information only and subject to change. Both editions list a free trial. Premier Support is an add-on for Pro Suite.

Create the account and workspace

The pricing page offers trials. Salesforce’s help pages do not list the sign-up clicks, so follow the on-screen prompts and the vendor’s guides.

1. Open the pricing page and start a trial of Starter Suite or Pro Suite.
2. Sign up with the admin’s work email.
3. Open the Getting Started article and read its Setup Best Practices link before you add data.

Salesforce’s Getting Started article says the Home app has setup suggestions under View All Cards. For Pro Suite, click More and star your favorite apps in the App Launcher so they appear in the navigation bar. The ? icon in the global header opens the Guidance Center with tutorials and setup shortcuts.

Invite your team

Salesforce keeps its add-user steps in separate articles. The Getting Started article’s navigation lists User Permissions and Manage User Access as related articles, so use those for the current steps.

1. Open Salesforce Help from the ? icon in the global header.
2. Search for the Manage User Access article and follow its steps to add each person.
3. Give each person only the access their job needs.

Plan your seats before you invite people, because both editions are priced per user.

Set the admin and data settings

Salesforce describes an Einstein Trust Layer for its AI. According to its AI trust page, zero data retention means prompts and responses are never stored or used to train the underlying third-party large language models. The page also says the data belongs to the customer. It says sensitive personal and business data is replaced with non-identifiable tokens before a prompt goes to the language model. The page does not give retention periods or name the providers. It also calls the feature both Salesforce Trust Layer and Einstein Trust Layer.

For Einstein Activity Capture, Salesforce’s help article says the admin configures settings that can be tailored to different user roles, and the article has a security section to review. See our guide on writing an AI use policy for staff rules on customer data.

Connect your other apps

Email and calendar are the most common first connection. Salesforce’s Einstein Activity Capture article says it is available in Starter and Pro Suite and syncs a Microsoft or Google account with Salesforce. It links email and calendar activity to the relevant contacts, leads and opportunities.

1. The Salesforce admin connects Salesforce to the existing Microsoft or Google account.
2. The admin configures the Einstein Activity Capture settings.
3. Each user then connects and customizes their own personal settings.

The article links out to the click paths, so follow the links inside it. The pricing page also lists Slack in some higher editions, but not in Starter or Pro Suite.

Tasks to try first

Log customer emails without typing

Use this on day one so your pipeline reflects real conversations. After the admin finishes the connection, ask each person to connect their own account, then agree this rule:

Rule: every customer email and meeting is synced through Einstein Activity Capture.
Check: each Friday, open three opportunities and confirm the latest email appears on the timeline.

Import your customer list

Use this to start with real records. Use the Import button in the list view of a tab, such as contacts, after reading Setup Best Practices.

Spreadsheet columns: First name, Last name, Email, Phone, Company
Clean-up before upload: remove duplicates, fix obvious typos, one row per person.

Draft a follow-up with an AI assistant

Use this after a quote. Edit before sending, and keep private details out.

Write a short follow-up email to [name] about our quote for [service] sent on [date]. Ask whether they have questions, suggest a short call, and keep it under 90 words. Do not promise a price or date I did not give you.

Common problems

If your needs grow past Starter or Pro Suite, Salesforce’s pricing page shows higher editions with more AI and security. It says AI can be added to Core and above, and some Agentforce features are available for purchase. Check the current price before you plan for them.