Salesforce Removes Paywall and Makes Flow Orchestration Free

Salesforce has announced that Flow Orchestration is now available as a standard Flow type, meaning it’s included in core Flow – with no separate licensing or add-on purchase needed. 

So, if you’ve been eyeing Flow Orchestration but held off due to cost or access hurdles, that excuse no longer applies.

The Old Model

Flow Orchestration has been around for a few years, and its potential was evident from the outset. After all, the ability to string together multi-step, multi-user processes in a single orchestration (without writing a single line of code) opens up many possibilities for weaving together automation processes.

The catch was that access wasn’t universal, as it required an add-on, which meant it was out of reach for orgs that hadn’t purchased it separately.

On top of that, there are usage-based entitlements as well, capped at 600 free orchestration runs per org per year (except for flow approvals). That’s enough to test the waters, but not enough for bigger companies to build anything massive into production with confidence.

For many, the combination of licensing friction and consumption limits was enough to push trying out Flow Orchestration to the “maybe later” pile… which is a shame, because it deserved a much earlier shot.

A Bigger Role for Flow

This move actually continues a familiar pattern from Salesforce. Over the last couple of years, Salesforce has steadily recommended everyone move their automations over to Flow (bye-bye, Workflow Rules and Process Builder) and coupled that with progressive enhancements to Flow capabilities with every single release. It’s been positioned as the single best place to design business logic natively.

Making Flow Orchestration a standard flow type is the next logical step in that journey, as it removes one of the last remaining reasons an admin might avoid building complex multi-user processes in Flow. 

And if you look at all the flow types available today, it’s clear Salesforce has been systematically expanding what’s possible for users without requiring a single line of code.

What Does Flow Orchestration Do?

In a nutshell, Flow Orchestration lets you build processes that span multiple users, steps, and stages, all from within a single place in Flow Builder. The term “orchestration” is fitting. I like to think of it like an orchestra conductor. The conductor doesn’t play every instrument themselves, right? 

They’re there to coordinate the members of the orchestra and maintain structure to keep everyone in sync. Similar to that, Flow Orchestration coordinates the right people and processes, bringing them in at the right moment to pull off a process that none of them could manage alone.

If you’re already using or you’ve been playing around with Flow Approval Processes, orchestrations work the same way, just not limited to approvals. It is, however, perfect for approvals because it gives admins the ability to create a string of automations that may need to be assigned to different people for action along the way. Some other common use cases include:

• Employee Onboarding
• Incident Management
• Fulfillment of Orders
• Product Launch Readiness

…and so on. The possibilities are endless, and it all comes down to what your business truly needs.

The core building blocks are stages and steps. Stages group related steps together and run sequentially, while steps within a stage can be either interactive or background steps (depending on whether or not they need user interaction to proceed). 

What’s Changed?

As of this writing, Flow Orchestration is now a standard Flow Type – available to all orgs, no add-on required. The response to this news so far has been positive, with many in the community welcoming the change after years of the feature sitting just out of reach for a lot of orgs.

It was a common complaint that the limit of 600 orchestration runs was far too restrictive for anything expected to grow over time, so it’s equally good news that this “free tier” is now gone. Flow Orchestration is now treated like any ordinary Flow, meaning your usual edition-based Flow limits apply.

Final Thoughts

Salesforce has made a habit of taking things that used to require a workaround or a separate tool and making them native to the platform. Flow Orchestration is just the latest to get that treatment – and now with no licensing barriers and no run limits, nothing is holding you back from taking your automation plans straight to production (obviously, test it in a sandbox first, but you know what I mean).

I think this is a good reminder that – although it sometimes may not feel like it – Salesforce does listen. Between the IdeaExchange and three major releases a year, changes are constant.

There’s nothing to be afraid of when it comes to committing to Flow or specific features. The platform strives to keep getting better for more users, and moves like this one prove it.

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