A Product in Salesforce (technical API name Product2) is a sellable item or service in your sales catalog. It’s the catalog-level definition — what you sell — separate from how much you sell it for (that’s the Price Book) or whom you’ve sold it to (that’s the Opportunity / Quote / Order line items). Products are the foundation of any Sales Cloud implementation that involves catalog selling, CPQ, or revenue tracking by SKU.
What a Product record holds
| Field group | Examples |
|---|---|
| Identity | Product Name, Product Code (SKU), Product Family, Description |
| Status | Active checkbox (must be true for use on opportunities/quotes) |
| External Id | Product Code is often used as the integration key |
| Pricing pointers | (No price here directly — price lives in PricebookEntry) |
| Misc | Quantity Unit of Measure, Display URL, External Data Source |
The most important architectural point: the Product itself has no price. The Product is “what”; the Pricebook Entry says “how much in which book.”
The Product / Price Book / PricebookEntry triangle
Product2
/ \
/ \
PricebookEntry
(Product × Pricebook → Price)
\ /
\ /
Pricebook2- One Product2 can appear in many Pricebook2 records
- Each (Product, Pricebook) combination is a PricebookEntry holding the price for that product in that book
- The Standard Price Book is the master — every product needs an entry there before it can be added to any other price book
How Products flow into deals
- Admin creates a Product2 (e.g., “Acme Widget, Code: AW-100, Family: Hardware”).
- Admin creates a PricebookEntry linking AW-100 to the Standard Price Book at $99 USD.
- Optionally create entries in other Price Books (Premium, Discounted, Reseller).
- Sales rep opens an Opportunity, selects the appropriate Price Book.
- Rep adds Opportunity Line Items by picking products — only products in the selected Price Book appear.
- The line item gets price from the PricebookEntry, but the rep can override (or not, based on settings).
- The Opportunity’s Amount can be auto-rolled-up from line items (if you turn that on).
Products on Quotes and Orders
Quotes, Orders, and Contracts also reference products through their own line item objects:
- QuoteLineItem — products on a Quote, copied from Opportunity Line Items
- OrderItem — products on an Order
- ContractLineItem (depending on edition) — products on a Contract
When you generate a Quote from an Opportunity, the line items copy over. The product references the same Product2 record in all cases — you maintain product data once and use it everywhere.
Active vs Inactive products
The IsActive checkbox controls whether a product can be added to new opportunities/quotes. Inactive products:
- Don’t appear in the Add Products picker
- Existing references on past records still resolve fine (so you don’t break historical data)
- Can be reactivated at any time
Best practice: deactivate retired SKUs rather than delete them — preserves history.
Product Code / SKU
ProductCode is the freeform SKU field. Mark it as External Id to use it as an upsert key for integration from ERP / product information management systems. Combined with Unique, it becomes the durable key across systems.
Product Family
Family is a picklist used to categorize products for reporting and forecasting. Common families: Hardware, Software, Services, Maintenance. Salesforce Forecast by Product Family uses this to forecast revenue by category.
Schedules (Revenue / Quantity)
For products sold over a period (subscriptions, installments), Salesforce supports product schedules:
- Revenue Schedule — split the revenue across multiple periods (e.g., monthly over 12 months)
- Quantity Schedule — split the quantity over periods (e.g., 100 units / month for 12 months)
- Combined — both at once
Enabled at the product level. When an opportunity line item uses that product, Salesforce auto-creates OpportunityLineItemSchedule rows.
This is built-in subscription handling — useful for SaaS, recurring services, contracts. For complex configurable bundles, you’d use Salesforce CPQ (a separate paid product) instead.
Custom fields on products
Like any standard object, Product2 can be extended with custom fields — Manufacturer, Vendor, Warranty Period, Color, Weight, Volume Discount Tier. Common patterns:
- Lookup to a custom
Vendor__cfor supplier info - Picklist for Tier / Category beyond the basic Family
- Currency for Cost (for margin tracking)
Person Accounts and Products
Products work identically whether the buyer is a Business Account or Person Account — same Product2 records, same Price Books, same line items.
Integration with external catalog systems
Many orgs sync products from an external PIM, ERP, or product master:
- Inbound sync to keep Salesforce’s Product2 list current
- External Data Source as alternative — point to external catalog without copying to Salesforce
- Standard / Custom Product Page for self-service e-commerce in Experience Cloud
Bottom line
A Product is your catalog item — defined once, priced via Price Book Entries, used as line items on Opportunities, Quotes, Orders, and Contracts. Product + Pricebook + PricebookEntry are the three pieces every Sales Cloud admin must understand together.
Verified against: Salesforce Help — Products. Last reviewed 2026-05-17.