The fundamental difference: a Business Account is a record representing a company or organization, with separate Contact records for the people at that company. A Person Account is a record that represents a single individual consumer, with Account and Contact data merged into one record — though under the hood Salesforce still maintains both rows transparently. Business Accounts are B2B; Person Accounts are B2C.
Side-by-side comparison
| Aspect | Business Account (regular) | Person Account |
|---|---|---|
| Represents | Company, household, school, org | Individual consumer |
| Schema | One Account row + many Contact rows | One Account row + 1 backing Contact row (hidden duality) |
| Account.Name | Set explicitly (e.g., “Acme Corp”) | Auto-derived from FirstName + LastName |
| Person-level fields | On Contact (Title, Birthdate, Phone) | On Account directly (PersonBirthdate, PersonEmail, etc.) |
IsPersonAccount | false | true |
| Has Contacts related list? | Yes — many | No (it IS the contact) |
| Has Opportunities, Cases, Activities? | Yes | Yes |
| Record Type | Standard / business RT | Person Account RT (must be one designated as Person) |
| Default page layout | Business Account layout | Person Account layout (distinct) |
| Sharing model | Standard | Standard (but uses combined Account-Contact sharing) |
| Campaign Membership | Via Contact | Directly via Person Account |
| Created in | Any org by default | Only after Person Accounts is enabled org-wide |
| Use case | B2B sales — selling to companies | B2C sales — selling to individuals |
| Storage | 1 Account row | 1 Account row + 1 hidden Contact row (effectively 2x) |
| Industry verticals | Manufacturing, software B2B, agencies | Retail, insurance, banking, telecom consumer, healthcare |
When to use Business Account
- You sell to companies, not individuals
- One company has many touchpoints (Contacts) — Sales Director, IT, Finance, Procurement
- Opportunities are at the company level
- Cases come from multiple people at the same company
- Standard B2B CRM motion
When to use Person Account
- You sell to individual consumers
- Each customer is a single human, not a company with multiple stakeholders
- The “Contact” concept doesn’t add value — there’s only one person per record
- Industries: retail, B2C banking, insurance (personal lines), wealth management (clients), telecom (consumer lines), healthcare (patients), education (students), nonprofits (individual donors)
Hybrid orgs
Many real orgs need both:
- Financial services — manages both corporate accounts (business banking) and personal accounts (individual customers)
- Insurance — commercial policies + personal policies
- Telecom — business accounts + consumer lines
- Real estate — agency accounts + individual home buyers
In a hybrid org, both Record Types coexist on the same Account object. Reports and automation branch on IsPersonAccount or Record Type.
Field-level differences
On a Person Account, you’ll find person-specific fields prefixed with Person (or available without prefix on the Contact-side):
PersonEmail(on Account) /Email(on Contact)PersonBirthdatePersonHomePhone,PersonMobilePhonePersonMailingAddress(separate from BillingAddress)PersonDepartment,PersonTitle
These don’t exist on Business Accounts. Many Person fields have a Person prefix specifically so they don’t collide with Business Account fields.
Implications for relationships
Standard objects relate to Account and Contact:
- Opportunity: has
AccountId— on a Business Account, this links to the company. On a Person Account, this links to the person (the Account itself). - Case: has both
AccountIdandContactId. For Person Accounts, both fields can be auto-populated to point to the same logical entity. - Custom objects: design them to reference Account if you want to support both types.
Cannot revert
The Person Accounts setting is org-wide and irreversible. Once enabled, every Account in your org is potentially a candidate, and you cannot disable the feature. Plan and test thoroughly.
Bottom line
A Business Account is a company with separate Contact records for each person; a Person Account is a consumer modeled as a single combined Account-Contact entity. Choose Business Account for B2B; choose Person Account for B2C; use both via Record Type if your org sells to both.
Verified against: Salesforce Help — Person Accounts. Last reviewed 2026-05-17.