Salesforce profiles fall into two categories: standard profiles, which ship with every Salesforce org and can’t be deleted, and custom profiles, which you create by cloning a standard profile and then tailoring permissions to your needs. Each profile is also bound to a specific user license type, which determines which features the profile can grant in the first place.
Standard profiles that ship with every org
These are the most common standard profiles you’ll see in a Sales Cloud / Service Cloud org:
- System Administrator — full access to configure, customize, and administer the org.
- Standard User — read/create/edit on standard CRM objects, no admin power.
- Read Only — read-only access to standard objects.
- Solution Manager — Standard User plus the ability to publish solutions.
- Marketing User — Standard User plus the ability to manage campaigns and import leads.
- Contract Manager — Standard User plus contract activation.
- Chatter Only User, Chatter External User, Chatter Free User — limited-license profiles for collaboration-only access.
- Customer Portal Manager / Customer Community User / Partner Community User — for external Experience Cloud users (varies by community license).
The exact list depends on your edition and the features enabled. Standard profiles are partly editable (you can toggle most permissions on them in newer releases) but cannot be deleted.
Custom profiles
A custom profile is created by cloning a standard profile and editing the clone. The clone inherits everything from the source, and then you remove permissions you don’t want or add ones the standard profile lacks. Custom profiles can be deleted as long as no users are assigned to them.
The modern best-practice pattern minimizes the number of custom profiles. Instead of cloning ten variations of “Sales Rep”, you keep one minimal “Sales Rep” custom profile and layer differences with permission sets.
License type — the often-missed dimension
Every profile is tied to a user license:
- Salesforce (full Sales/Service Cloud).
- Salesforce Platform (custom apps, no CRM objects).
- Customer Community / Partner Community / Customer Community Plus (external users).
- Chatter Free / Chatter External.
- Identity (login-only).
When you clone a standard profile, the clone inherits the source’s license. A profile tied to the Salesforce Platform license can’t grant access to Lead/Opportunity (those aren’t part of the Platform license). To get a custom profile for a different license type, you have to clone from a standard profile that already has that license.
Common interview clarifiers
- How many profiles total? No hard cap on custom profiles in modern editions, but you can hit storage and metadata limits in extreme cases.
- Can I switch a profile’s license type? No — license is fixed at creation. You’d need to create a new profile tied to the desired license and reassign users.
- What’s the practical difference between standard and custom profiles? Standard profiles can’t be deleted and some of their core behaviors are locked; custom profiles are fully editable and deletable.
- Are profiles shared across sandboxes? Yes — profile metadata moves with sandbox refresh and with metadata deployments.
Verified against: Salesforce Help — Profiles and Standard Profiles. Last reviewed 2026-05-17.