Category: Consumption-Based Pricing

Part 3 of our RCA Series

In Part 1, we introduced Salesforce Revenue Cloud Advanced (RCA) and its vision for end-to-end monetization. In Part 2, we explored how RCA supports usage-based pricing—and how Continuous enhances it for scale. 

Now, in Part 3, we’re focusing on readiness. For some companies, RCA is the clear next step. For others, continuing to optimize legacy CPQ and/or Billing may be the right call for now. We’re sharing what we’ve learned from working with our customers: the most common readiness gaps that hold teams back from realizing RCA’s full potential—and how to close them before making the move.

You’ve implemented Salesforce CPQ—or even CPQ + Billing. You’ve standardized quoting, brought pricing and approvals into Salesforce, and made major strides toward scalable revenue operations. But as your business grows and your pricing models evolve, you may be asking: What about RCA?

For many organizations, the next step is Salesforce Revenue Cloud Advanced (RCA)—and the opportunity to modernize monetization even further.

Salesforce Revenue Cloud Advanced (RCA) introduces a fully native Salesforce architecture purpose-built for modern revenue operations. It supports more flexible pricing models—including usage-based—and brings quoting, contracting, and billing closer together within a composable, API-first framework. 

But the move to RCA isn’t right for everyone and some may benefit from continuing to optimize their current CPQ or CPQ + Billing investment. At Continuous, we help customers navigate these decisions every day, providing scalable solutions that bridge the gap between CPQ and RCA.

Not Everyone Needs to Move to RCA (Yet)

Moving to RCA now isn’t the right fit for every organization. If your organization recently invested in Salesforce CPQ (with or without Salesforce Billing), the last thing you want is to disrupt that deployment. Instead, your goal is likely to get even more value out of your current investment.

That’s exactly where Continuous comes in. Continuous enhances Salesforce CPQ by seamlessly adding support for complex usage, consumption, and credit-based pricing scenarios—all without introducing new billing silos. Even better, Continuous enables you to fully leverage NetSuite as your financial system of record, allowing for streamlined payments, collections, invoicing, and revenue reporting directly within your existing ERP environment.

With Continuous you can:

• Support advanced usage, consumption, and hybrid pricing models directly within Salesforce CPQ.
• Fully leverage NetSuite for financial reporting, invoicing, collections, and revenue recognition.
• Extend—not replace—the significant investment you’ve already made in Salesforce CPQ.

If your team is feeling pressure to move to Revenue Cloud Advanced but wants a more strategic path forward, start by requesting a free RCA Readiness Assessment. We’ll show you how to enhance what you already have, so you can move to RCA (or any advanced solution) only when—and if—it truly makes sense for your business.

What We’re Seeing In The Market: Success Meets Operational Reality

At Continuous, while we work with companies who are deep into CPQ or CPQ Billing, five patterns consistently emerge:

Your Customer Experience Shouldn’t Depend on Support Tickets
→ Most customers can’t see their usage, credit balances, or contract details—so they open support tickets for basic questions. This reactive model frustrates users, burdens internal teams, and erodes trust—especially in usage-based models where real-time visibility is expected.

When SKUs Don’t Map to Value, Trust Breaks Down
→ Workarounds that helped get CPQ live or bring a new product to market—like placeholder SKUs or loosely defined product hierarchies—create quoting confusion and billing disconnects, leaving customers unsure of what they purchased or why they were charged.

Governance Gaps and Swivel Chair Handoffs Create a Loop of Rework and Risk
→What began as flexible CPQ configuration has evolved into a patchwork of overrides, manual workarounds, and uncontrolled customizations. Even after deals are signed, corrections are still required before revenue can be recognized. The result: delayed deals, inconsistent data, and ongoing rework across Sales, RevOps, and Finance

Unstructured or Manual Consumption Data
→ As businesses shift and are eager to monetize consumption— the supporting data simply isn’t there. Usage data is often captured inconsistently, defined differently across products, or manually maintained in spreadsheets—if it’s tracked at all. Sales teams miss clear signals for upsells or expansion, Finance can’t reconcile revenue, and customers are left in the dark about what they’ve used or why they’re being charged—limiting revenue growth and customer trust.

Fragmented, Disconnected Lifecycle Events Derail Growth
→ Renewals, amendments, and cancellations are often managed through manual workarounds or outside systems—like spreadsheets, net-new quotes, or support tickets. This leads to duplicate records, conflicting contract data, customer confusion, and unreliable revenue and renewal reporting.

Recognize these challenges? Let’s talk about how Continuous can help your team tackle them today, before they stall your growth.

Is Your Business RCA-Ready?

RCA assumes a strong foundation—but that’s where many teams struggle. Before diving in, ask yourself:

• Is our product catalog standardized and enforceable?
• Do our SKUs map to value—for us and our customers?
• Is our usage data reliable and available in real-time?
• Are renewals, amendments, and cancellations governed and aligned?
• Can Sales, Finance, and Customers all see the same thing?

Without that foundation, even the best RCA implementation can fall short of expectations.

How Continuous Extends RCA

Continuous doesn’t replace RCA—we make it stronger. We embed directly into your Salesforce environment, working alongside RCA to:

• Extend RCA to NetSuite or any ERP—no middleware required
• Standardize SKUs and Rate Plans across sales and billing
• Mediate and rate usage data at scale, in real time
• Enable enterprise credit pools, prepayments, and true-ups
• Align lifecycle events (renewals, expansions, cancellations) across Salesforce and ERP

And because Continuous is Salesforce-native, your teams stay in the systems they already know. No duplicate catalogs. No disconnected workflows.

RCA opens the door to modern revenue operations—but the difference between deploying it and unlocking its full value comes down to readiness.

Request a free RCA Readiness Assessment

Request your free RCA Readiness Assessment from Continuous and get expert insights tailored specifically to your business—no cost, no commitment. Simply fill out this quick form, and one of our RCA experts will reach out with your assessment survey.

What is Salesforce RCA?

Salesforce Revenue Cloud Advanced (RCA) is redefining modern revenue lifecycle management by unifying quoting, contracts, billing, and order management into a seamless, native Salesforce experience. Businesses adopting RCA benefit from enhanced automation, flexible pricing models, and streamlined collaboration across sales, finance, and legal teams.

But, as businesses evolve beyond traditional subscriptions toward usage-based pricing, they’re discovering powerful new opportunities—and equally complex challenges. Usage-based pricing, now the gold standard in SaaS, cloud, telecom, and technology industries, directly ties revenue to the actual value customers receive, creating stronger customer relationships and more dynamic revenue streams.

Building upon our previous primer on Salesforce Revenue Cloud Advanced, this deeper dive explores how RCA supports usage-based pricing and rating, highlighting areas where Continuous significantly enhances RCA capabilities including:

• Advanced rating and high usage volumes
• Real-time usage mediation and aggregation, ensuring timely and accurate handoff to finance systems for comprehensive visibility across sales, customer service, finance teams, and customers.
• Credit balance, prepayment, and enterprise savings plans

We’ll outline RCA’s strengths, identify critical considerations, and illustrate how Continuous enhances RCA capabilities—particularly around scalability, compliance, financial accuracy, and seamless ERP integration.

Whether you’re currently using Salesforce CPQ & Billing, considering RCA, or exploring consumption-based pricing, this guide provides essential insights for mastering usage-driven revenue models.

How does Salesforce RCA simplify usage-based billing?

Salesforce RCA differentiates itself through several core features:

Unified Salesforce-Native Architecture: RCA is fully built on Salesforce’s core platform, eliminating the previous reliance on managed packages inherent to Salesforce CPQ & Billing. This architecture leverages Salesforce’s robust scalability, security, and integration capabilities as well as enabling easy upgrades using Salesforce’s seasonal release schedule.

API-First Composable Architecture: RCA offers an API-first, composable approach, empowering customers to selectively deploy the elements of RCA they specifically require—including complex configuration, dynamic revenue orchestration, contract lifecycle management, and usage-based selling and billing. This modular flexibility enables rapid adaptation to evolving business models without the need for wholesale system replacements.

Real-Time Visibility via Digital Wallet: RCA’s digital wallet provides immediate, transparent tracking of credit balances and usage commitments, forming a robust foundation for credit and commitment-based pricing models. This visibility empowers sales, finance, customer service teams, and customers themselves to proactively manage usage, ensure contractual compliance, and adapt quickly to changing consumption patterns.

How Continuous Complements Salesforce RCA

Continuous builds on the already robust foundation provided by Salesforce RCA, empowering companies to confidently evolve their pricing models without needing to replace their existing sales or billing systems. By enhancing RCA’s capabilities, Continuous addresses complex scenarios and enterprise-scale challenges:

Enhanced Scalability for High-Volume Data

During peak periods, usage data can significantly exceed typical volumes. Continuous provides an off-platform rating engine optimized for large data volumes, preserving Salesforce’s responsiveness and efficiency.

Support for Real-Time Usage Mediation and Rating

Customers benefit from immediate insight into their usage. Continuous complements RCA’s periodic data aggregation with real-time mediation and rating capabilities, ensuring accurate, up-to-the-minute visibility.

Advanced Credit Balance and Enterprise Management

Visibility into commitment progress is crucial for sales, customer service, finance teams, and customers themselves. Continuous ensures synchronized visibility across Salesforce, ERP, and other platforms:

• Enterprise-Wide Credit Pools: Centralized credit management across multiple departments or subsidiaries.
• Automated Credit Rollovers and Replenishments: Seamless, automated credit management aligned with contractual agreements.
• Complex True-Up Calculations: Real-time monitoring and adjustments, ensuring billing accuracy and compliance across all systems.

Streamlined Financial Integration and Compliance

Continuous seamlessly integrates RCA’s sales-driven rating processes with ERP and accounting systems, including a productized integration specifically for NetSuite, while remaining flexible enough to support any downstream financial application. By embedding the Continuous Revenue Fabric within RCA, Continuous ensures an optimal handoff tailored to the specific needs of revenue operations and finance teams. This approach provides finance teams with a complete and reliable financial system of record, delivering comprehensive visibility and significantly reducing manual reconciliation efforts.

Advanced Pricing Insights and Analytics

Continuous provides advanced analytics and pricing capabilities, enabling customers and sales teams to more accurately estimate and price usage-based offerings. This facilitates precise determination of prepaid credit amounts and commitments required upfront. Additionally, Continuous can leverage actual customer usage data to deliver powerful insights through integration with leading analytics tools like Tableau or Snowflake, driving informed decision-making and enhanced revenue growth.

Real-World Scenario: Cloud Infrastructure Company

Consider a cloud infrastructure company offering platform subscriptions paired with usage-based, pay-as-you-go charges. They manage highly complex rating scenarios involving millions of usage records that need to be assessed across multiple attributes to accurately reflect how the platform is used.

Initially, customers utilize a pure pay-as-you-go model but the company aims to transition them toward prepaid commitments using virtual currency credits. RCA provides foundational support through robust rate cards and digital wallet visibility, enabling the sales and customer success teams to track usage effectively.

Continuous further enhances RCA by managing extremely high usage volumes off-platform, providing real-time mediation and aggregation of billions of records without impacting Salesforce performance. This capability allows precise, multi-attribute rating essential for accurate billing.

Moreover, Continuous ensures seamless integration with their ERP, NetSuite, ensuring that detailed usage data and credit consumption are fully visible for critical financial processes including Accounts Receivable, Revenue Recognition, and Financial Reporting. Additionally, by utilizing actual customer usage data, Continuous facilitates accurate cost estimates that help customers confidently transition to prepaid commitments.

Finally, the enriched usage data integrated into analytics tools like Tableau or Snowflake empowers broader business insights, influencing strategic decisions beyond billing—such as product development, customer retention strategies, and marketing initiatives.

Ready to Optimize Your Usage-Based Pricing and Billing? Talk to Our Experts Today

Together, Salesforce RCA and Continuous provide a comprehensive solution optimized for complex, consumption-driven scenarios. This combined approach ensures scalability, real-time accuracy, advanced credit management, financial compliance, and actionable analytics, empowering businesses to confidently scale their usage-based revenue models.

Whether you are a current Salesforce Revenue Cloud user, considering an upgrade to Revenue Cloud Advanced, or simply navigating challenges operationalizing usage and credit-based pricing, Continuous is here to help. Reach out to us today to discuss —
Connect with our consumption-based pricing experts

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

What types of businesses benefit most from Salesforce RCA and Continuous?
Any business using complex pricing models, particularly in SaaS, cloud services, telecom, or technology, will greatly benefit from RCA combined with Continuous.

Can Continuous work with other Salesforce applications such as CPQ & Billing?
Yes, Continuous extends any Salesforce application including Salesforce Sales Cloud and Salesforce CPQ & Billing.

Can Continuous integrate with ERP systems other than NetSuite?
Yes, Continuous has a productized integration for NetSuite but can also integrate seamlessly with virtually any ERP or downstream financial system.

Do I need to replace my current Salesforce deployment to use Continuous?
No, Continuous complements and enhances your existing Salesforce setup, allowing you to extend capabilities without replacing your core deployment.

How does Continuous support large-scale data requirements?
Continuous uses an off-platform rating engine optimized for extremely high data volumes, managing billions of records monthly without affecting Salesforce performance.

Can you explain the difference between Salesforce CPQ & Billing and Revenue Cloud Advanced?
Salesforce CPQ & Billing originated from Salesforce’s acquisition of Steelbrick and InvoiceIT, and thus still relies on managed packages. Revenue Cloud Advanced, on the other hand, is fully built on Salesforce’s core platform. It leverages an API-driven, composable architecture, bringing forward all the strengths of the original CPQ & Billing solution while offering significantly enhanced flexibility, scalability, and integration capabilities.

How is Continuous different from other usage-based billing systems?
Traditional usage-based billing applications require businesses to set up products within their own separate billing catalogs and then integrate these catalogs with sales tools like Salesforce—an approach that often creates complexity, cost, and maintenance challenges. Continuous eliminates this complexity by embedding directly within Salesforce’s existing product catalog through native AppExchange extensions. This unique embedded “revenue fabric” approach ensures businesses can manage all pricing and packaging directly within Salesforce, completely removing the need for complex billing system integrations. Additionally, Continuous ensures your existing financial system—such as NetSuite—remains the financial system of record, avoiding duplication of functionality and the cost and complexity associated with maintaining integrations. This embedded approach ensures coordinated visibility and control across revenue operations and finance teams, allowing businesses to leverage the full capabilities of both Salesforce and their ERP solutions.