Can you sell your Salesforce data for AI training?
Salesforce's terms let the account holder export its own data, and we found no clause in its API terms about training AI. The content itself carries high rights risk. This is research from public sources, not legal advice.
- The holder's own export
- The holder can export it
- Data pulled through its API
- No AI clause found
- Rights risk of the content
- High
What a holder should know
The contract lets the customer take its data out. What blocks a sale is what the CRM holds: customers' and prospects' personal data (names, emails, call notes), customer confidential deal terms, and data bought from list vendors whose licence usually forbids resale. Treat CRM records as presumptively non-sellable except aggregated or properly de-identified, and check any third-party enrichment data (ZoomInfo and similar) licence before including it.
Getting your own data out
Data Export Service in Setup: weekly exports on Enterprise, Performance and Unlimited; every 29 days on Professional and Developer (Salesforce Trailhead); download links reportedly expire after 48 hours (third-party guides). Data Loader and Bulk API for full object exports.
Salesforce Main Services Agreement (SFDC-MSA, October 15, 2026): "Upon request by Customer made within 30 days after the effective date of termination or expiration of this Agreement, SFDC will make Customer Data available to Customer for export or download as provided in the Documentation. After such 30-day period, SFDC will have no obligation to maintain or provide any Customer Data".
Apps that use its API
The MSA has no clause barring a customer from using its own Customer Data to train AI. Customer must use Services in accordance with "the Acceptable Use and External Facing Services Policy and the Artificial Intelligence Acceptable Use Policy" and may not "access it to (1) build a competitive product or service" or "use any Services to access, copy or use any of SFDC intellectual property except as permitted". The restrictive API-level AI terms Salesforce adopted in 2025 apply to Slack (see slack), not found for core CRM.
The sources, word for word
- Salesforce Main Services Agreement (PDF, SFDC-MSA, October 15, 2026)(2026-10-15)
“Upon request by Customer made within 30 days after the effective date of termination or expiration of this Agreement, SFDC will make Customer Data available to Customer for export or download as provided in the Documentation. After such 30-day period, SFDC will have no obligation to maintain or provide any Customer Data”
- Salesforce Trailhead: Learn Data Export Methods and Steps for Salesforce(read 2026-10-16)
“It allows you to export data manually once every 7 days (for weekly export) or 29 days (for monthly export). You can also export data automatically at weekly or monthly intervals. Weekly exports are available in Enterprise, Performance, and Unlimited Editions. In Professional Edition and Developer Edition, you can generate backup files only every 29 days, or automatically at monthly intervals only.”
Research from public sources, read on the day shown. It is not legal advice: a sale needs a lawyer who has read the records and the contracts.
What Salesforce holds that buyers ask for
Support and service records
Tickets, macros, resolutions and call notes
Sales and customer records
CRM pipelines, account notes, proposals
Who buys it
- Mode (BizBuyData)
"The operating history of companies and nonprofits could be worth $100K-$5M."
- Handshake AI
"Payouts range from $100K to $4M." Its estimator shows $383,083 to $896,969 for 100 employees and 10 years.
- Polyshares
Typical licences of $100K to $2M, sometimes more. Its track record page lists four anonymous licences from $110,000 to $450,000.
- micro1
$100k+ for a qualified partnership, $500k+ for large or multi-team datasets, $1M+ for highly unique data.
- Scale AI
"$10K–$1M+ illustrative value per data partnership", scaling with how often data is delivered.
- SuperAnnotate
"Indicative $100K – $1M+", priced on rarity, depth and exclusivity.
What your Salesforce records are worth, and what to settle before anyone sees them.
In this topic
Rights and law
- Start hereCan this data legally be sold or licensed for AI training?Privacy law, copyright and fair use, software vendors' terms, de-identification, bankruptcy sales and what a licence agreement holds.
- GuideIs It Legal to Sell Customer Data? A US Guide for AI TrainingOften yes, but through layers: your privacy policy, the FTC Act, state and sector laws, and customer contracts. De-identified records are the main lawful path.
- GuideFair Use and AI Training: What US Courts Have RuledUS courts are split: training was fair use in Bartz v. Anthropic and Kadrey v. Meta, not in Thomson Reuters v. Ross, and pirated copies lost. Where each stands.
- GuideIs It Legal to Scrape Data for AI Training? (US Law, 2026)Scraping public pages is rarely a federal crime after Van Buren and hiQ, but contract, copyright, anti-circumvention and privacy law apply. Resale is hard.
- GuideCan a Company License Employee Emails and Slack for AI Training?Usually yes for business records the company controls, but only after it handles monitoring notices, third parties in the messages, privilege and vendor terms.
- GuideSelling Customer Data in Bankruptcy: Section 363 ExplainedA bankrupt company can sell customer data only if the sale fits its privacy policy, or a court-appointed privacy ombudsman reports and the judge approves it.
- GuideWhat Is a Data Licensing Agreement? The Terms for AI TrainingA data licensing agreement lets a buyer use data for set purposes while the holder keeps ownership. Each clause AI buyers ask for, and where holders stand.
- GuideHIPAA De-Identification for AI Training: Safe Harbor vs Expert DeterminationHealth data leaves HIPAA only through Safe Harbor (remove 18 identifiers) or an expert's determination of very small risk. How each works for AI training.
- GuideLicensing Company Data for AI Training Under the GDPR (2026)Yes, an EU, UK or Swiss company can license its records for AI training, if it has a lawful basis, tells people, drops sensitive data and uses a transfer tool.
- GuideSelling Data for AI Training: Privacy Law by CountryOutside the EU and UK, licensing records for AI training mostly needs consent or anonymisation, and a contract or consent to send them to a US buyer.
- RegisterLawsuits and rulingsEvery case, ruling and settlement over training data.
- RegisterLicence termsWhat buyers ask for in a licence, and where holders stand.
- PageDe-identification standardOur rules for removing people from records, each with its source.
- RegisterAI crawler censusA daily census of robots.txt across the most visited sites.