Inactive users and User licence usage

Question

This question has been bothering me for quite a while. I've always simply assumed, "deactivating users will not increase the number of available user licences".

The help document says:

A deactivated user doesn't count against your organization’s available user licenses. However, deactivating a user doesn't reduce the number of licenses for which your organization is billed; you must change your organization’s license count to change your billing

Does this mean:

1. We have to manually (how?) reduce the number of licenses?
2. It is possible that an org is billed beyond the available user licenses?

Does this affect user licences and feature licences the same way?

Answer 1

You won't be billed beyond the available licences, you're just billed for the licences you have. That said, you may not be using all of your licences if you have deactivated some users and not added new users.

To reduce your licence count your administrator must file a case with support, using "Licence Reduction" as the subject line as shown in this knowledge article.

So yes you do have to manually reduce licences by filing a case. As for features I'd expect those to work in the exact same way.

Answer 2

You have to pay for all the license you have either you are using them or not using them. It is something like: you have taken an area on rent and thinking of not paying for it because you are not using it.

Deactivating a user free a license for your organisation but it doesn't count against the total available and used license in your organisation. This is the facility of license reusability only, has no concern with billing.

You have to contact salesforce support to reduce a number of license if you think that you have more license then required.