Claude and Salesforce: the plugin, the MCP server and what to govern

There are two things people mean by Claude Salesforce. The first is Salesforce in Claude. Anthropic's help center calls it a plugin that brings your Salesforce accounts, opportunities and pipeline into Claude, and says it bundles sales skills built by Salesforce with the Salesforce and Slack connectors. Anthropic says it is available in beta on all paid plans for organizations Salesforce approves through its beta sign-up, and that it works in chat and Claude Cowork.

The second is Salesforce's own hosted MCP server. Salesforce describes it as a governed way for AI clients such as Claude to act on behalf of authorized users in a Salesforce org. It reads, creates, updates and deletes records, and can expose your own flows and Apex actions as tools.

Sources: Anthropic, Use Salesforce in Claude (https://support.claude.com/en/articles/16952186-use-salesforce-in-claude, page dated 25 September 2026); Salesforce Developers, Get Started, Hosted MCP Servers (https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/platform/hosted-mcp-servers/guide/hosted-mcp-servers-overview.html), read 6 November 2026.

Salesforce's guide for Claude.ai and Claude Desktop is short. In the sidebar choose Customize, then Connectors, then add a custom connector, name it and enter the server address for the Salesforce server you want. Choose to use your own OAuth client, paste the consumer key from the External Client App and connect. Salesforce says Claude then sends you to your org to sign in, and you can choose Configure to adjust the permissions on the tools.

Anthropic describes the plugin path differently: once your admin has connected Salesforce for the organization, you open Customize, then Plugins, add Salesforce in Claude, and sign in with your own Salesforce account. Which path you take depends on who has approved what in your organization.

Sources: Salesforce Developers, Configure Claude (https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/platform/hosted-mcp-servers/guide/claude); Anthropic, Use Salesforce in Claude (https://support.claude.com/en/articles/16952186-use-salesforce-in-claude), read 6 November 2026.

Start with permissions. Salesforce says every tool call runs with the permissions of the user who authorized the connection, including field-level security and sharing rules, and that there are no service accounts. Anthropic says the plugin sees only what each person's Salesforce permissions allow, and that by default Claude asks you to approve each proposed change before it is written.

Next, scope. Salesforce suggests starting with the most restrictive setup that meets the need. A read-only records server removes the risk of data changes, and Named Queries let an admin expose one specific query. Decide who gets write access.

Then, audit and cost. Salesforce says MCP actions appear in standard Salesforce API logs with the named user, and that dynamic client registration is not supported, so admins must create each External Client App. Ask your Salesforce admin who reviews those logs. Salesforce also says server usage may be billed.

Sources: Salesforce Developers, Security Best Practices (https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/platform/hosted-mcp-servers/guide/security-best-practices.html); Anthropic, Use Salesforce in Claude (https://support.claude.com/en/articles/16952186-use-salesforce-in-claude), read 6 November 2026.

We could not open Salesforce's pages from our own server, so every Salesforce fact comes from text saved from a real browser session on 6 November 2026. Anthropic's own connector listing for Salesforce was not available, and no page says whether the plugin needs Flex Credits. We did not test either route. For anything not cited above, check Salesforce's and Anthropic's current pages and your own org settings.