Supported Salesforce Editions

To use Metadata API, your organization must use Enterprise Edition, Unlimited Edition, Performance Edition, or Developer Edition. If you are an existing Salesforce customer and want to upgrade to Enterprise, Unlimited, or Performance Edition, contact your account representative.

It is strongly recommended that you use a sandbox, which is an exact replica of your production organization. Enterprise, Unlimited, and Performance Editions come with a free developer sandbox. For more information, see http://www.salesforce.com/platform/cloud-infrastructure/sandbox.jsp.

Alternatively, you can use a Developer Edition organization, which provides access to all of the features available with Enterprise Edition, but is limited by the number of users and the amount of storage space. A Developer Edition organization is not a copy of your production organization, but it provides an environment where you can build and test your solutions without affecting your organization’s data. Developer Edition accounts are available for free at http://developer.salesforce.com/signup.