Sales reps only spend 34% of their time actually selling.
So what about the remainder?
Research shows that sales teams spend much of their non-selling time generating quotes, proposals, and gaining approvals. But when organizations deploy and use CPQ software correctly, they benefit from:
- 10 times faster quote generation
- 95% reduction in approval time
- 2 times faster moving from quote to cash
- 30% quicker ramp for new reps
As a result, these CPQ-enabled sales teams can spend more time selling, driving more revenue, and increasing profits.
In this guide, we’ve rounded up the best CPQ software, so you can get your sales team quoting and selling more effectively.
What is CPQ, or Configure, Price, Quote?
CPQ or Configure, Price, Quote is a process designed to enable sales teams to accurately configure complex products and offerings, determine pricing, and generate quotes for B2C or B2B customers.
Before CPQ software and tools, configuring complex products and generating quotes was slow, expensive, and error-prone. CPQ technology transformed these processes, enabling teams to innovate their pricing models, build complex product bundles, and streamline their sales process.
With CPQ, generating a typical quote or proposal takes less time, allowing reps to focus more on engaging with prospects and building customer relationships. From simplifying complex product configurations to helping reps tailor each product offering or pricing to client needs, a streamlined CPQ process helps sales teams create better buying experiences for prospects, close deals faster, and boost win rates.
Configure
Configuration involves bundling a product's features and components to serve client needs. This is where you specify customization options for components, what features can be bought in a bundle, complementary components, product accessories, and additional customization options.
“Configure” removes the need for customers to manually enter their specifications and configuration requirements into a CRM or Excel quote form.
Price
After configuring, you set a price for product bundles. Pricing involves setting a standard cost for components and features, including markups and discounts for certain product bundle customizations.
For example, you can set discounts for bulk orders or markup on product bundles that customers tend to buy more.
Quote
Quote involves sending a document to your client outlining configured product bundles and services, with their pricing, discounts, or any special offers. This is where you would also determine the terms and conditions of the contract, renewal options, and payment methods.
It is good practice to double-check(or triple-check) quotes for possible errors before sending them out.
Want to get started? Explore Spekit’s CPQ template
CPQ Advantages
Here’s how CPQ can streamline your quote-to-cash processes:
Quicker Quote Generation & Sales Cycle
CPQ automates activities that normally take time to get done. Before reps can send out a quote, they must get information on a product, its pricing rules, and configurations. Then, research the customer's buyer persona to offer a quote that meets their needs.
Almost 90% of customers get frustrated when a rep doesn't have what they need immediately.
When sales pipelines are slow, customers (and sales teams) tend to be dissatisfied. CPQ reduces the time reps use to generate quotes, shortening the customer’s wait time.
Faster Ramp Onboarding
Research reveals that it takes at least three months to fully onboard new sales reps. Using a structured onboarding process is the best way to reduce ramp onboarding for new hires. CPQ removes the need for many manual processes, enabling you to train your new hires using a platform that already contains information about product configuration, customers, pricing optimization, etc.
Reduced Manual Tasks (& Errors)
Before CPQ, sales representatives manually generated quotes, contracts, and proposals using product and pricing information usually stored in Excel sheets. Imagine reps having to go through many documents looking for info about a product, figuring out pricing for a complex product configuration, and writing personalized quotes for clients.
CPQ helps reps' productivity by automating these processes, reducing the number of manual tasks reps do, and eliminating errors in documents sent to customers.
Sales Enablement
On the backend, CPQ software enables your sales team to analyze customer behavior to find upselling or cross-selling opportunities. It’s a great sales enablement tool because it automatically analyzes customer trends and notifies reps when there is a chance to upgrade a client's package.
Here’s how it works: CPQ platforms display prices for different products, services, and configurations. If a customer selects a product with a complement, the platform automatically alerts them about the complement and existing discounts. This way, your sales reps can upsell and upgrade packages without feeling pushed.
What is CPQ software?
CPQ software, or configure, price, quote software, is a sales tool for companies to provide accurate quotes and pricing for any product configuration.
Typically, B2B companies customize quotes according to the product’s capabilities, customer needs, and applicable discounts.
Developing a quote in the B2B sales process can be tedious since multiple factors determine the final price. And no one wants to make a mistake here, as it can be costly further down the line.
But a CPQ solution helps companies automate much of the process of configuring products, pricing the result, and generating quotes for the customer.
It’s indispensable in helping sales teams build custom quotes. And it also allows sales reps more time to focus on building relationships and a positive customer experience.
No wonder CPQ tools are quickly becoming a must-have for sales teams.
Best CPQ software for sales teams
Choosing the right CPQ platform can help you manage complex product configuration requests, pricing rules, deliver real-time pricing, cross-sell products, and collect e-signatures.
The best CPQ tools go beyond simply providing proposals and quotes and aim to make your sales lifecycle more efficient to grow your bottom line.
1) Salesforce CPQ
Notable brands: Cloudera, Mitsubishi Electric, Barracuda
Salesforce CPQ is a next-generation app that helps companies automate the quoting, contracting, and ordering process.
It integrates seamlessly with Salesforce CRM, enabling you to handle customer data in one centralized location. Plus, the shared data model makes it faster to launch new products and easier to iterate.
Pricing: Starting at $75/user/month (10 users minimum)
This FREE Spekit Salesforce CPQ training template connection can train and enable sales teams in Salesforce CPQ – in minutes! Our just-in-time, contextual embedded training helps your team onboard and reinforce learning in real time, wherever and whenever questions come up in CPQ.
Spekit is also the only one-click Salesforce integration for CPQ adoption, enablement, and training.
2) Oracle CPQ
Notable brands: AirBorn, Cohu, Juniper Networks, StepStone
Oracle CPQ (formerly BigMachines) guides sales reps and channel partners through a comprehensive step-by-step process to automatically offer the right product at the right price.
The easy-to-use solution streamlines your processes and accelerates your sales so that you can complete quotes quickly and optimize pricing and profits for your business goals.
You can either deploy the software as a standalone service or integrate it with other customer experience platforms such as CRM, ERP, Service, and Ecommerce.
Pricing: $240/user/month
3) Conga
Notable brands: Salesforce, Workday, Adobe, Citrix, Moody’s, ABB.
Conga CPQ (formerly Apptus CPQ) is a cloud-based multi-channel sales management platform that helps enterprise companies create quotes based on the latest pricing information.
82% of B2B decision-makers think sales reps are unprepared. However, Conga CPQ can scale your best sales reps’ actions across the sales organization through guided selling, pricing guidance, and margin protection.
By eliminating manual processes and improving sales performance, Conga CPQ lets reps generate detailed and complex quotes faster and more accurately, ultimately leading to more deals at a higher win rate.
Pricing: Contact Conga for a customized quote
4) Model N CPQ
Notable brands: Merck, Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca
Model N CPQ enables companies to leverage Salesforce Sales Cloud to power the configuration and pricing of their most complex products. It also integrates with SAP Variable Configurator (VC), enabling sales reps to create quotes that are configured and priced precisely the same as they would have been in SAP.
Model N CPQ increases sales productivity and responsiveness to sales opportunities and shortens sales and quote cycles while eliminating quoting errors.
Pricing: Contact Model N for a customized quote
5) CloudSense CPQ
Notable brands: O2, VodafoneZiggo, Spotify, Telstra, Momentum Energy
CloudSense CPQ automates the entire sales and order process from quotes to contracts, orders, and billing. It’s built for high-volume or complex ongoing services in the communications, media, and utilities sectors. Using CloudSense, you can expect to eliminate order errors, speed up your sales cycles, and maximize order value.
Pricing: Contact CloudSense for a customized quote
6) IBM CPQ
IBM Sterling CPQ guides e-commerce customers, sales teams, call center representatives, and partners to select the right products and ensure pricing is accurate. It transforms the buying and selling of complex products and services across all of your buyers’ preferred channels to make it easier for customers to buy from you.
The IBM CPQ solution offers compelling features that cater to large enterprises, especially those with distributed teams who need to get the job done without spending much time on preliminary activities, such as duplicating pricing engine rules and inheritances. It also enables the engine to be localized to support distinct geographies.
Pricing: Contact IBM for a customized quote
7) Infor CPQ
Notable brands: Fetim Group, HermanMiller, Huttig Building Products
Infor CPQ lets you sell complex products quicker by eliminating costly errors and duplication of effort while speeding up the sales cycle. With CPQ capabilities at the center of your sales process, your sales reps get an enormous competitive advantage and a quicker path from engagement to conversion.
The solution integrates well with ERP solutions and includes product features like a recommendation engine, custom pricing options, and visualizations. It’s tailor-made for customizable products and can give your extended team members the power of visual, accurate, and fast ordering—at their fingertips.
Pricing: Contact Infor for a customized quote
8) SAP CPQ
Notable brands: EMC, Invacare, MediaKind, CleaverBrooks, OCTanner
SAP CPQ (formerly CallidusCloud) makes your quoting and selling process simpler, faster, and more profitable. Your sales team and partners can easily offer complex product configurations, optimized pricing, and great-looking quotes and proposals on desktop or mobile.
SAP CPQ connects to your CRM, ERP, or e-commerce platform so that customers can generate their own inquiries, configure the solution they’re interested in, and place their orders themselves.
Pricing: Starting from $71/user/month
9) QuoteWerks CPQ
Notable brands: BlackBox, Ecolab, Honeywell, Scholastic, Skyline
QuoteWerks CPQ provides a turnkey solution with 55+ integrations to multiple CRM, accounting, and ERP solutions. It’s used by companies of all sizes, from mom-and-pop shops to Fortune 500 companies, in almost every industry.
You can easily import your product information into QuoteWerks or enter the details directly into the quote. And its configurator helps sales reps build a quote from a list of products so they don’t forget any items.
QuoteWerks CPQ increases productivity and closes more sales by simplifying and speeding up the price quoting and proposal processes in the office and on the road.
Pricing: Starting from $15/user/month
10) Cincom CPQ
Notable brands: Toyota, Helmer, Spiraxsarco, Hendrickson, Siemens, Carrier, Plantronics
Cincom CPQ is a flexible and agile solution with a sophisticated configurator. It creates real-time pricing and quoting of product configurations and delivers a proposal on the spot. Sales reps and dealers have everything they need to win more business, while customers have everything they need to make a buying decision quickly.
Pricing: Contact Cincom for a customized quote
11) Experlogix CPQ
Notable brands: Fortress, Kenworth, NCR, Nikon, Otis, Volvo
Experlogix CPQ empowers sales reps, customers, and channel partners to configure, price, and deliver customized, accurate quotes fast and error-free. Its powerful yet easy-to-implement product configurator enables you to handle even the most complex configuration, pricing, and quoting requirements.
In addition, Experlogix CPQ has unparalleled, certified integrations to industry-leading CRM and ERP platforms – including Microsoft Dynamics, Salesforce, and NetSuite – so sales reps can configure and deliver complex and tailored products without ever leaving their existing system.
Pricing: Contact Experlogix for a customized quote
12) Bit2win
Notable brands: Vodafone, Sky Italia, Telefonica
Bit2win CPQ automates, optimizes, simplifies, and speeds up the entire quote-to-cash process. It empowers sales, partners, and customers to configure complex products and services, deliver accurate quotes, and create smarter deals with the most updated product and pricing information.
Bit2win CPQ enables the sale of both tangible goods and subscriptions. It supports recurring and standalone fees, bundles, plus amendments to existing service contracts.
Pricing: Starting from $50/user/month
13) BlueSnap (formerly Armatic Sales QTC)
Notable brands: Valvoline, MaxAir, RockIsland, Grand HVAC Leasing
BlueSnap’s AR Automation software streamlines your entire quote-to-cash process. It’s easy to implement, requires no coding, and gives you control of your workflow.
The former Armatic platform automates each step of the billing, accounting, and payment processes. It’s pre-integrated with the ERP and CRM software – like Quickbooks, NetSuite, and Microsoft Dynamics – for seamless reconciliation and reporting.
Pricing: Contact BlueSnap for a customized quote
14) Zimit Services CPQ
Notable brands: Siemens, Workday, WPP, Dell, Alight, CentralSquare
Zimit CPQ is designed for quoting enterprise technology and services, including subscriptions, professional services, managed services, bundled solutions, and XaaS.
It allows customers to replace spreadsheets with a centralized solution catalog that handles guided selling to ensure accurate pricing, automated document content, approvals, and a pricing engine built for the technology and services market.
Pricing: Contact Zimit for a customized quote
15) Tacton CPQ
Notable brands: ABB, Bosch, Caterpillar, Daimler, Mitsubishi, Siemens, Toshiba, Yaskawa
Tacton CPQ allows B2B manufacturers to maintain and sell highly customizable products as if they were standard. The award-winning configuration and pricing engine makes it easier to improve efficiency by automating business processes for fast, error-free quotes and orders.
Tacton CPQ can also be used in a multi-channel environment by either direct sales teams, resellers, or self-service customers.
Pricing: Contact Tacton for a customized quote
16) CIS Configurator
CIS Configurator is a cloud-based tool for large and midsize manufacturing businesses that want to automate the quoting process for internal and external sales teams, resellers, dealers, and customers. You can create, edit, revise, and copy quotes containing configured items and stock data and store them in one centralized location.
The rule-based configurator can operate as a standalone solution or integrate with other applications, such as your ERP or CRM, where users can create quotes and orders with configurable items.
Pricing: Contact CIS Configurator for a customized quote
17) DealHub CPQ
Notable brands: Freshworks, Gong, Sisense, Yotpo
DealHub CPQ makes quoting easier and faster, with real-time insights into your prospects’ engagement and level of interest. Unlike other CPQ solutions, DealHub’s zero-code platform is quick to implement and easy to use – simply plug in your product data, configure your business rules, and start quoting.
You can generate error-free quotes in any format, including webpage, link, PDF, Word, and Excel.
Pricing: Contact DealHub for a customized quote
18) Hansen CPQ (formerly Sigma CPQ)
Notable brands: Orange Belgium, Windstream Communications, Tiscali
Hansen CPQ (formerly Sigma CPQ) software targets the communications service provider industry. The application is driven by Hansen Catalog and adds “telco-grade” capabilities to Microsoft Dynamics 365, Salesforce, and other CRM platforms.
The software helps you sell everything from standardized consumer offerings to customized B2B enterprise services. It increases the speed and accuracy of your sales quotes and orders, resulting in an immediate increase in sales efficiency, agility, and customer satisfaction.
Pricing: Contact Hansen for a customized quote
19) XaitCPQ (formerly Blueprint CPQ)
Notable brands: Penlon, Sectra, BSI Group, Eurotherm
XaitCPQ is a cloud-based solution built for the complex pricing of configurable products. It captures all of the complex product, pricing, and business rules in one central location to automate and streamline actions and ensure accurate pricing in real time.
The software integrates with existing systems, including Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Sage, and SAP Hybris.
XaitCPQ helps organizations win more deals at better margins by making it quick and easy to correctly build, scale, and price combinations of products and services.
Pricing: Contact Xait for a customized quote
20) ConnectWise Sell
ConnectWise Sell is an all-in-one, cloud-based CPQ software for IT solution providers and resellers that creates quotes and proposals anywhere, anytime. It lets you manage sales for growth, create professional quotes and proposals in minutes, and automatically update your sales pipeline.
ConnectWise Sell pulls in the most up-to-date product and pricing information from top distributors with one click. And the software integrates seamlessly with Salesforce, NetSuite, Dynamics CRM, Autotask, and ConnectWise Manage.
Connect Wise CPQ automatically updates your CRM with real-time, time-stamped quotes and proposals, all with legally-compliant customer approvals to ensure no opportunity falls through the cracks.
Pricing: Contact ConnectWise for a customized quote
21) PandaDoc
Notable brands: Autodesk, SGS, Tata Steel, TomTom
PandaDoc is an all-in-one document workflow automation platform that helps fast-growing teams create, manage, and sign digital documents, including proposals and quotes.
PandaDoc CPQ software can use the information in your CRM system to automatically pull data, products, and services into documents, saving you time and trouble.
Overall, it increases productivity and enhances the customer experience, with a fast and easy workflow.
Pricing: $49/user/month for the business plan
22) Apttus
Notable brands: Avier, Peloton Consulting, Charles River, Sony Pictures Networks India
Apttus is a component of the Conga Revenue Lifecycle Cloud. It is designed for various teams, including sales, finance, and business operations. This platform helps users create complex product configurations with multiple price types like contract or pre-negotiated pricing.
Its automated quote-to-cash solution also helps with solution selling and asset-based ordering, enabling users to repurchase items bought previously.
Pricing: Pricing details aren’t available on Apttus’s website.
23) FPX CPQ
Notable brands: Rosenbauer, Martin & Co, StanleyBlack & Decker, Maintainer
FPX CPQ is an enterprise CPQ for discrete manufacturers. This platform lets sellers manage products, orders, and pricing, offering customers the self-service or direct purchase option through an eCommerce solution.
FPX CPQ integrates with ERPs, CRMs, and pricing software like Salesforce, SAP, and Microsoft Dynamics. It has a mechanical equipment feature built specifically to enable users to sell configurable utility vehicles, trucks, and specialty machinery.
Pricing: Pricing details aren’t available on FPX’s website.
24) PROS Smart CPQ
Notable brands: Cardinal Health, Air Europa, Siemens, Etihad Airways
PROS Smart CPQ is an AI and Machine Learning powered CPQ software that lets B2B organizations build an omnichannel selling experience for their customers. It enables sales reps to manage subscription orders, spots, and sales agreements.
Users can analyze the performance of deals with integrated waterfall charts and quote performance tools. PROS also helps sales reps send personalized offers with guided selling, and AI-powered cross-sell recommendations.
Pricing:
- Essentials: $60/user/month
- Advantage: $75/user/month
- Ultimate: contact sales for pricing details
25) Accenture bit2win
Notable brands: Sky Italia, Telefonica, Vodafone
Accenture bit2win is a cloud-native and omnichannel sales suite with a CPQ platform that supports multichannel sales and order management. Its self-service features allow B2B customers to select and customize products themselves and then request a quote. This platform also integrates with ERP systems to fulfill customized orders.
Bit2win offers a centralized product catalog that can be personalized for the customer journey.
Pricing: Pricing details aren’t available on Accenture’s website.
26) Apparound CPQ
Notable brands: Sorgenia, Cribis, Rangers, Metamer
Apparound CPQ is an Italian-based CPQ software built for e-commerce and B2C sellers in industries like fashion & retail, manufacturing, energy, and pharma. It enables users to generate quotes and proposals online or offline via desktop or mobile devices.
Apparound also has a sales tracker that provides an overview of all accepted or rejected sales deals, enabling users to control the opening rate of deals. It integrates with Salesforce, Hubspot, and Microsoft Dynamics CRM.
Pricing: Pricing details aren’t available on Apparound’s website.
27) Zuora
Notable brands: Zoom, Avalara, BigCommerce, CarGurus
Zuora is a quoting software designed for subscription businesses. It enables users to quote combinations of products, services, and subscriptions for the entire customer lifecycle. Zuora allows users to measure the financial impact of upsells, cross-sells, and renewals.
The platform also automates revenue enablement-related tasks like change orders, provisioning, and invoicing. Its low-code SDKs and APIs integrate well with Microsoft and Snowflake.
Pricing: Pricing details aren’t available on Zuora’s website.
More About CPQ Software & Tools
Let’s look at some other things that are helpful to know about CPQ software.
What are CPQ tools?
CPQ tools are a suite of applications that automate the process of configuring product bundles, setting prices, and generating quotes for clients. It is a sales tool that integrates with other sales enablement platforms like CRMs and ERPs to draw data from those platforms and accurately generate quotes for orders.
According to research, CPQ software enables users to 10x the quote generation process, reduce approval time by 95%, and move 2x faster from quote to cash. This software usually comes with intuitive and interactive features like guided selling, price optimization, product bundles, and quote generation.
Is there free CPQ software?
The answer is yes. Companies like Hubspot, Salesforce Revenue Cloud, MrPeasy, Catalyst, and PandaDoc offer a free CPQ platform. But there’s a catch. These platforms are either free for a limited period of time or have limited functionality in free versions.
Hubspot, for example, has a free feature that only allows users to build customizable quotes, track deals, and attach line items. While MrPeasy offers full functionality on a 30 day free trial.
Free CPQ software is great to test a platform's capability or simply understand the automated CPQ process. However, they have less functionality. If you want dynamic components like omnichannel selling, personalized pricing, or real-time product visualization, you should opt for paid CPQ software.
Is Salesforce a CPQ?
Yes, Salesforce is a CPQ. Configure, price, quote by Salesforce is hosted within the Sales cloud platform and directly links to user CRMs. It is designed to enable organizations to reduce business risks using approval workflow, controls, and compliance embedded in the quoting process.
Salesforce CPQ also integrates with Salesforce applications like sales analytics, partner relationship management, and revenue cloud.
Is CPQ a CRM?
CRM means Customer Relationship Management. It is software that enables businesses to manage customer relationships by tracking interactions and the information shared with customers. These platforms automate customer data collection, like purchases, contact information, and service requests, to help marketing, sales, and customer support teams create personalized experiences for customers.
A CPQ is not a CRM. It focuses on designing product bundles using a set of predetermined rules, pricing optimization, and generating error-free quotes. Both software works seamlessly with each other and allow users to manage their entire sales process on a centralized platform. The CPQ software should typically be embedded into your CRM, so it functions as a tab.
Is Salesforce CPQ easy to learn?
Salesforce CPQ, like most CPQ software, is complex, with features and functionalities that require users to spend some time learning. It has a steep learning curve that often makes it difficult for sales reps to adopt it. Some reviews on Gartner reveal that Salesforce CPQ is very agile and flexible and easily adapts to business needs; however, it does not have the internal resources and support needed for new users to understand the platform.
If you plan to use Salesforce CPQ, you may have to get an expert to get it up and running. Then, you’ll have to support your teams with knowledge and training via a third-party platform like Spekit. Spekit’s learning platform offers training templates on Salesforce and lets you create bite-sized courses that your team can reference while on Salesforce, enabling you to drive faster onboarding.
Spekit’s just-in-time learning enables you to deliver CPQ training directly in the flow of work in applications (like CRMs) that your reps use daily. You can automate reps' onboarding process with in-app guidance and reinforcement learning. With Spekit, you can combine SDR onboarding, bite-sized learning, coaching, and in-app knowledge assessments to cut down ramp onboarding time by 50%!
Use the best CPQ software for your team
CPQ software is inherently complex, just like its CRM counterpart. As a result, your organization could have difficulty implementing, integrating, and using the software.
Spekit’s streamlined onboarding experience reinforces crucial processes, best practices, and in-app training right where your team is working to drive retention and make them more productive – faster.
With Spekit’s Salesforce CPQ connection, you can train, enable, and empower your team, so they can easily ramp up on the platform in minutes.
Learn how Spekit can empower and train your team in minutes on Salesforce CPQ.
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