1. What Is CPQ Software?
2. Best CPQ Software Products
3. Top 12 Most Popular CPQ Software
4. All CPQ Software Reviews
5. Types of CPQ Software
6. Examples of CPQ Software

CPQ software is an abbreviation for configure, price, quote. CPQ software can help your sales unit to configure your products or services with your business rules to meet customer requirements. The tool can also enable them to manage the pricing of all your offerings. They can generate quotes with standardized pricing accurately and quickly, and include available discounts. In addition, pricing rules can be stipulated to manage partner and channel pricing, pre-negotiated contract pricing, percent-of-total subscriptions, and volume discounts. Then, a sales agent can generate a quote, send it by email, and add an e-signature to finalize the deal. CPQ software ensures consistency in the whole process by automatically linking the configured products and pricing. Start by checking our leader Salesforce CPQ, and other recommended solutions in this category.

CPQ tools help your sales squad to configure your company’s products or services with your business rules, manage their pricing, and generate and send a quote to clients to close the deal. This platform can thus prove invaluable for your enterprise’s sales unit. But how do you select the best CPQ tools in the business from loads of solutions out there? Read this buyer’s guide to learn the main features to look for while scrutinizing the various software products and do educated comparisons.

Get to know each product with free trial

The ideal way to start your quest for the best CPQ software is to try them out free of cost. You can do this by using the handy free trial facility offered by most top vendors. We recommend the following tools and you can visit their websites to check if there is a free trial you can register for: Apttus, Salesforce Quote-to-Cash, Infor Configure Price Quote, and Oracle CPQ Cloud.

Targeted Businesses

CPQ software is recommended for medium-sized and larger companies that provide customization for clients when ordering as well as those that have large product lines. Plus, it can be used by businesses that have big sales teams that need to be constantly updated about product development and changes. Sales teams can use the tool to manage and organize high volumes of custom sales enquiries and orders.  

CPQ software can also prove handy for fast-growing small companies as it can improve their competitiveness by empowering them to speedily turn back price quotes to clients.

Examples of CPQ Software

1. Apttus: Enables your sales team to sell more anywhere on the cloud. This app is designed within the Salesforce1 solution. It provides users with the best quotes for all channels, products, and pricing. Plus, you can integrate quoting solution with your contract procedures to automate renewal quotes based on agreed terms and pricing.
2. Salesforce Quote-to-Cash: Enables you to configure quotes with accuracy and speed. You can streamline approvals, pricing, and discounting. Deliver branded proposals from within the Sales Cloud platform. The tool offers advanced billing and revenue recognition features to enable you to send invoices and collect money easily.
3. Infor Configure Price Quote: Advanced CPQ technology for your whole network. An easy-to-use product that helps to reduce costs and boost profits. Enables your sales team, distributors, and partners to deliver the best buying experience to clients. Infor CPQ helps you to become a preferred provider in your industry.
4. Oracle CPQ Cloud: Helps your company to improve sales productivity and margins. The solution is enterprise-ready, scalable, and flexible. It enables you to capture orders for complex services and products and produce quotes quickly. In addition, the tool can make your ERP and CRM systems more efficient.

Types of CPQ Software

There are 2 widely used versions:

• SaaS – The CPQ solution is cloud-hosted which means you can access it from anywhere, anytime. In addition, the vendor takes care of maintenance, upgrades, and updates. There are no upfront costs and you simply need to pay a monthly or yearly subscription fee to avail the benefits.
• On-Premise Software – The CPQ solution can be installed on your company’s computers and made available to authorized employees. Though the upfront costs are more, you can control the security of your company data.

Key Features of CPQ Software

1. Mobile compatibility. Top CPQ solutions offer mobile apps that have all the features included in desktop version.
2. Product configuration. Enables companies to stipulate logic rules for configuration of products and the degree of customization a client can select.
3. Renewal management. Helps sales reps in maintaining renewed orders or standing orders with customers.
4. Price and quote. The core tool of a CPQ platform. It stipulates the price based on a customer’s needs and sends the quote to the customer.
5. Guided selling. Sales professionals can automatically find suitable products based on client requirements.
6. Analytics. Offers detailed data and reports on sales KPIs and other metrics. Top solutions can do predictive analytics and forecasting to predict future configurations and sales.

Benefits of CPQ Software

1. Efficient contract process: CPQ software makes your quote process more efficient by ensuring all essential data is up to date and ready when you need it.
2. Enhanced accuracy: It can prove costly if a company makes pricing errors as this will earn the wrath of the customer. CPQ software eliminates human errors and enables you to deliver dependable and accurate quotes all the time.
3. Personalized service: The tool enables you to provide personalized service to each of your clients. You can create and deliver customized quotes to each customer. Plus, your sales reps can produce updated quotes in real time if customers want to make any changes or to include applicable discounts. If you provide personalized sales quotes, customers will be more willing to share their personal data with your company.
4. Saves time: You can save a lot of time by automating the quote process. This allows your sales team to handle more leads and close more deals. A recent survey by Aberdeen Group Reports reveals that CPQ software helps companies reduce the length of their sales cycles by up to 28% and increases the proposal volume per rep per month by up to 49%.  
5. Increased sales: All the above benefits help to improve sales for companies. In fact, CPQ helps businesses increase their average deal size by up to 105%.

Latest Trends

CRM vendors are expanding their CPQ offerings

Salesforce’s acquisition of the Steelbrick CPQ solution signals that CRM companies are keen on buying CPQ platforms to include in their offerings. This means CPQ providers who wish to compete in the market need to differentiate their products and features to stay ahead of software platforms the come bundled with a CRM tool.

Companies are more educated on the benefits of CPQ

A lot of enterprises have learnt the value of CPQ and are using this concept to enhance their business competitiveness. This knowledge helps these companies to understand the features offered by different CPQ vendors and select the best fit for their needs. In addition, a lot of organizations are shifting from one CPQ solution to another as their needs increase.

Potential Issues

Slow CPQ process

Your CPQ process can be slowed down by manual work and too many reviews and revisions. This can dull your company’s competitive edge. It is important to respond promptly when your clients are ready. You can ensure this by using CPQ software to automate the CPQ process.

Manual CPQ process is error-prone

Dependence on manual CPQ process can make your proposals miss client requests and need revisions. Plus, if you add manual reviews it will further slow down responses and increase the risk of human error. When sales reps use manual processes they may utilize old proposal templates. This can lead to errors like old client names and logos in new proposals. You can resolve these issues by automating proposal generation with CPQ software.