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CPQ software turns this process into a faster, scalable, and customer-friendly process. Instead of overly relying on experts and manual spreadsheets, your sales team, partners, and resellers can build accurate quotes in minutes using pre-approved product and pricing logic, set up and maintained by your product experts.
A modern CPQ system connects your product catalog, configuration options, and pricing rules into one guided flow. It helps users handle even the most complex solutions with dynamic pricing, upsell and cross-sell suggestions, and seamless CRM, ERP, and eCommerce integration.
What Is CPQ Used For in Business? (And How It Works)
In complex B2B sales, creating a quote is more than just finding a price. It is about providing the best solution quickly and accurately to build client trust.
This is where the strong CPQ process helps. It is a clear, three-step workflow that allows businesses to sell complex products and services effectively.
1. Configure
This step involves selecting the right combination of products, features, and services to match the customer’s needs. With a clear configuration process in place, teams avoid invalid combinations and reduce dependency on product experts.
What you might configure:
- Product options like size, material, or finish
- Services such as installation or training
- Bundled offers or recurring subscriptions
- Rules for compliance based on location or industry
2. Price
After configuration, pricing rules are applied based on business logic—ensuring consistency across deals.
This step can account for:
- Volume discounts or customer-specific pricing
- Regional taxes and currency considerations
- Margin controls and pre-set approval thresholds
- Contract terms or usage-based models
- It ensures every quote reflects accurate, strategic pricing aligned with company goals.
3. Quote
The final step is building a professional, buyer-ready quote that includes all the necessary details. A good CPQ process supports fast turnaround, consistency in branding, and clarity in communication—no matter who’s preparing the quote.
Common formats include:
- On-brand PDFs
- Online proposals for easy access
- Embedded quotes within sales platforms
- Self-service quotes for partners and distributors
The Impact of Modernizing Your Quoting Process
Quotes are consistent and on-brand. Every configuration is valid. Every price reflects your business logic. The rules you define in advance reduce the risk of errors and prevent unauthorized offers from slipping through.
Pricing becomes strategic. Volume discounts, customer-specific terms, and regional adjustments apply automatically. Base prices, margin controls, and pricing models are built into the process—enabling your team to move faster without compromising profit.
Profit protection is built in. Instead of catching mistakes after the fact, you prevent them from happening. Approval workflows route deals based on value, product, or role—so nothing is sent without proper oversight.
Bundles and outcomes are easy to sell. Service contracts, support add-ons, and extended warranties can be bundled with core products in just a few clicks—aligning with your servitization strategy and increasing deal value.
Documents are generated automatically. Your team doesn’t have to chase down formatting, copy, or legal clauses. Proposals, specs, and supporting materials are produced instantly using pre-approved templates.
Systems stay in sync. Accurate data flows between your ERP and CRM platforms. Sales teams always have access to the latest product details, pricing rules, and customer history—without duplicating effort.
Global quoting becomes manageable. Whether you're quoting in one country or fifteen, the system supports multiple currencies, regional tax rules, and regulatory requirements. No custom fixes. No workarounds.
In short, quoting becomes faster, more accurate, and fully aligned with your business strategy. This isn’t just automation—it’s smart, scalable selling.
Real-World Results: How Teams Quote Smarter and Sell Faster
Talking about transformation is one thing. Seeing it in action is another.
Across industries, companies using structured, automated quoting processes report faster turnaround times, fewer errors, and stronger deal velocity—all while improving customer satisfaction and protecting margins.
Fabtek, a U.S.-based manufacturer of stainless steel boiler systems, cut quote time by 50%, enabling their team to shift from fixing errors to focusing on customers. What once required manual work and technical reviews now takes minutes—powered by guided configuration, automated pricing, and branded proposals. More team members—and even channel partners—can now generate accurate quotes without relying on experts.
Check out some of our CPQ case studies here:
In regulated sectors, quoting platforms help teams build compliant quotes with dynamic pricing, service bundles, and regional variations—without bottlenecks. The result: accurate quotes, faster decisions, and a shorter sales cycle.
Meanwhile, companies managing aftermarket services or recurring contracts have found a new growth engine. By simplifying the quoting of renewals, support plans, and upgrades, they’ve turned quoting into a consistent upsell driver.
And for sales leaders, the payoff isn’t just speed—it’s scalability. With fewer handoffs and greater pricing confidence, teams quote more, close faster, and deliver a better customer experience across every interaction.
Industry Impact: How Configure Price Quote Powers Growth Across Sectors
No matter your industry, understanding what CPQ is can help you scale effectively, different industries quotes in different ways. A truck manufacturer, a SaaS vendor, and an energy service company all face different quoting challenges.
What they share is complexity, complex products, complex pricing, and complex approvals. That’s where a flexible quoting platform becomes a serious growth lever.
- Manufacturing: The quoting process in manufacturing often involves hundreds of configuration variables—materials, sizes, certifications, delivery conditions. Take industrial equipment manufacturers—their complexity scales quickly! With a structured product catalog and dynamic pricing, sales teams can generate clear, accurate quotes in a fraction of the time. That clarity helps win more deals, and it protects margins across global operations.
- Energy and Renewables: In energy and renewables, solution complexity and compliance demands are sky-high. A delay in a quote, or a miscalculated spec, can kill the deal. Automated approvals, accurate pricing models, and up-to-date regulatory logic give your team an edge in every RFQ and RFP response.
- Services: For managed services and business services, quoting isn’t about SKUs—it’s about outcomes. Accuracy here is critical, not just for profitability, but for client trust. CPQ helps structure service bundles, automate approval flows, and reduce quoting errors that otherwise increase risk.
- Professional services: Sales reps juggle time-based services, changing scopes, and bundled support. With a modern system in place, teams can quote confidently—pulling from a library of pre-approved deliverables, rates, and packages.
- Tech and SaaS: Speed is everything. The faster your team can respond with a personalized, accurate quote, the more likely you are to win the deal. Quote workflows, automated bundling, and CRM integration create a seamless process from first demo to signed contract.
Even high-regulation sectors like accreditation, certification, and medtech benefit from CPQ’s built-in compliance controls and audit trails. The result? Faster quoting, less rework, and higher win rates. No matter your industry, the outcome is the same: less friction, more precision, and quoting that scales with your business.
The Sales Team Advantage: Sell Faster Without Sacrificing Accuracy
Sales teams face mounting pressure to move quickly—without compromising accuracy, brand, or profitability.
A structured quoting platform removes the guesswork. It guides reps through product configuration, automates pricing logic, and eliminates delays caused by approvals, formatting, or outdated information.
Guided selling empowers reps to navigate even the most complex product lines. Whether bundling offerings, selecting compatible components, or applying custom pricing models, the process is built to reduce friction and protect margins.
CRM and ERP integrations connect the dots between platforms, ensuring real-time accuracy and eliminating double entry. Reps have everything they need in one place—from base prices and product specs to discount rules and customer history.
Upsell and cross-sell opportunities are built directly into the quoting process. Reps are prompted with relevant service add-ons, bundled options, or premium tiers that improve deal size without slowing down sales.
Quote generation is seamless—branded, accurate, and fast. Whether sent via CRM, customer portal, or mobile-friendly proposal, the result is consistent and conversion-ready.
This is quoting without friction—and selling at scale. Learn more about CPQ requirements here, or check the Ebook below to discover if your business could be ready to implement:
What Is CPQ Software? (And How to Choose the Best CPQ Tool)
While CPQ describes the process, CPQ software is what makes it fast, scalable, and easy to manage across your entire organization.
It replaces disconnected spreadsheets, manual approvals, and one-off price sheets with a structured platform that supports product configuration, pricing rules, and quote generation—all in one place.
What to Expect From a CPQ System
A modern CPQ system connects your product catalog, pricing strategy, and approval workflows into a guided experience. Whether used by sales teams, resellers, or partners, it helps users configure even the most complex products without making costly mistakes.
The best CPQ tools include:
- A user-friendly configuration process with built-in rules
- Dynamic pricing that adjusts based on geography, volume, or customer type
- Quote generation tools for producing branded PDFs or web-based proposals
- Seamless integration with your CRM system, ERP systems, or eCommerce platform
- Support for upsell and cross-sell logic to increase deal value
- Role-based permissions and automated approvals to reduce risk
Choosing the Best CPQ Software for Your Business
Not every CPQ platform is built the same. Some offer fast, out-of-the-box setups for simple products. Others are built to handle high volumes, global teams, or engineering-grade configurations.
When comparing CPQ solutions, consider:
- Configuration complexity: Do you sell customizable or regulated products?
- Pricing requirements: Do you need multi-currency, margin protection, or customer-specific terms?
- Quote output: Are you generating branded proposals, eCommerce quotes, or partner-ready templates?
- Integrations: Does the CPQ solution work with your CRM and ERP platforms?
- User access: Will it support both internal teams and external partners or customers?
Above all, the best CPQ tools eliminate the need for manual steps, protect your margins, and help you deliver a better customer experience—from first conversation to signed quote.
Evaluating CPQ Solutions: What to Look for Before You Choose
Once you’ve seen the benefits of CPQ, the next step is choosing the right platform. But not every CPQ system offers the same flexibility, depth, or scalability.
Assess your quoting needs. Do you need basic configuration and pricing, or advanced workflows, service bundling, and multi-currency support? The complexity of your product offerings should drive the decision.
Integration is also key. Your quoting system should enhance—not complicate—your existing stack. Whether you’re using Salesforce, HubSpot, or Microsoft Dynamics, the solution should sync with your CRM and ERP to support real-time updates and accurate quoting.
- CPQ integration for Salesforce
- CPQ integration for HubSpot
- CPQ integration for Microsoft Dynamics 365
Look for user adoption. A CPQ platform must be easy to use. If the interface is clunky or the process requires constant expert input, reps won’t adopt it—and the return on investment will suffer.
Plan for growth. Choose a platform that scales with your business. Look for flexible pricing models, role-based workflows, and the ability to support new teams, regions, and product lines.
The Future of Selling: Why This Shift Matters Now
The way people buy has changed. And that means the way you sell has to change too.
Customers want tailored solutions, accurate pricing, and a professional quote—all without delays or back-and-forth emails. They’re not just buying a product. They’re investing in an outcome.
Outdated quoting tools can’t keep up. They introduce friction where there should be flow—and risk where there should be trust.
Modern quoting platforms eliminate that friction. They empower your team to generate accurate quotes faster, streamline approvals, and consistently deliver branded, value-driven proposals. They also give leadership full visibility into sales performance, pricing models, and customer behavior.
This isn’t a trend—it’s the new standard.
If your team is still building quotes in spreadsheets, depending on manual checks, and missing deadlines, it’s time to move forward.
The most successful companies aren’t patching old systems. They’re replacing them—using modern CPQ solutions to configure price and quote at scale, and win more deals with less effort.
Discover The True Benefit of CPQ Tools and Improve Your Sales Process
It’s time to move beyond spreadsheets and slow approvals. The question was: What is CPQ? and the next one might be what does CPQ mean for your business? Choosing the right solution is very important.
XaitCPQ is built to handle complexity and scale, whether you're selling custom-engineered products, bundled services, or anything in between. With real-time pricing, guided selling, and branded proposal generation, it helps your team sell smarter at scale.
If you’re ready to eliminate the need for manual work, protect your margins, and drive improved sales across the board, let’s talk about what modern quoting could look like for your business.
