-1.svg){kind=icon}
If you’re tired of spreadsheets and rogue sales reps discounting on the fly, of losing prospects because it takes so long to produce a quote, and errors that impact margins, then it’s time you learned more about CPQ.
What is CPQ used for?
CPQ stands for Configure, Price, and Quote, a software tool with a rules-based engine. This system ensures that product selection and price optimization are error-free throughout the sales process. The meaning of CPQ in business is to transform the selling of complex products into a flawless, fast, easy and more profitable process.
The CPQ Process Explained
.png?width=914&height=300&name=Green%20Corporate%20Minimalist%20Infographic%20Presentation%20(4).png)
Configuration allow sales operations (experts) to catalogue complex configurations of pre-approved products and services with all possible price combinations. Service and product bundles then become available for selection to sales reps, speeding up the quoting process and preventing all product combination errors.
Pricing becomes error-free, your sales reps no longer has to spend hours to learn which product and service bundles are eligible. CPQ pricing models ensures updated prices are available to your sales team 24-7, forget outdated spreadsheets and disconnected systems.
Quoting in CPQ software is enabling sales teams to quickly generate quote documents, regardless of complexity. High-impact, on-brand proposals can be created quickly and negotiated in real-time for a flawless and impressive customer experience. Also, making recurring business much more likely.
Together, these steps form a connected workflow that ensures every quote is accurate, quick, impressive, compliant, and ready to send.
Key Advantages of Implementing a CPQ System
The benefits extend across the entire organization, reducing friction and creating the foundation you need to scale.
- Accuracy: Eliminate pricing errors and protect profit margins.
- Growth: Identifies upselling and cross-selling opportunities automatically.
- Speed: Time to quote is usually reduced by more than 50%
.png?width=914&height=540&name=Green%20Corporate%20Minimalist%20Infographic%20Presentation%20(2).png)
These benefits translate directly into measurable results for modern sales teams.
Moving from spreadsheets to automation transformed how Clark Hall Doors & Windows managed pricing, accuracy, and scale. Read more about their CPQ implementation.
Who Benefits From CPQ Software?
The key groups that actively use or rely on Configure, Price, Quote (CPQ Software) to drive and manage sales are:
- Sales Teams: The primary day-to-day users who leverage the system through guided selling.
- Sales Operations: The administrators and strategists who manage the system's product catalogs, set up custom pricing rules, and control approval workflows.
- Distributors: Channel partners use the platform to quote the manufacturer's products compliantly.
- Solution Providers: Resellers use quoting tools to ensure accurate pricing and product configuration for scaled indirect sales and final delivery to the end-customer.
- E-commerce Customers: Customers who use the online product configurator directly on a website to configure, price, and place their own orders
Business Impact
Manual quoting slows teams down. Repetitive work, version chaos, and approval delays make it hard to keep pace with today’s buyers. Research highlights the measurable difference automation makes:
- Best-in-class users experience up to fourfold growth in net profit over five years. (Aberdeen Group)
- They generate quotes up to 10 times faster and achieve a 95% reduction in approval time. (ObjectEdge)
- Organizations without software take 73% longer to produce a typical quote or proposal. (Cloudsense)
These results show how automation turns quoting from a slow, error-prone task into a driver of growth and efficiency.
Choosing the Best Solution for your Business
When you´re trying to choose the best CPQ solution, balance your current needs against future scale. A system that is too basic may fail under complex configurations, while an overly powerful enterprise system may be unnecessarily expensive or require costly customization for basic needs.
Based on our experience, consider these critical factors:
- Type: Choose a solution that balances out-of-the-box functionality with required customization, weighing time to value, scalability, and total cost. Enterprise teams should look for dedicated CPQ for enterprise solutions, designed to handle complex product structures, multiple approval workflows, and global operations.
- Ease of Use: Since salespeople are the primary users, the solution must simplify the quoting process, empowering your sales team to hit targets without manual effort.
- Product Mix: Look for robust integration capabilities with other systems (like CRM/ERP) and features like portals and e-commerce to pass efficiencies to partners and customers.
- Perspective: Set clear expectations and milestones. Choose a solution that solves today’s challenges but is built to scale for future growth and product complexity.
- Vendor: Look beyond the standard demonstration. Ensure the vendor addresses your team's specific pain points and don't be afraid to steer the conversation to your needs.
- Integrations: Modern solutions connect with your ERP system (such as SAP), e-commerce and CRM systems, allowing you to integrate them seamlessly into your tech stack.
Recommended content:
Core Features of CPQ Software
Once you know what to look for in a solution, understanding its core capabilities will help you evaluate which system fits your organization best. Modern CPQ software combines logic, automation, and integration to streamline the entire quoting process — from configuring products to quotes generated.
Key features include:
- Ready-to-sell product bundles: Ensure only valid product and service combinations are quoted, reducing manual errors, increasing profit margins, and eliminating compliance risks.
- Pricing and discount control: Apply pricing logic, dynamic pricing, margin protection, and approval workflows to guarantee consistency and profitability.
- Automated proposal generation: Create accurate, tailor-made and on-brand proposals instantly — no formatting or version control issues.
- Guided selling: Helps sales teams recommend the best product, service and price combinations for each customer need.
- Pre-approved product catalogue: Experts prepare approved product and service bundles, sales teams can quote instantly without waiting for approvals or pricing updates.
- CRM, ERP, and eCommerce integrations: Sync data with a CPQ for CRM, allowing you to integrate seamlessly with your current sales enablement systems.
- Multi-currency and multi-region support: Manage pricing and quoting globally while maintaining local compliance and accuracy.
- Reporting and analytics: Track quote performance, conversion rates, and pricing trends to inform better business decisions.
Together, these features allow organizations to configure complex products with confidence, price them accurately, and quote faster — all while maintaining control and brand consistency.
Industries That Benefit From CPQ
The CPQ buying process shortens the sales cycle and it is used across industries where products, services, or pricing structures are complex. Whether you sell engineered equipment, professional services, or subscription-based software, configure, price, quote helps teams deliver accurate quotes, reduce errors, and close deals faster.
Explore how software transforms each industry in our dedicated guides below.
