Top CPQ Software for Startups in 2022

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What is CPQ Software?

Configure, price, and sellers use quote (CPQ) software to generate error-free quotes for customizable products and services. The core purpose of CPQ is to allow sales representatives to focus on establishing mutually constructive relationships with customers without worrying about quoting prices for complex products.

CPQ software works as follows:

Configure: Customer requirements continuously change in the fast-paced tech world. Keeping track of each customer’s needs is difficult, and CPQ software lets you configure complex products to ensure that the result is precisely what your customer requested. It leaves no scope for any manual errors and takes care of selling opportunities.
Price: CPQ software accomplishes the task of making sure that the range of different customizable products you offer is priced correctly. CPQ takes care of price by ensuring that it is reasonable, within the customer’s budget, and profitable for the seller -- all through artificial intelligence.
Quote: CPQ software ensures that the customer gets accurate quotes for the product or service. Often, customers want to look at several vendors before choosing one. The customers must have an accurate, all-inclusive quote from each vendor in making such a decision. CPQ software provides error-free quotes to customers and allows sellers to review the quote to track last-minute changes.

What criteria should you evaluate when choosing CPQ software?

1. Pricing

The most important factor in choosing CPQ software is its price. It should be affordable and sustainable for you to implement in the long run. The ideal CPQ vendor should meet your goals by allowing you to pay for features that you actually use. It would also do you good to check if your CPQ vendor accommodates monthly payments or a flat fee, and more importantly, that there are no surprise charges when you start scaling. The ideal pricing is consistent and commensurate with what you need and use.

2. Ease of use

Your primary reason for choosing CPQ software is that it is easy for your sales staff to use and provides accurate quotes.

The ideal CPQ software:

It is easy to use
Is agile
Streamlines the selling process and team communication

Only then can it be qualified as a suitable tool, rather than one which makes you deal with complicated procedures that aim to make selling easy.

3. Automation of the sales process

Again, the primary reason for implementing CPQ software is to relieve the startup from all the manual work involved in configuring, pricing, and quoting. The ideal CPQ software will automate the sales process, so your sales representatives can instantly access the data they need.

4. Integration

The quintessential CPQ software will seamlessly integrate with other software to squeeze maximum benefits out of every solution that you pay for. This also makes overall selling easier and quicker.

Top 10 CPQ Software vendors

Salesforce CPQ

Description: Leading CPQ and billing platform that allows you to consolidate sales and finance with complete access to customer patterns through automated tools to optimize sales and scale revenue.

Best for: Small startups to enterprise orgs

Pricing:

Three plans are available:

CPQ: $75 per month per user, billed annually.

CPQ + :$150 per month per user, billed annually.

CPQ and Billing Plus: Custom pricing is available according to your needs.

Evaluation of key criteria:

Pricing: Three pricing plans are based on services provided; billing is based on the number of users.
Ease of use: Available, but not entirely.
Automation of the sales process: Yes, the availability of complete automation from quote to cash on one platform is available through the custom CPQ and Billing Plus plan.
Integration: Yes, several third-party integrations are available with CRMs (including, of course, Salesforce CRM) and other kinds of software like DocuSign, Zuora, EchoSign, and Xactly. Request more information from Salesforce.

Pros:

Allows you to easily keep multiple quotes attached to one opportunity, as it does the math to simplify the process of quoting.
Multi-departmental integration available
It allows you to easily keep track of product churn, expansion, and cross-selling.

Cons:

Salesforce CPQ is not as intuitive as customers might expect it to be.
It can take a few months before it is fully implemented with ease across your team.

HubSpot Sales Hub

Description: Sales Hub is built on the leading HubSpot CRM platform that eases CPQ functionality through robust sales analytics to amalgamate customer data and facilitate growth.

Best for: Growing startups

Pricing:

Three plans are available:

Starter: $45 per month, billed at $540 per year (2 paid users included, $23 per month for an additional user).

Professional: $450 per month, billed at $5400 per year (5 paid users included, $90 per month for each additional user).

Enterprise: $1200 per month, billed at $14,400 per year (10 paid users included, $120 per month for each additional user).

Evaluation of key criteria:

Pricing: Different pricing models according to your need, and billing is based on the number of users.
Ease of use: Yes, HubSpot’s user-friendly tools do not require any training and assure easy implementation across your team.
Automation of sales process: Yes, simple automation is available with the Starter plan, and lead rotation automation is available with the Professional program. More details can be requested individually from HubSpot.
Integration: Xero, NetSuite, QuickBooks.

Pros:

Customizable in terms of growing with you, in accordance with your needs.
Intuitive design.
Smooth integration with Gmail suite products and other established business tools

Cons:

The onboarding process requires more streamlining.
Customer service needs a lot of improvement in terms of promptness.
Absence of an all-in-one pricing range

Proposify

Description: Online proposal software that provides insights to enhance your sales process, along with the ability to create error-free sales documents and accurate forecasting.

Best for: Growing sales teams, professional services, the sales tech, and startups/small businesses.

Pricing: Pricing starts at $49 per month, based on the per-user model—more Contact Proposify for more information.

Evaluation of key criteria:

Pricing: Provision for a free version and a free trial, options for quarterly or annual billing available
Ease of use: Available
Automation of sales process: Yes
Integration: Many integrations available (e.g., Harvest)

Pros:

Creating proposals and sending out NDAs (signed digitally) is easily manageable through Proposify.
Ease of modification, particularly when building your proposal’s templates
A helpful library of educational content and examples

Cons:

Integrations need expansion with other mainstream marketing platforms
No provision to add duplicate contact mails or to search for contacts

DealHub.io

Description: Leading and award-winning collaborative sales-engagement platform with real-time insights to simplify quoting by tracking your possible prospects.

Best for: Small, medium-sized, and enterprise companies.

Pricing:

Two plans are available:

DealRoom: Personalized digital sales proposals.

DealHub CPQ: Zero-code CPQ is available to cater to ever-changing business needs.

All pricing details have not been disclosed publicly. Contact DealHub.io for more information.

Evaluation of key criteria:

Pricing: Not disclosed publicly
Ease of use: Yes, it requires simply plugging in your product data to initiate the configuration and quoting process
Automation of sales process: Yes
Integration: Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, and Freshworks CRMs

Pros:

Provision to generate error-free quotes in any branded format, including DealRoom, PDF, Word, and Excel.
Accurate and complete sales and customer data are available to augment your CRM.
Complete, all-inclusive sales engagement platform that allows you to automatically sync all data and signed contracts directly to “Opportunities.”

Cons:

More integrations are desired.
More flexibility is desired around some features.
Implementation takes longer than expected.

PandaDoc

Description: CPQ software works at accelerating your sales cycle through easy collaboration, real-time reporting, and over 750 templates to choose from and customize.

Best for: Businesses with 1-1000+ users.

Pricing:

Four plans are available:

Free eSign: Free

Essentials: $19 per month, per user, free trial available.

Business: $49 per month, per user; free trial available

Enterprise: Custom pricing for those teams that require APIs or Salesforce integrations.

Evaluation of key criteria:

Pricing: Free trials are available for specific plans, sales team supports the best pricing for groups that need more users.
Ease of use: Yes
Automation of sales process: Yes, PandaDoc can automatically collect information from your startup’s CRM to create error-free quotes.
Integration: Powerful integrations available with over 30 CRMs, QuickBooks, PayPal, and Stripe.

Pros

Customizable and easy to use with efficient API integration
Provision of live edits available
You can see when signers view documents.

Cons

Creating custom fields lacks user-friendliness.
Additional features such as KYC are lacking.

Zoho CRM

Description: All-inclusive CRM streamlining 360-degree customer relationship lifecycle management through workflow automation.

Best for: Small, medium-, and large-sized businesses.

Pricing:

Four plans are available:

Standard: $10.82 per user per month, billed annually.

Professional: $18.93 per user per month, billed annually.

Enterprise: $32.46 per user per month, billed annually.

Ultimate: $35.16 per user per month, billed annually.

Free trials are available for all plans.

Evaluation of key criteria:

Pricing: Different plans are available to choose from, based on the per-user model. “Bigin” by Zoho CRM offers CRM solutions for small businesses, starting at $5.42 per user per month, billed annually.
Ease of use: Yes
Automation of sales process: Yes, automation of every aspect of your business is available to save time.
Integration: Several integration options (like Gmail) are available to smooth out the follow-up process.

Pros:

Easy to navigate, simple to set up customization, and efficient handling of groups of prospects under one account.
Prompt customer service
Well-organized

Cons:

Complicated procedure to link opportunities to existing contacts
Initial difficulty in integrating Gmail with Zoho
Live chat feature missing

Configure One

Description: Leading CPQ software solution that stands out for letting customers see live visualizations of their selected options that integrate seamlessly with Salesforce.

Best for: Manufacturing and high-tech startups

Pricing: Starts at $150, with no free trial or version. Contact Configure One for more information.

Evaluation of key criteria:

Pricing: Not disclosed publicly
Ease of use: Yes
Automation of sales process: Yes, automatic generation of fully configured 3D models and sales drawings is available. CPQ CAD automation under Configure One supports SOLIDWORKS, Autodesk Inventor, PTC/ CREO.
Integration: Several integration options include Salesforce Sales Cloud, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, Oracle NetSuite CRM, SAP, and Oracle JDE.

Pros:

Allows you to track expansion and product churn
Allows you to view leads converting into cash flows directly
Efficient organization by streamlining line items, so you select precisely what you need for each account

Cons

More personalization of quotes is desired.
Absence of prompt customer support

Oracle CPQ

Description: Formerly BigMachines, Oracle CPQ Cloud provides quintessential CPQ services targeted towards optimizing revenue that is secure and performance-grade.

Best for: Small businesses, mid-market startups, and enterprises.

Pricing: Contact Oracle CPQ for more information.

Evaluation of key criteria:

Pricing: Not disclosed publicly
Ease of use: Yes
Automation of sales process: Yes, in-built intelligence provides accurate product configuration, regardless of changes over time.
Integration: Several integration options are available. Contact Oracle CPQ for more information.

Pros:

Flexible CPQ system that scales according to the company by harboring its multiple global locations
Leads to improved customer relations by optimizing configuration time

Cons:

Updates are lacking for the Reporting Manager and user interface.
Intuitive reporting could be further developed by a more robust reporting tool, mainly when dealing with graphic displays.

SAP

Description: Software solution enabling a more straightforward and more profitable selling process, with all the quintessential CPQ features accessible on any mobile device.

Best for: Mid- to large-sized startups bringing in substantial revenue and wanting CPQ software to simplify their complex sales process.

Pricing:

Two plans are available:

Standard: $71 per user per month

Professional: $112 per user per month

Evaluation of key criteria:

Pricing: In accordance with needs
Ease of use: Yes
Automation of sales process: Yes, automation of the quote and proposal process to manage complex pricing strategies is available
Integration: SAP Sales Cloud

Pros:

Simplification of customer requirements and deal margins while eliminating all the errors
Flexible, intuitive, robust functionality
Very effective for overall efficiency and maximizing revenue.

Cons

Integration can be time-consuming.
The setup requires manual intervention at times.

Tacton CPQ

Description: Software solution enabling B2B companies to manage complex configurable products by respective commercial rules for each part of the product.

Best for: Enterprises

Pricing: Contact Tacton for more information.

Evaluation of key criteria:

Pricing: Not disclosed publicly
Ease of use: Yes
Automation of sales process: Yes
Integration: Yes, integration options are available to ensure smooth business functioning and smart decisions.

Pros:

Helpful product management team
Tacton CPQ can be effectively used in many industries
Customizable according to business needs

Cons:

Tutorials for advanced projects are lacking.
Some tools are difficult to use by a small team.

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