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If your team is still creating quotes in spreadsheets, things tend to fall apart under pressure. A customer is waiting. The deadline’s closing in. A product needs adjusting or a service has to be added—and now no one’s sure if the pricing is current. Approvals stall. Critical details often get missed.
The quote takes longer. Teams begin making assumptions. And with the clock ticking, small oversights snowball—pricing errors, missed margins, or a quote that arrives too late. And then, you might find yourself sitting there with a cold cup of coffee, watching your potential high-value customer walk straight into the arms of a competitor.
That moment makes one thing clear: you’ve outgrown spreadsheets. When your quoting process begins to break down, it’s more than inefficient—it becomes a direct barrier to growth.
Buyers these days expect more than just a product. They want complete solutions—fast, accurate, bundled, and professionally delivered. They expect pricing that makes sense instantly, and they don’t want to wait.
This shift from selling standalone products to delivering long-term value is changing how companies sell. It’s called servitization, and it’s redefining how you configure, price, and quote. To stay competitive, your process needs to keep up.
That’s where CPQ software comes in — but what is CPQ, exactly? It stands for Configure, Price, Quote: a modern approach to eliminate manual processes, shorten the sales cycle, and generate accurate quotes at scale.
What is CPQ Software?
Configure Price Quote (CPQ) software is more than a quoting tool. It’s a framework that helps businesses build, price, and sell complex solutions with speed and accuracy.
Depending on the system you choose, it can do everything from automating basic pricing to transforming your entire quoting process into a scalable, integrated experience. Some solutions are designed for quick setups and simple quotes. Others are enterprise-grade platforms built to handle complex engineering rules, multi-currency pricing, and fully branded proposal automation.
It all starts with structure:
You create a catalog of pre-approved product and service combinations, complete with configuration logic, pricing rules, and marketing-approved templates. This foundation enables guided selling—so every quote aligns with your business goals, protects your margins, and opens the door for upsell and cross-sell opportunities.
To understand what CPQ is, it helps to break the quoting process into three coordinated steps:
1. Configure
This is where your solution takes shape. With the right system in place, users can configure everything from individual products to service bundles—without relying on a product expert.
You can configure:
- Products with size, material, or feature options
- Services like installation, support, or training
- Bundles and recurring subscriptions
- Compliance requirements based on geography or industry
- Usage-based pricing models or billing tiers
Your configuration logic eliminates invalid combinations and reduces back-and-forth with experts, streamlining the entire quoting process—no matter how complex your product offerings.
2. Price
Once configured, pricing is instantly applied using rules tailored to your business.
You can include:
- Base prices pulled from ERP systems or synced catalogs
- Flexible pricing based on volume, geography, or customer type
- Approval thresholds and margin protection alerts
- Multi-currency support with tax and regional adjustments
- Discount structures and contract-specific terms
Everything is calculated in real time, eliminating delays and manual recalculations. You protect profitability while ensuring consistent, strategic pricing across every deal.
3. Quote
When configuration and pricing are complete, your system generates a professional quote—ready to impress.
You can generate:
- On-brand PDFs using marketing-approved layouts
- Interactive web proposals designed for mobile or browser sharing
- Embedded quotes in your CRM platform or customer portal
- eCommerce-ready displays for buyer self-service
- Configurators for partners or resellers to use independently
Each quote ensures customers receive clear, accurate, and compelling information—delivered fast, and in the format that fits the deal. Whether it’s a great looking, branded PDF or an interactive web proposal, custom-tailored sales proposals help boost engagement and increase close rates
Together, these steps form the backbone of a quoting process built for today’s demands. A strong platform eliminates guesswork, increases quoting speed, and delivers a consistent, high-quality experience—whether used by sales teams, partners, or customers.
Related article: 8 Signs You Need CPQ Software
What a Modern Quoting Process Looks Like
At this point, it’s clear that quoting isn’t just about generating numbers—it’s about empowering your team to sell faster, protect margins, and deliver a seamless customer experience.
With the right platform in place, this is how that transformation unfolds:
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.
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. But what they share is complexity, complex products, complex pricing, and complex approvals. That’s where a flexible quoting platform becomes a serious growth lever.
See how companies are turning product complexity into sales advantage in Manage Product Complexity: How to Unlock Sales.
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.
Learn more about CPQ software for manufacturing here.
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.
In 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
For 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.
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.
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.
See how three industry leaders transformed their quoting process with modern CPQ:
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:
Evaluating CPQ Solutions: What to Look for Before You Choose
Once you’ve seen the benefits, 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.
Why a CRM Integration Matters
Your quoting tool should live where your sales team already works. When CPQ syncs with your CRM platform, your team can generate quotes using real-time deal and customer data. That means fewer errors, no switching tools, and faster, more personalized quoting that actually closes.
Selecting the right CPQ solution isn’t just a technical decision. It’s a strategic one. Choose a tool that fits your workflow today—and prepares you for what’s next.
If you find yourself working with both complex quotes and complex documents, they don’t have to be managed separately. In fact, they can work together—streamlining your workflow from initial configuration all the way to final delivery. By integrating XaitCPQ with XaitPorter, teams can move directly from generating accurate quotes to co-authoring structured, professional proposals—all without switching platforms or losing version control.
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.
Suggested article: Why CPQ Software?
Discover The True Benefit of CPQ Software 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.
