Custom CPQ software

What CPQ software needs to do

If your quotes come out of a spreadsheet that one person built years ago, you already have a CPQ system. It is just fragile. Quotes take days, two reps quote the same job differently, someone forgets an option that the product cannot ship without, and margins slip because discounts are made up on the spot.

Custom quoting software replaces that spreadsheet with rules everyone uses the same way. The core jobs are:

• Configure: only allow combinations that can actually be built or delivered, and add required parts automatically.
• Price: apply list prices, customer-specific pricing, volume breaks, regional pricing, labor and freight, and costs that change with materials.
• Discount within limits, and send anything outside those limits to a manager for approval.
• Show margin to the salesperson and the approver, not to the customer.
• Produce a branded quote or proposal with the right terms, drawings, photos and options.
• Collect a signature and deposit online, then turn the accepted quote into an order, job or invoice.
• Keep versions, so you can see what changed between the first quote and the signed one.
• Report on win rate, quote turnaround, average discount and margin by rep and product.

Off-the-shelf CPQ and proposal software vs custom

If your challenge is mostly presentation, proposal software may be all you need. PandaDoc and Proposify make good-looking proposals with pricing tables, e-signatures and templates. DealHub is a dedicated CPQ product aimed at sales teams that sell subscriptions and services. The larger CRM platforms also offer quoting features or add-ons that work well when your products are a simple price list.

Custom CPQ wins when the configure and price steps carry real rules: a manufacturer whose options depend on each other, a contractor pricing by measurements, materials and crew hours, a distributor with thousands of customer-specific price lists, or a service business bundling recurring and one-time work in ways a template cannot hold. Packaged CPQ tools can model a lot of this, but often with a long, expensive setup, and the logic still has to be described by someone who knows the business. Writing that logic directly into software built for you is often simpler. It also lets the quote flow straight into your production, scheduling or quote to cash software instead of being retyped.

What we build

• A guided quote builder for your sales team, on desktop and on a tablet for in-person estimates.
• A rules engine for options, dependencies, pricing formulas and discount limits, which your team can update without a developer for common changes like price lists.
• Approval workflows by discount, margin or deal size, with notifications by email or text.
• Branded proposals and quotes with e-signature and online deposit payment.
• A self-service configurator on your website for customers who want to build and price their own order.
• Integrations with your CRM, accounting, ERP or inventory system, so the accepted quote becomes an order and an invoice.
• AI that drafts proposal text, reads a customer’s RFQ or drawing and pre-fills a quote, where it saves your estimators time.

How a CPQ project works

1. Collect the logicWe sit with your best estimator and turn the spreadsheet, price books and unwritten rules into a written rule set.
2. Check against real quotesWe run a sample of recent quotes through the rules on paper and fix every mismatch before any code.
3. Design the quote builderYour sales team clicks through the configuration screens and the finished proposal before we build it.
4. Build in roundsConfiguration and pricing first, then approvals, proposals, signatures and integrations.
5. Run side by side, then switchReps quote in both systems for a short period until the numbers match, then the old spreadsheet retires.

Who needs custom quoting most

Manufacturers and fabricators with configurable products, screen printing and print shops pricing by quantity, colors and placements, construction and roofing contractors pricing by measurement, interior designers quoting furniture and finishes from many vendors, and B2B distributors with customer-specific pricing all tend to outgrow template proposal tools quickly.