What is CPQ?
Configure, price, quote (CPQ) software helps sales teams assemble valid product configurations, apply pricing and discount rules, and produce accurate quotes quickly.
In more detail
CPQ encodes rules that salespeople otherwise carry in their heads or in spreadsheets: which options go together, price books, volume tiers and approval thresholds for discounts. It cuts invalid quotes and shortens approval cycles. Salesforce CPQ, HubSpot quotes and standalone tools are common. A CPQ is only as good as its data. Stale price lists and ambiguous product rules produce wrong quotes at scale. AI adds value at the edges, such as reading an RFQ email to draft a first quote or checking a custom quote against policy. Keep humans on non-standard discounts.
Example
A manufacturer's rep pastes a customer's parts list from an email. The system maps the items to SKUs, applies the account's price tier, flags a 22 percent discount above her limit and routes it to the sales director.