CPQ tools: the main CPQ vendors, grouped by what they do
CPQ tools turn a customer’s options into a priced quote, but the vendors start from different places. Some grew out of CAD and engineering, some out of the CRM, and some out of 3D product viewers. This guide groups the main CPQ vendors by what they do, using each vendor’s own description of its product. It has no rankings, no scores and no prices.
How to read this list
Every CPQ vendor says it configures, prices and quotes. The useful question is where the rules live and what comes out at the end. A tool built inside a CRM keeps commercial rules and produces a quote document. A tool built around CAD keeps engineering rules, and can produce a model and a drawing as well.
Start from what you need back. A plant that sells configured equipment needs a price from its own costs, a bill of materials and often a drawing. A distributor that sells catalogue items needs price books, discounts and approvals. The groups below follow that split, and the steps below turn it into a shortlist.
CPQ with CAD and drawing automation
These vendors start from engineering rules and connect them to a CAD system. A configuration can then produce a 3D model, drawings and a bill of materials as well as a price. They suit plants that sell configured equipment, where the quote often needs a drawing.
| Vendor | What its own site describes | CAD systems it names |
|---|---|---|
| Tacton | CPQ built for complex manufacturing, with a separate design automation product that generates 2D drawings and 3D models | SOLIDWORKS, Autodesk Inventor and PTC Creo |
| DriveWorks | CPQ that manufacturers build themselves, creating sales documents and SOLIDWORKS parts, assemblies and drawings, with 3D visual configuration | SOLIDWORKS |
| Epicor CPQ | Visual configure, price, quote in 2D, 3D and augmented reality, generating CAD files and bills of materials, aimed at engineer-to-order manufacturers | AutoCAD, SOLIDWORKS and Creo |
| Configure One | CPQ for complex products, part of Revalize, with CAD automation that produces configured 3D models, sales drawings and production drawings | None named on that page; it works from your own CAD models and drawings |
| Elfsquad | CPQ and a product configurator for manufacturers of complex, customer-specific products | Inventor, SOLIDWORKS, Fusion, Creo, CATIA and HiCAD |
Ownership in this group moves. Tacton bought Variantum, a Finnish configuration software company, in October 2025. Epicor CPQ came from KBMax, which Epicor says it acquired in 2021.
CRM and sales CPQ
These tools grew up around the sales process: product catalogues, price books, discounts, approvals, contracts and renewals. They suit a business whose rules are commercial. A plant whose rules are engineering rules should check how each one handles them before it shortlists the tool.
| Vendor | What its own site describes | Where it runs |
|---|---|---|
| Salesforce | Revenue Cloud, covering CPQ, the product catalogue, contracts, orders and billing. Classic Salesforce CPQ is no longer sold to new customers. | Salesforce |
| Oracle CPQ | Configures products or services and builds quotes, with connections to CRMs and to ERPs such as Oracle E-Business Suite, JD Edwards, SAP and Infor LN | Oracle Sales, Salesforce and other CRMs |
| Conga | Advantage CPQ for complex catalogues and margins, and Smart CPQ for simpler deployments | Smart CPQ runs on Salesforce and Dynamics 365 |
| DealHub | CPQ for sales and revenue operations teams, with guided selling, pricing rules, approvals and renewals | Salesforce, Dynamics 365 and HubSpot |
PROS used to sell its own CPQ in this group. Conga completed its purchase of the PROS B2B business on February 2, 2026, and Smart CPQ now sits in Conga’s range.
Configuration engines
A configuration engine handles the product rules on their own, and other systems call it: a CPQ, an online store or a dealer portal. ServiceNow announced the purchase of Logik.ai in April 2025, and its own site now presents the product as ServiceNow CPQ.
An engine like this keeps the rules in one place, which helps when several sales channels quote the same products. It still needs someone to model those rules in its editor, and a separate route to CAD if the quote needs a drawing.
Visual and 3D configurators
A visual configurator shows the product as the buyer changes the options. Threekit’s visual configurator shows products in 3D and augmented reality, and its home page now presents the company as CPQ for manufacturers.
A picture answers what the product looks like. For equipment, the customer also needs to know whether it fits, and that takes a dimensioned general arrangement drawing rather than a rendering.
Building on your own rules and data
The last route skips the vendor’s rule editor. The rules come from the Excel builder the plant already quotes from, and the configurator runs on the plant’s own data. ThriveAI works this way, as one module on a workspace that holds the client’s data.
The module maps the builder and tests every rule against past orders. It prices from the plant’s own costs, and drives the plant’s own CAD templates for the model and the drawing. A named person approves each quote package before it goes out.
This route suits a plant whose rules already work and whose team wants to own them. It does not suit a company that wants a packaged product with a large user community and a vendor roadmap. The AI CPQ offer describes the first four weeks.
How CPQ tools connect to your other systems
A CPQ tool sits between three systems a plant already runs, and much of the work in a CPQ project is in those connections. Ask how each one works before you compare features.
- The CRM. The opportunity starts there, and the quote goes back to it. Sales CPQ tools live inside the CRM. Manufacturing CPQ tools usually connect to it.
- The ERP. The item master, the costs and the orders live there. Check whether the CPQ reads costs from the ERP or keeps its own copy. Then check whether it writes a new item, a bill of materials or only an order.
- The CAD system. The models and drawing templates live there. A CPQ tool drives it through an add-in or an interface, and the templates have to be built for that.
Decide which system owns each record before the project starts. When the ERP owns the item master and the CPQ owns the rules, every configured order needs a clear path from one to the other. That path should be a draft that a person approves, not a record written straight into the ERP.
Is there a best CPQ software?
No single CPQ software is best for every business. The right tool depends on where your rules live, what the quote has to carry and which CRM, ERP and CAD system it must connect to. A sales CPQ can be the right choice for a distributor and the wrong one for an equipment maker.
Judge fit on your own orders. Ask each vendor to reproduce twenty quotes you already sent, with the prices, the bills of materials and, where you need them, the drawings. The tool that matches the most with the least rewriting of your rules is the one that fits.
How big the CPQ market is
Analyst figures differ, partly because they measure different things. Custom Market Insights puts the global CPQ software market at USD 3.49 billion in 2025. Technavio reports growth instead, and expects the market to add USD 5.46 billion between 2026 and 2030. Neither figure tells you which tool fits your plant.
Questions to ask any CPQ vendor
Ask every vendor the same questions, and ask for the answers on one of your own past orders.
- Who rewrites our rules, and in what? Does the work start from our Excel builder or from a blank rule editor?
- Where do the costs come from, and how current are they on the day of a quote?
- Which CAD system does it drive, and does it produce our own drawing template?
- Which ERP does it connect to, and what does it write: an item, a bill of materials, an order or a draft?
- Who approves a quote, and is each approval logged with a name?
- Can it reproduce twenty of our past orders before we sign?
- Where does our data sit, and does anything we enter train a model outside our instance?
CPQ for manufacturing explains what a good answer looks like at each step, and what is CPQ covers the term itself.