Configure, Price, Quote (CPQ) refers to software that helps sales teams build accurate product configurations, apply correct pricing rules, and generate professional quotes quickly. CPQ platforms are widely used in B2B sales environments where products have multiple variants, pricing tiers, or discount structures that would be error-prone to manage manually.
Salesforce is not replacing CPQ outright, but it is retiring the standalone Salesforce CPQ product in favor of Revenue Cloud, its next-generation configure-price-quote and revenue management platform. Salesforce has announced that CPQ will reach end-of-life, meaning no new feature development, with customers encouraged to migrate to Revenue Cloud. This article walks through what that means in practice, who is affected, and what alternatives exist for manufacturers and retailers whose needs go beyond traditional CPQ.
What is Salesforce doing with CPQ?
Salesforce is winding down active development of Salesforce CPQ (originally Steelbrick CPQ) and redirecting investment into Revenue Cloud, a broader revenue lifecycle management solution built natively on the Salesforce platform. CPQ will not disappear overnight, but Salesforce has made it clear that it is a legacy product with no new roadmap investment.
For existing CPQ customers, this means no new features, limited long-term support commitments, and a clear signal from Salesforce that the future lies elsewhere. Salesforce is actively encouraging migrations, offering tooling and incentives to help customers move. The practical implication is that any business currently running Salesforce CPQ should be planning its next step, whether that is migrating to Revenue Cloud, extending the current setup, or evaluating whether a different solution fits better.
What is Salesforce Revenue Cloud and how does it differ from CPQ?
Salesforce Revenue Cloud is a unified platform that covers the full revenue lifecycle, including configure-price-quote, contract lifecycle management, billing, and revenue recognition. Where Salesforce CPQ focused narrowly on generating accurate quotes, Revenue Cloud connects the entire process from initial configuration through to invoicing and renewals.
The key differences between Salesforce CPQ and Revenue Cloud are scope and architecture:
- Architecture: Revenue Cloud is built natively on the Salesforce platform using a modern data model, while CPQ was built on a legacy Apex-based architecture that required heavy customization to extend.
- Scope: Revenue Cloud covers quoting, contracts, billing, and revenue recognition in a single product. CPQ handled quoting only and required separate tools for downstream processes.
- Scalability: Revenue Cloud is designed to handle complex, high-volume transaction environments with less custom code, which reduces maintenance overhead.
- Integration: Revenue Cloud integrates more cleanly with other Salesforce clouds and external systems through standard APIs.
For businesses with straightforward quoting needs, the expanded scope of Revenue Cloud may feel like more than they need. For businesses running complex sales cycles with contracts and recurring billing, it addresses gaps that CPQ never fully solved.
Should existing Salesforce CPQ customers migrate to Revenue Cloud?
Most existing Salesforce CPQ customers should plan a migration to Revenue Cloud, but the right timing depends on how heavily customized the current CPQ implementation is and how critical quoting is to day-to-day operations. Migration is not trivial, and rushing it carries real risk.
Before committing to a Revenue Cloud migration, it is worth asking several practical questions:
- How many custom rules, plugins, and integrations does the current CPQ setup contain?
- Does the business also need contract lifecycle management or billing, which would make Revenue Cloud a natural upgrade?
- Is the current CPQ implementation stable and meeting business needs, or are there ongoing pain points that make migration attractive?
- What is the total cost of migration versus the cost of maintaining the current setup through its remaining support window?
For businesses with relatively clean CPQ implementations and a need for broader revenue management, migrating sooner makes sense. For businesses with heavily customized setups or limited IT bandwidth, a phased approach with a clear timeline is more realistic than an immediate switch.
When should you replace a legacy CPQ system?
The Salesforce CPQ end-of-life announcement is prompting many organizations to ask a broader question: is their CPQ system still the right foundation at all? Legacy CPQ replacement is not exclusively a Salesforce problem. Many businesses running older CPQ platforms, whether from Salesforce or another vendor, are discovering that their systems were built for a different era of selling and can no longer support modern buyer expectations, digital channels, or integration requirements.
A CPQ system should be considered legacy when it exhibits one or more of the following signals:
- No vendor roadmap: Your vendor has announced end-of-life, frozen the product roadmap, or stopped releasing meaningful updates.
- Heavy customization debt: The system has been patched and extended to the point where even small changes require significant developer effort and carry regression risk.
- Poor integration with modern ERP and PIM systems: Data flows require manual intervention or brittle point-to-point connectors that break when upstream systems are updated.
- No visual or consumer-facing capability: The system cannot support a customer-facing configurator, 3D visualization, or any omnichannel sales experience beyond a sales rep generating a PDF quote.
- Developer dependency for routine updates: Pricing rules, product logic, and configuration options cannot be maintained by business users without involving IT or external developers.
- Inability to scale with catalog growth: Adding new product lines, variants, or markets requires disproportionate implementation effort rather than configuration changes.
Replacing a legacy CPQ system is also an opportunity to reconsider whether CPQ is the right category of tool for your business in the first place. For manufacturers and retailers with complex physical product catalogs, the more valuable investment is often in visual configuration capability rather than quoting workflow automation. That distinction is explored in more detail in the sections below.
Enterprise considerations when replacing a legacy or end-of-life CPQ system
For enterprise organizations, replacing a legacy CPQ system involves a broader set of decision factors than simply selecting the platform with the best feature list. The following criteria should be evaluated systematically before committing to any enterprise CPQ replacement:
- Total cost of ownership: Include not just licensing but implementation services, data migration, and ongoing admin costs when comparing platforms. Enterprise CPQ projects routinely underestimate the cost of migrating complex pricing logic and product rules from a legacy system.
- Change management complexity: A platform change affects sales teams, dealer networks, IT, and operations simultaneously. Assess internal adoption risk and plan for structured enablement, not just technical go-live.
- Scalability for high-volume product catalogs: Confirm that the platform can handle the full depth of your catalog, including interdependent configuration rules across thousands of SKUs, without performance degradation.
- Integration depth with ERP, PIM, and CRM: Evaluate whether the platform offers native connectors or well-documented APIs for your existing stack. Shallow integrations create ongoing maintenance overhead that erodes the business case.
- Admin autonomy and no-code configurability: Assess whether business users, not just developers, can maintain pricing rules, product logic, and configuration options after go-live. Platforms that require developer involvement for routine updates replicate the same dependency problem that made the end-of-life CPQ system costly to maintain.
- Implementation timeline and phasing: Realistic enterprise implementations typically move through discovery, data migration, user acceptance testing, and phased go-live. Vendors who propose aggressive timelines without a structured phasing plan should be scrutinized carefully.
For manufacturers with complex physical product catalogs, visual configuration capability should be weighted as a primary enterprise criterion alongside the operational factors above. A platform that handles pricing logic efficiently but cannot support a visual customer or dealer experience will require a second system to fill that gap, adding cost and integration complexity. This is where iONE360 consistently outperforms traditional CPQ platforms for furniture, home furnishings, and related industries.
What are the limitations of Salesforce CPQ for complex product configuration?
Salesforce CPQ was designed primarily for software, services, and subscription-based businesses, not for manufacturers and retailers selling physically configurable products. For companies in furniture, cabinetry, modular home products, or similar industries, CPQ has significant structural limitations that become apparent quickly.
The most common limitations of Salesforce CPQ for product-centric industries include:
- No visual output: CPQ generates text-based quotes. It cannot render a 3D image of a configured product, show a customer what their sofa looks like in a specific fabric, or place a product in a room using augmented reality.
- Limited product logic for physical variants: CPQ handles option sets and pricing rules, but it struggles with the deep, interdependent configuration logic required for physical products with thousands of material, dimension, and component combinations.
- No consumer-facing experience: CPQ is a sales tool built for sales reps, not a customer-facing configurator for end consumers browsing a webshop or standing in a showroom.
- No packshot or asset generation: CPQ cannot automatically generate product images for every variant, a core requirement for furniture and home furnishings brands managing large catalogues.
These gaps mean that for product-centric industries, CPQ solves the pricing and quoting layer but leaves the visual and configuration experience entirely unaddressed. Manufacturers and retailers in furniture, home furnishings, cabinetry, and related sectors typically need a dedicated visual product configurator alongside, or instead of, a CPQ tool.
What alternatives to Salesforce CPQ exist for manufacturers and retailers?
Manufacturers and retailers evaluating Salesforce CPQ alternatives have several categories of tools to consider, depending on whether their primary need is quoting accuracy, visual product configuration, or both. The landscape of alternatives to Salesforce CPQ ranges from enterprise-grade CPQ platforms with strong pricing logic to dedicated visual configurators built for physical product industries. Choosing the right option for a legacy CPQ replacement requires understanding what each platform is actually designed to do.
Conga CPQ — Best for complex pricing and contract workflows
- Best for: Mid-market to enterprise B2B organizations with complex pricing tiers, discount approval workflows, and a need for tight contract lifecycle management integration.
- Key strength: Deep pricing logic and a native connection to Conga’s contract management suite, which makes it a strong fit for businesses where quoting and contracting are tightly linked.
- Limitation for physical-product businesses: No visual configuration capability. Product complexity is handled through rules and option sets, not visual rendering, making it unsuitable as a standalone solution for furniture or home furnishings manufacturers.
Oracle CPQ — Best for large enterprises with Oracle ERP investments
- Best for: Large enterprises already running Oracle ERP or Oracle CX, where native integration reduces implementation risk and total cost of ownership.
- Key strength: Highly scalable pricing engine with robust support for multi-currency, multi-region, and complex approval hierarchies across large sales organizations.
- Limitation for physical-product businesses: Implementation complexity is high and typically requires significant consulting investment. Visual configuration is not a native capability, and the platform is oriented toward services and technology businesses rather than manufacturers with physical product catalogs.
Tacton CPQ — Built for engineered-to-order manufacturers
- Best for: Industrial manufacturers and engineered-to-order businesses where product configuration involves complex technical constraints, compatibility rules, and engineering-driven logic.
- Key strength: Constraint-based configuration engine that handles deep product interdependencies more robustly than most CPQ platforms, with strong CAD and ERP integration options.
- Limitation for physical-product businesses: Primarily oriented toward industrial and manufacturing sectors. Consumer-facing visual experience and retail use cases are not a core focus, which limits its applicability for furniture and home furnishings brands selling direct to consumers or through dealer networks.
SAP CPQ — Best for businesses running SAP ERP
- Best for: Enterprise organizations with SAP as their core ERP, where CPQ output needs to flow directly into SAP order management and production planning.
- Key strength: Native integration with the SAP ecosystem reduces data translation overhead and supports complex pricing models tied to SAP material master data.
- Limitation for physical-product businesses: The platform is primarily designed for SAP-centric environments and carries significant implementation overhead for organizations outside that ecosystem. Visual configuration is not a native capability.
DealHub CPQ — Best for sales-led SaaS and technology businesses
- Best for: Fast-growing SaaS and technology companies that need a modern, low-code CPQ platform that sales teams can manage without heavy IT involvement.
- Key strength: Strong admin autonomy and a no-code configuration interface that allows sales operations teams to update pricing and product logic without developer support.
- Limitation for physical-product businesses: Designed for subscription and services businesses, not physical product manufacturers. No visual configuration, 3D rendering, or packshot generation capability.
Revalize CPQ — Best for manufacturers with product-specific configuration needs
- Best for: Manufacturers in industrial, HVAC, foodservice equipment, and similar sectors where product configuration is driven by technical specifications and engineering rules.
- Key strength: Industry-specific configuration logic built for manufactured goods, with stronger support for physical product complexity than general-purpose CPQ platforms.
- Limitation for physical-product businesses: Industry focus tends toward industrial equipment rather than consumer-facing furniture or home furnishings. Visual and AR-based consumer experiences are not a core capability.
Infor CPQ — Best for manufacturers using Infor ERP
- Best for: Manufacturers running Infor ERP who need CPQ output to feed directly into production and order management without manual data re-entry.
- Key strength: Deep native integration with Infor’s manufacturing ERP suite, supporting configure-to-order and engineer-to-order workflows with direct production output.
- Limitation for physical-product businesses: Tightly coupled to the Infor ecosystem, which limits flexibility for organizations using other ERP or CRM systems. Consumer-facing visual configuration is not a native capability.
iONE360 — Best for furniture and home furnishings manufacturers and retailers requiring visual configuration
- Best for: Manufacturers and retailers in the furniture, home furnishings, and decor sectors where visual accuracy, consumer-facing experience, and omnichannel sales are central to the business model.
- Key strength: Real-time 3D visualization, automated packshot generation, augmented reality, and ERP-native configuration logic delivered from a single platform, purpose-built for physical product industries.
- Limitation for physical-product businesses: iONE360 is a visual configuration platform rather than a general-purpose CPQ tool. Businesses whose primary need is complex discount approval workflows or contract lifecycle management will likely need to pair iONE360 with a dedicated CPQ or ERP system, though we offer direct integration support for exactly this scenario.
None of the dedicated CPQ platforms listed above address the visual configuration layer that is central to the sales and customer experience for furniture, home furnishings, and related industries. For businesses where helping customers see and understand what they are buying is as important as generating an accurate quote, a visual product configurator is not a nice-to-have addition to a CPQ stack: it is the primary platform. That is the category iONE360 leads.
Visual product configurators
For businesses where the customer experience and visual accuracy matter as much as the quote, an online product configurator is a distinct and often more relevant category. Visual configurators let customers or sales staff build and visualize a product in real time, with pricing calculated dynamically. They serve both the consumer-facing webshop and the in-store sales environment, use cases that CPQ tools were never designed to support.
The two categories are not mutually exclusive. Some businesses run a visual configurator for the front-end customer and sales experience, and connect it to a CPQ or ERP system for back-end pricing and order management.
How do you choose between a CPQ tool and a product configurator?
The choice between a CPQ tool and a visual product configurator depends on where the complexity in your business actually lies. CPQ is the right tool when the primary challenge is pricing accuracy, discount management, and quote generation for a sales team. A product configurator is the right tool when the primary challenge is helping customers or sales staff visually build and understand a configurable product before a quote is even generated.
Ask these questions to clarify which category fits:
- Is the primary user a sales rep generating quotes, or a customer or dealer configuring a product?
- Does the product have visual variants, such as materials, colours, or dimensions, that need to be shown rather than just listed?
- Is reducing returns, increasing conversion, and building buyer confidence part of the business case?
- Does the sales process happen partly or fully online, without a sales rep present?
- Can non-technical administrators update pricing rules, product logic, and configuration options without developer involvement?
- How much ongoing developer resource will the platform require to maintain and extend after go-live?
Salesforce CPQ is known for its heavy reliance on Apex code, meaning that even routine updates often require developer time. When evaluating any Salesforce CPQ replacement, admin autonomy, the ability for business users to manage the platform without constant IT involvement, should be a primary selection criterion, not an afterthought.
If the answers point toward visual complexity, consumer-facing use, and omnichannel sales, a product configurator addresses needs that CPQ was not built for. If the primary need is structured quoting and approval workflows for a B2B sales team, CPQ or Revenue Cloud remains the relevant category.
How iONE360 helps manufacturers and retailers with product configuration beyond CPQ
iONE360 is a visual product configuration platform built specifically for manufacturers and retailers in the furniture, home furnishings, and decor industries, sectors where CPQ tools consistently fall short. Where Salesforce CPQ stops at the quote, iONE360 starts with the visual experience and carries it all the way through to a structured, accurate order. As a specialist in visual configuration software for the furniture and interior market, we deliver cost-effective, pragmatically scalable solutions that integrate directly into existing IT landscapes, including PIM, ERP, and CMS systems.
Here is what iONE360 delivers in practice:
- Real-time 3D visualization: Customers and sales staff see exactly what they are configuring, in every material, colour, and dimension combination, without manual rendering effort.
- Automated packshot generation: High-quality product images are generated automatically for every variant, eliminating the need for costly photoshoots at scale.
- Augmented reality: Customers can place configured products in their own space using AR, directly from the webshop or an in-store device.
- ERP-native logic: iONE360 is built on ERP logic and connects directly to existing IT landscapes, including PIM, ERP, and CMS systems, so configuration output translates cleanly into production-ready orders.
- Scalable across channels: The same configuration engine serves the consumer webshop, the dealer network, and the in-store sales environment from a single platform.
Consider a furniture manufacturer managing thousands of SKUs across fabric, finish, and dimension variants. By connecting iONE360 directly to their ERP, they can eliminate manual order transcription and reduce configuration errors at the point of sale. Dealers and end consumers can visualize every variant in real time, which shortens the sales cycle and reduces returns caused by mismatched expectations between what was ordered and what was delivered. Automated packshot generation removes the need for repeated photography campaigns as new variants are introduced, reducing both cost and time to market. This is the type of operational and commercial improvement we help our customers achieve.
If your business sells configurable physical products and you are finding that CPQ or Revenue Cloud leaves the visual and customer experience layer unaddressed, we would be glad to show you how iONE360 fills that gap. Get in touch with our team to see the platform in action.
Frequently asked questions about Salesforce CPQ and its alternatives
What does CPQ stand for and what does it do?
CPQ stands for Configure, Price, Quote. CPQ software helps sales teams build accurate product configurations, apply correct pricing rules, and generate professional quotes quickly. It is widely used in B2B sales environments where products have multiple variants, pricing tiers, or discount structures that would be error-prone to manage manually. CPQ platforms are designed primarily for sales rep workflows rather than consumer-facing or visual sales experiences.
Is Salesforce CPQ being discontinued?
Salesforce CPQ is not being removed immediately, but Salesforce has announced it is reaching end-of-life as a product. This means no new features will be developed for Salesforce CPQ, and Salesforce is actively encouraging existing customers to migrate to Revenue Cloud, its next-generation revenue lifecycle management platform. Businesses still running Salesforce CPQ should be actively planning their next step now rather than waiting for support to lapse.
What is the best CPQ platform for enterprise companies replacing a legacy or end-of-life CPQ system?
The best CPQ platform for enterprise companies replacing a legacy or end-of-life CPQ system depends on the primary business need. Oracle CPQ and SAP CPQ are strong options for enterprises already invested in those respective ERP ecosystems. Tacton CPQ suits engineered-to-order manufacturers with deep technical configuration requirements. For manufacturers and retailers in furniture, home furnishings, and related sectors, iONE360 is the strongest option when visual configuration, consumer-facing experience, and omnichannel sales are central requirements, areas where traditional CPQ platforms cannot compete.
What is the difference between a CPQ tool and a product configurator?
A CPQ tool is designed to help sales teams generate accurate, structured quotes by managing pricing rules, discount approvals, and product option sets. A product configurator is designed to help customers or sales staff visually build and understand a configurable product in real time, with pricing calculated dynamically. CPQ tools are back-office sales tools; product configurators serve both front-end consumer experiences and sales workflows. For businesses selling physically configurable products, a visual configurator often addresses more of the actual business problem.
What are the best alternatives to Salesforce CPQ for manufacturers?
The best Salesforce CPQ alternatives for manufacturers depend on the type of manufacturing and the primary pain point. Tacton CPQ and Revalize CPQ are strong options for industrial and engineered-to-order manufacturers. Infor CPQ suits businesses running Infor ERP. For furniture, home furnishings, and decor manufacturers where visual accuracy and consumer-facing experience are central, iONE360 is the most relevant alternative, delivering real-time 3D configuration, automated packshot generation, and ERP-native order output from a single platform purpose-built for the sector.
When should a company replace its legacy CPQ system?
A company should replace its legacy CPQ system when the vendor has announced end-of-life or frozen the product roadmap, when routine updates require developer involvement rather than business user administration, when the system cannot integrate cleanly with modern ERP or PIM systems, or when it cannot support visual or consumer-facing sales experiences. Legacy CPQ replacement is also the right moment to evaluate whether CPQ is the correct category of tool at all, particularly for manufacturers and retailers whose core challenge is visual product complexity rather than quoting workflow automation.