Configure, Price, Quote: software that guides your sales team or customer through product configuration, automatically determines the correct price and generates a quote or contract in one click. We build CPQ solutions that fit your catalogue, your discount tiers and your ERP.
The three letters stand for Configure, Price, Quote, and each has its own logic. Configuring means only valid combinations from your catalogue are possible: a machine without the correct engine cannot be ordered, and a software package without a licence basis gets no price. Pricing handles list prices, volume tiers, customer-specific agreements, regional variants and multi-currency. Quoting produces an explainable quote with dynamic text blocks, e-signing, versioning and a status that is synchronised back neatly to the CRM.
The major off-the-shelf packages — Salesforce CPQ (Steelbrick), Oracle CPQ (BigMachines), SAP CPQ (Callidus), HubSpot CPQ, PROS Smart CPQ, Conga (Apttus), Tacton, Configure One and CIS Configit — handle the basic scenario well. However, once things get complex (modular manufacturing, multi-tier distribution, AI-driven suggestions or deep integration with your existing ERP), you quickly run into licence costs, configuration limits and vendor lock-in. In that case we build a custom CPQ solution that fits, with the pricing logic and integrations that make your business unique.
We see CPQ questions recur across nine types of organisation: manufacturing (machines, vehicles, modular products), software and SaaS vendors with usage-based pricing, telecom companies with bundles and options, insurers with option stacking, energy suppliers with business tariffs, construction and installation firms with material, labour and margin, logistics providers with multimodal quotes, consultancies with rate cards, and mid-market B2B vendors with many customer-specific price agreements. The underlying need is the same across all nine: fast, consistent and error-free from customer request to signed quote.
Which scale suits your situation? In the first conversation we will determine together whether you benefit from a lightweight solution, a full CPQ platform or an enterprise-grade configurator engine with AI.
For mid-market B2B vendors with a manageable catalogue but many customer-specific price agreements. The sales rep selects options, the system calculates the correct price, including volume tiers and regional surcharges, and delivers a PDF quote in your house style. Synchronisation with HubSpot, Pipedrive or another CRM is included as standard, along with a simple dashboard for open quotes and follow-up moments.
A full-featured CPQ that, once approved, places an order directly in your ERP (SAP, Exact, AFAS), has contracts signed via DocuSign, Signhost or Adobe Sign, and reports the status back to Salesforce or Microsoft Dynamics. Approval workflows for exceptional discounts, margin monitoring with automatic escalation to the right manager, quote version management and quote tracking are all included. Suited to telecom companies with bundled offerings, insurers with stacked options and energy suppliers with business tariff tiers.
Designed for machinery manufacturers, modular vehicle builders and construction and installation firms with thousands of valid variants and strict rules. A genuine constraint solver (Choco, Google OR-Tools or OptaPlanner) works out which combinations are both technically and commercially sound, and can automatically propose a valid alternative when the original combination doesn't exist. Optionally AI-augmented: an LLM that suggests the most likely configuration based on customer history, or vision AI that derives a similar new product from a photo of an existing one. Includes multi-tenant white-label for distributors and an API-first setup for self-service end-customer portals.
A working CPQ system, production-ready, plus everything you need to manage and develop it yourself.
A mature CPQ has a fixed set of components. How many you need depends on the complexity of your catalogue and the breadth of your quoting process, but the building blocks themselves are recognisable and recurring.
Product configurator. Three flavours: rule-based for straightforward catalogues, a genuine constraint solver (CSP) for complex, interdependent rules, and increasingly AI-augmented with LLM suggestions based on customer history or a product photo. Pricing engine. List price, customer-specific pricing, volume tiers, regional variants and multi-currency, often with separate layers for net and gross, margin and pass-through costs. Discount management. Approval waterfalls that automatically send any discount above a threshold to the right manager, with margin monitoring as a brake. Quote generation. PDF or Word with dynamic text blocks, multi-language support and templates that match your corporate identity. Versioning. Quote v1, v2 and v3, with a clear overview of what changed between versions.
On the integration side we regularly see: CRM integration (Salesforce, HubSpot, Microsoft Dynamics CRM), ERP integration to automatically create orders in SAP, Exact or AFAS once approved, e-signing via DocuSign, Signhost or Adobe Sign, a quote-tracking dashboard that shows in real time what is outstanding and when a follow-up is needed, and approval workflows for customer-specific deviations that require out-of-band manager approval. In contract-intensive sectors, CPQ overlaps with CLM (Contract Lifecycle Management); we build that layer in as well where it makes sense. For standalone end-customer portals, we deliver the system API-first, so the same rules can be reused via a web portal, a mobile order-management environment or a partner system.
Technology choices. For the rule engine, depending on complexity, we use Drools, Open Policy Agent (OPA) or a bespoke lightweight DSL that product managers can read themselves. We handle constraint solving with Choco, OptaPlanner or Google OR-Tools when rules become too intertwined for a flat rule engine. PDF generation runs through WeasyPrint, ReportLab or Puppeteer, depending on the layout precision required. We build integrations with CRM and ERP via REST or GraphQL, with API integrations that are idempotent and versioned.
Four patterns where off-the-shelf CPQ packages such as Salesforce CPQ, Oracle CPQ or Tacton often fall short, and where we can build a better fit.
Machine building, modular vehicles or installation technology with hundreds of options that exclude or require one another. A standard rule engine loses track and the configuration ends up in an inconsistent state; a constraint solver keeps the configuration consistent and can automatically propose a valid alternative.
Your prices live in an SAP, AFAS or Exact environment with decades of customer agreements, annual contracts and mark-up rules. An out-of-the-box CPQ package forces you into its own model and ignores edge cases; custom development follows your existing logic and can migrate step by step to a cleaner structure without disrupting the business.
You want to give resellers, dealers or distributors their own branded CPQ portal, with their own pricing rules per region, segment or partner tier. Multi-tenant custom development handles this without licence costs exploding per organisation, and gives you per-partner control over which features are available.
B2B ordering portals where the customer builds the product themselves and immediately receives a legally valid quote. API-first design, smart constraint checks and, where useful, AI-augmented suggestions based on previous behaviour. Suited to product lines where uniformity is high and sales involvement has become a bottleneck.
You recognise the arithmetic: enterprise CPQ licences per user plus implementation hours add up quickly before a single quote is issued. A custom CPQ that does only what your business genuinely needs is often cheaper in total cost of ownership over the medium term, and remains easier to extend.
When a quote must pass through CRM, ERP, a contract lifecycle platform, an accounting package and DocuSign, standard packages often reach their limits. A custom CPQ can sit in the middle as an orchestrator, sending the right data to the right system at the right moment.
With OneDayBuild, we turn your idea into something tangible in one day for €1,150, so you can see whether further development is worth the investment. Decide to go ahead with the full build? Then we credit the full cost.
Explore OneDayBuild →A conversation in which we map out your product catalogue, pricing structure and current quoting process. Which systems need to connect, which roles will work with the tool, and which exceptions are currently handled manually?
A workshop with your product managers and sales team, plus interviews with a few key users. At the end you'll have a first set of requirements, a prioritised scope and an architecture sketch with the chosen tech stack (rule engine, solver, integrations).
A working build you can test with real product data every two weeks. We build iteratively, moving from the simplest pricing path to the more complex edge cases, starting with your product configurator and pricing engine, then the quote generator and integrations.
Integrations with CRM, ERP, e-signing and accounting are activated, tested and documented in the final sprints. We train sales, product management and IT, and roll out in phases: first one team, region or product line as a proof of concept, then more broadly. A penetration test and a short audit of the pricing rules are part of the handover. Afterwards, optional maintenance under a fixed sprint budget covers monitoring, security patches and further development.
A CPQ is never finished: your catalogue changes, discount rules shift, new sales channels appear. We work in fixed sprints on new features, performance tuning of the configurator (especially with solver-based solutions) and extensions towards CLM, payments or broader integrations with your order-management environment.
A CPQ directly affects legally binding quotes, automated decision-making and, when AI is used, stricter European regulation. We build that compliance layer in as standard.
Customer contacts, contact details and payment information almost always appear in quotes. We ensure purpose limitation, retention periods and the right processor agreements are in place along the pipeline to CRM and ERP.
For fully automated pricing or accept/reject flows, Article 22 applies: data subjects have the right to information, meaningful human intervention and to object. We design the approval steps around this.
The European AI Act may classify AI systems that significantly affect individuals as high-risk. For AI-augmented CPQ aimed at consumers, this means transparency, documentation and periodic evaluation of the model.
Legally valid signatures via DocuSign, Signhost or Adobe Sign fall under eIDAS, whether qualified, advanced or simple. For direct payment from a CPQ quote, the flow must comply with PSD2, with the correct SCA exemptions.
What clients usually want to know before we start a CPQ project.
A free, no-obligation half-hour introductory call. We listen to your product catalogue, pricing challenges and current quoting process, and give you direction where it is useful, even if it turns out that an off-the-shelf package or a lighter document configurator project is the better choice.
Appfront uses cookies and similar technologies to keep the website working properly, for analytics and for marketing. You choose what you allow. Read more in our privacy policy.
