Introduction
Compare DealHub CPQ and Salesforce CPQ
DealHub and Salesforce CPQ are popular CPQ solutions that enable organizations to automate the sales process. Both products feature many of the same things—product configuration, dynamic pricing, and many other out-of-the-box functionalities come standard. However, there are subtle differences between the two solutions that make them better suited for different use cases.
DealHub CPQ is a top-notch CPQ software that integrates natively with other CRM and ERP systems and offers an intuitive, user-friendly interface. It’s easy setup process makes it ideal for businesses that are new to CPQ technology, and CRM integration makes it suitable for various existing workflows.
Salesforce CPQ is a tool that helps businesses develop complex quotes and manage billing operations. It offers robust customization options, detailed reporting analytics, and a deep integration with Salesforce CRM. In addition, its advanced pricing models allow businesses to create complex pricing structures with discounts and flexible pricing.
Product Overview
Overview of each CPQ Solution
DealHub CPQ and Salesforce CPQ are both widely used by organizations in various industries. Here’s a quick overview of each product and what it does well.
Define DealHub CPQ
DealHub is an all-encompassing CPQ solution with a user-friendly interface for quickly configuring and managing product catalogs, pricing rules, and quotes.
Its guided selling process resides within the CRM workflow to supercharge sales teams across the board with a streamlined quoting process – one that outperforms legacy applications in terms of speed of implementation and ease of maintenance, allowing you to develop a quote in no time.
Additional functionality and software like DealRoom (digital sales room) make DealHub a solid buyer engagement platform for managing end-to-end sales operations.
Define Salesforce CPQ
Salesforce is the CRM industry gold standard for sales automation and customer data management, with its CPQ solution as a part of Salesforce Revenue Cloud. It provides a solution for configuring complex product combinations using the same interface as Salesforce CRM.
Since it is part of Revenue Cloud, it is primarily categorized as a billing and quote-to-cash (QTC) platform.
This cloud-based solution also integrates seamlessly with Salesforce’s CRM platform to provide real-time insights into customers, deals, and prospects, making it a good choice for existing or prospective Salesforce customers.
Product Features
Comparison of Key Features
DealHub CPQ and Salesforce CPQ both offer powerful features to help businesses automate their quoting and pricing process.
Core features of CPQ software include product configuration, dynamic pricing, guided selling, and contract and subscription management. Both Salesfoce and DealHub offer these features and more, so let’s take a look at some of the features that set each product apart.
Here’s a breakdown of each product’s features:
| DealHub CPQ | Salesforce CPQ |
|---|---|
| A centralized platform for managing sales engagement touchpoints within a company’s current CRM system. | Configure complex product combinations with the same user interface as Salesforce CRM. |
| Integration for connecting with third-party software, including Freshworks CRM, Microsoft Dynamics 365, HubSpot, accounting software, DocuSign, and ERP systems. | Provide real-time insights into customers, deals, and prospects through its integration with Salesforce’s CRM platform. |
| Fast integration and setup within weeks with no code required. | IT implementation takes an average of 6-9 months. |
| Guided selling empowers sales reps to create winning proposals quickly and easily through an intuitive quoting process. | Salesforce offers pre-built guided selling capabilities, but more intricate workflows may require custom coding. |
| Readily scalable for sales team growth and expansion. | Oftentimes, modifications, alterations, and upkeep require specialized expertise—incurring additional expenses. |
| With Dealroom, digital proposals can be easily sent via attachable files or links, allowing companies to provide their customers with one point of interaction throughout all stages of the deal, rather than multiple files or links. | Each price quote is delivered as an attachable file, and any alterations necessitate a new version of the document. |
| Contract management, e-sign, document generation, and multi-dimensional pricing models out-of-the-box. | Additional features and licenses available for added costs. |
| Digital sales room for streamlined sales negotiations and predictive sales playbooks for faster turnaround times. | Customer communication within the Salesforce platform. |
| Subscription, renewal, and order management capabilities with rules-based quoting for complex sales. | Subscription management and complex billing capacity. |
| Buyer engagement insights that help sales reps improve future sales communication. | Detailed reporting analytics for customized pricing strategies and discount structures. |
| Automated approval workflows for faster turnaround times and quote collaboration across teams and stakeholders with audit trails. | Full-cycle quote-to-cash automation. |
| Web-based platform. | Web and mobile (iPhone and Android) platforms. |
| Phone, mobile, and online customer support, plus a knowledge base. | Customer support available by phone only. |
Customer Size
Ideal Customer Profiles
DealHub CPQ is purpose-built for small organizations, medium-sized businesses, and enterprises alike. Its scalability makes it easy to add or remove users and features as needed, making it a suitable platform for companies of varying sizes.
With its no-code infrastructure and easy-to-use features, DealHub is friendly for small businesses, which may not require the same level of sophistication as larger organizations.
Salesforce CPQ also services businesses of all sizes. Since Salesforce is among the most ubiquitous CRM tools on the market, its CPQ is a great option for businesses of any size.
Still, Salesforce CPQ’s implementation process is lengthier and more complex than DealHub, which makes it less suited to smaller organizations without existing IT infrastructure. Its scalability merits consideration when determining the best fit for larger companies that require its specific feature set.
Pricing
Breakdown of Pricing Options
Both Salesforce CPQ and DealHub CPQ use usage-based pricing models, meaning that the pricing plan is tailored to each customer’s specific needs.
The cost of Salesforce CPQ varies, but typically it runs between $75 and $150 per user, per month. It also requires additional fees for customizations, implementations, and other services.
Implementation costs for a customized system within Salesforce can take a significant amount of time and cost businesses a considerable amount of money.
| DealHub CPQ | Salesforce CPQ | |
|---|---|---|
| Product Pricing | Contact sales | CPQ: $75 per user per month (billed annually) CPQ Plus: $150 per user per month, billed annually CPQ + Billing Growth: Contact sales CPQ + Billing Plus: Contact sales |
| Implementation Fees | One-time implementation fee | Ongoing implementation fees for custom coding |
| Additional Licenses | No additional license fees | Additional license fees for e-sign, contract management, buyer engagement tracking, plus hidden licensing costs. |
To use Salesforce CPQ to its fullest extent, you’ll need to pay a full-implementation fee and possibly additional customization costs for complex use cases (i.e., custom coding). And applications related to Salesforce CPQ—like contract management, e-signature, sales proposals, and buyer engagement tracking—sometimes come with hidden license fees.
With DealHub, you’ll only have to pay a minimal one-time setup cost. You can then enjoy the advantages of having an integrated and complete sales stack for a fixed fee. And the pricing is dependent on usage, so you won’t pay more than you need to.
Pricing for DealHub CPQ is based on the organization, and prospective buyers need to talk to sales representatives about their needs. The plan is tailored to each client, and it can start at around $50 per user per month.
Summary
Considerations for Choosing Between the Two Solutions
DealHub CPQ is a great choice for small businesses and medium-sized enterprises. Its no-code infrastructure makes it easy to use, while its scalability allows companies of any size to benefit from its features.
For enterprise customers, DealHub also makes sense. Its pricing structure is tailored to each situation, and its customer success team provides customers with support throughout their entire journey.
Salesforce CPQ is a robust tool that works well for organizations of any size, but will benefit those with complex needs and robust IT infrastructure the most. Since implementation, updates, customizations, and other services come with additional costs and may require the help of IT consultants, businesses should consider the total cost of ownership before making a decision.
Regardless of size or needs, DealHub and Salesforce offer compelling CPQ solutions that can help streamline and automate the sales process. Ultimately, it’s important to select the solution that best meets your organization’s specific requirements.
FAQs
Frequently Asked Questions
DealHub CPQ integrates seamlessly with Salesforce CRM, so Salesforce customers can access the right customer data, contact information, existing products, and other details without having to manually enter them.
Additionally, DealHub CPQ enables sales teams to quickly generate quotes and contracts that are accurate and compliant with company policies, which may already be predetermined in Salesforce.
In certain cases, a 100% native solution may not be recommended or feasible. Salesforce even suggests a hybrid solution to drive large-scale calculations requiring immense computing power and abundant storage space for your CPQ solutions. It’s best to select a system that can efficiently execute the task at hand.
When an organization deploys a solid composite system, it will not only enable users to have an incomparable experience with Salesforce but also give them the benefit of cost-savings and improvements in performance.
For example, Dealhub CPQ’s digital sales room technology makes it easy to centralize stakeholder and prospect communication—an important factor in today’s digital-first environment. And with predictive sales playbooks and guided selling, Dealhub might improve a company’s workflows better than Salesforce’s native option.
Since it readily integrates with CRM systems including Salesforce, DealHub is still a viable option even over a 100% native solution.
Salesforce purchased SteelBrick CPQ in December 2015 and rebranded it as Salesforce CPQ. SteelBrick was a cloud-based product configuration and quoting solution that enables users to quickly configure, price, quote and order products.
Salesforce CPQ is based on the same platform as SteelBrick. But since the initial purchase, the company has rolled out additional features such as integrated contract management, robust pricing rules, automated workflow approvals, and more.
Salesforce CPQ competes with a variety of CPQ solutions, including DealHub CPQ. Its direct competitors include CRM providers like HubSpot, Freshworks CRM, and Microsoft Dynamics, which have their own CPQ offerings as add-ons or standalone products. CPQ vendors such as Conga and FPX also compete with Salesforce CPQ.
DealHub is a modern deal management software that competes with Salesforce CPQ, as well as other CPQ solutions such as Conga, FPX and Alloy. DealHub also competes with contract management software providers such as DocuSign and PandaDoc, although its primary focus is on CPQ solutions.
Moreover, some CRMs like SugarCRM have their own integrated CPQ solution that deals with the complexities of global pricing, taxes, and discounts. DealHub integrates seamlessly with these systems and offers a viable alternative in many cases.
Salesforce and DealHub are two of the most advanced CPQ solutions on the market. The main difference between the two is the implementation cost. Salesforce is very expensive to implement and is best suited for organizations at the enterprise level. DealHub can be quickly implemented, offers lower costs, and is better tailored to small-to-medium businesses.
Additionally, DealHub has a Digital Sales Room feature that allows teams to collaborate on the same page with customers or prospects in real-time. This feature makes it easy for sales reps to provide product demos and resolve customer inquiries during the sales process.
The most important features of CPQ software are:
Product configuration
Pricing rules
Guided selling
Automated quote generation
Contract management (CLM)
Integration with CRM systems such as Salesforce
Workflow automation
Robust analytics and reporting
These features allow users to streamline the sales process, automate processes, manage contracts effectively, and gain better insights into the business.
Andrew is a professional copywriter with expertise in creating content focused on business-to-business (B2B) software. He conducts research and produces articles that provide valuable insights and information to his readers.
