Zuora CPQ is the quoting software for subscription businesses. Unlike traditional CPQ solutions, Zuora centralizes subscription billing, revenue management, proposals, quotes, and digital subscription journeys.
Zuora CPQ is an all-in-one subscription management platform for any business using a recurring revenue model. Industry verticals it supports include B2B manufacturing, Internet of Things (IoT), software, high tech, media and entertainment, and startups.
For subscription businesses, Zuora’s platform provides a start-to-finish solution that helps them launch a new subscription offering, refine their pricing strategy, tailor offerings for international markets, and develop customer relationships that drive long-term MRR. And it accomplishes this with one integrated quote-to-cash business process.
Why this product is good
Positives of Zuora’s CPQ Software
Product Details
What is Zuora CPQ?
Zuora CPQ is a robust, scalable solution designed for businesses with subscription revenue. It provides a centralized platform for dynamic quoting, automated financial operations, and enhanced integration for seamless business transactions, personalized buyer experiences, and ongoing customer relationships.
Features include:
- Sales and finance alignment
- Quoting for flexible services
- Support for ongoing deals
- Advanced system integration
- Centralized revenue platform
- Testing and optimization
- Cross-functional support
Sales and Finance Alignment: Zuora CPQ automates the downstream changes stemming from a recurring revenue model. It handles everything from triggering change orders and provisioning to invoicing and reallocating revenue. Its built-in automation also simplifies revenue recognition, a critical aspect for businesses.
Quoting for Flexible Services: The platform offers dynamic configuration of service terms, multi-year ramp deals, and customer-specific pricing. It supports over 50 pricing models, allowing businesses to flexibly adjust offerings, include microservices, and tailor the best solution for customers.
Subscriber Lifecycle Management: Zuora CPQ provides native support for new deals, upsells, cross-sells, renewals, and more. It enables businesses to access metrics, understand the financial impact of subscription changes, and gain deeper insights into subscriber history.
Advanced System Integration: With low-code SDKs and APIs, Zuora CPQ easily integrates with existing applications and ecosystems, including notable platforms like Microsoft and Snowflake. This ensures the software fits seamlessly into your existing tech stack.
Centralized Revenue Platform: Businesses can update pricing across all sales channels via a unified interface and central product catalog using Zuora CPQ. It provides a consistent subscriber experience by handling orders from various channels such as quoting, websites, apps, and service partners.
Testing and Optimization: Zuora CPQ facilitates building, testing, and optimizing digital subscription journeys. It supports personalized experiences that accelerate revenue growth, featuring customizable paywalls, personalized content access management, first-party data strategies, and user-specific personalization.
Cross-Functional Support: Zuora CPQ accelerates market launch with platforms specifically tailored for different departments, including IT, sales, marketing, finance, and product management. When all departments align and can operate using the same data, the whole company becomes more agile and productive.
What are the advantages of using Zuora CPQ?
Zuora CPQ Benefits
There are many benefits to using Zuora CPQ. A few of the most notable benefits include:
- Faster quote, contract, and proposal creation
- Greater sales efficiency
- More accurate financial statements
- Improved time to market
- Fewer operational complexities
- Reduced risk and minimized accounting costs
- Expanded insights into sales and revenue
What industries are CPQ solutions best suited for?
Zuora CPQ for Industries
Zuora CPQ is designed to address the challenges IT Services and SaaS companies face when quoting complex products and services. Here’s how it caters to them:
IT Services
Subscription Management: IT services often involve recurring elements like maintenance or support. Zuora CPQ can handle these subscriptions, including tracking renewals, adjustments, and up/downgrades.
Flexible Pricing: IT service pricing can be complex with various tiers, usage-based models, and one-time fees. Zuora CPQ supports over 50 pricing models, allowing IT service companies to create customized quotes that reflect their offerings.
Streamlined Quoting: Generating quotes for IT service bundles can be time-consuming. Zuora CPQ automates the quoting process, allowing sales reps to configure quotes quickly and accurately.
SaaS
Built for Subscriptions: Zuora CPQ is designed specifically for the complexities of subscription billing. It can handle various combinations of subscriptions, one-time fees, usage-based charges, and tiered pricing structures.
Flexible Product Catalog: Zuora boasts a powerful product catalog that can accommodate intricate recurring products with multiple plans and features. This allows for building accurate and customized quotes that reflect each customer’s needs.
Supports Complexities: Zuora CPQ caters to the ongoing nature of subscriptions. It can handle contract terms, start dates, renewals, and even model future revenue streams.
Prices
Zuora CPQ Pricing
Zuora CPQ offers quote-based pricing via a consultation with the sales team.
CPQ Integrations
Competitors and Alternatives to Zuora CPQ
Although Zuora is one of the most effective CPQ solutions for subscription-based businesses, its feature set won’t benefit companies with other models as much. SaaS companies, for example, require subscription management in addition to sales engagement capabilities that Zuora doesn’t offer, while B2B wholesalers and manufacturers benefit from 3D product configurators, client portal plugins, and contract management for ad hoc sales.
Top 3 Conga CPQ Alternatives
Salesforce CPQ
Salesforce CPQ is an integrated solution within the Salesforce ecosystem that takes a more traditional approach to the CPQ process. Its primary strength lies in its customizability and seamless integration with existing Salesforce UI and data models. Users also benefit from its partner network (AppExchange), which offers countless third-party integrations. For larger businesses running on Salesforce, Salesforce CPQ offers some of the greatest customizability as well — businesses can program it to do just about anything as long as they have the IT infrastructure to maintain it.
DealHub CPQ
DealHub CPQ — a comprehensive solution particularly geared towards SaaS businesses — streamlines proposal creation with templates and document tracking, providing insights into which proposal elements resonate with prospects. Its standout feature is DealRoom, a sales engagement platform that consolidates all sales communications, eliminating scattered email threads. Additional features like contract management, eSignature, and DealHub Billing provide a unified source for revenue management, driving productivity and business performance. Best of all, DealHub’s code-free implementation means organizations don’t need extensive IT infrastructure to set up the platform and set up rules for accessibility and automation.
PROS Smart CPQ
PROS Smart CPQ is an ideal solution for B2B companies in manufacturing, wholesale, distribution, and those selling complex physical products. This platform automates sales teams’ quotation and pricing process, utilizing AI and machine learning to fuel powerful insights for enhanced sales execution and revenue growth. PROS handles extensive complexity, supporting up to 10,000 line items without impacting performance or speed. Among its distinguishing features is the 3D product configurator. In addition to its tools for the sales team, the 3D configurator integrates directly with websites, offering customers an interactive exploration of products online.
Valuable Insight From Real Customers
Gartner Peer Insights
Out of 41 reviews, Zuora CPQ has a rating of 3.0 out of 5 stars on Gartner Peer Insights. In their reviews, users note the software’s value in end-to-end subscription management. However, some users mention that product support could be improved.
The reviewers and customer demographics are as follows:
Reviewer’s Company Size
- Less than $50M: 20%
- $50M-$1B: 63%
- $1B-$10B: 12%
- Over $10B: 5%
Reviewer’s Industry
- IT Services: 24%
- Software: 24%
- Services (non-Government): 12%
- Media: 10%
- Other: 29%
Reviewer’s Deployment Region
- North America: 67%
- Asia/Pacific: 18%
- Europe, Middle East, and Africa: 11%
- Latin America: 4%
Gartner Peer Insights affirms that Zuora CPQ provides high value in subscription management and billing, as cited by the featured review on their site.
FAQs
Common Questions and Answers
Zuora CPQ is a powerful CPQ solution that helps subscription businesses manage their revenue processes throughout the entire subscriber lifecycle. It provides robust product configuration capabilities and supports over 50 pricing models to fit complex customer needs. Other features include complex billing, revenue recognition automation, automated contract renewal flows, and testing and optimization capabilities.
Zuora integrates with Salesforce to create a seamless, connected experience for customers. It helps sellers take a more customer-centric approach to their engagement while leveraging Zuora’s powerful features to maximize their ROI. Integrating Zuora with Salesforce also improves the data quality of each platform — two sources of data are combined into one, providing a more comprehensive view of the customer.
Implementing Zuora CPQ requires expertise in Salesforce and Zuora, potentially including development skills. You’ll need an active Zuora subscription, a Salesforce org with a specific edition, and a separate Zuora CPQ license. Consider training, documentation, and professional services for a smooth process. The specific resources depend on your implementation complexity and customization needs.
Sales teams leverage Zuora CPQ for subscription and renewal management through several key features:
Quoting: They can configure quotes using pre-defined products and pricing from the Zuora catalog, tailoring them to each customer’s needs.
Subscription creation: Upon approval, the quote seamlessly transfers to Zuora, automatically creating the subscription with accurate terms and pricing.
Renewal management: As renewals approach, Zuora CPQ facilitates renewal quotes with options for adjustments, upsells, or cross-sells.
Unified view: Sales reps have a consolidated view of customer subscriptions, pricing details, and renewal dates within Salesforce, aiding in proactive communication and upselling opportunities.
Overall, Zuora CPQ streamlines the subscription lifecycle for sales teams, allowing them to efficiently create, manage, and renew subscriptions from quote to completion.
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.
