Zuora CPQ Overview

Zuora CPQ is an all-in-one configuration, price, quote (CPQ) and subscription management platform businesses with recurring revenue models. It supports industry verticals like B2B manufacturing, Internet of Things (IoT), software, high tech, media and entertainment, and startups. By integrating seamlessly with the rest of Zuora’s revenue suite, Zuora CPQ streamlines the entire quote-to-revenue process and helps companies manage the subscriber lifecycle.

Its subscription quoting capabilities enable sales teams to configure dynamic service terms, manage multi-year ramp deals, and easily adjust customer-specific pricing. This flexibility aligns sales and finance teams throughout the subscriber lifecycle, from quoting to billing, payments, and revenue recognition, enhancing efficiency and accuracy. Thanks to its new acquisitions (Zephr and Togai), it supports product-led growth (Zephr’s AI paywall and user journey capabilities) and usage-based pricing (Togai’s metering and billing automation for consumption-based models).

Zuora CPQ is a robust, scalable quoting software designed for businesses with subscription revenue. It makes it easy for sales reps to configure subscription packages, quote prices and discounts accurately, and generate proposals in real time. And when you use it with Zuora’s whole product ecosystem, it facilitates the entire quote-to-cash process, plus subscription management.

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. It processes and records payments with flexible, rules-based revenue recognition, so you can comply with ASC 606 and IFRS 15 regulation. And pre-built connectors to Netsuite, Workday, and other platforms make it easy to plug Zuora into your close process.

Pricing, quoting, and billing 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, ranging from simple per-unit, volume-based, and tiered structures to advanced charge models like overage smoothing, pre-rated, high-water mark, and multi-attribute pricing. You can create unlimited one-time, recurring, and usage-based charges per rate plan. This flexibility lets you charge, for example, both monthly license fees and annual support fees for the same product.

Customizable usage-based pricing: Togai, acquired by Zuora in May 2024, is a metering and rating solution designed to support usage-based business models. Finance teams can configure metering and rating of raw events through a low-code builder and developer-friendly interface. This integration enhances Zuora’s monetization suite by enabling businesses to launch, iterate, and adapt usage-based pricing models efficiently, accommodating the growing demand for flexible consumption-based offerings.

Subscriber lifecycle management: Zuora CPQ provides native support for new deals, upsells, cross-sells, renewals, and more. It has features to facilitate recurring payment collections, automate dunning processes, and address at-risk customers. Plus, through its advanced CPQ analytics, you can look at your sales and renewal data, MRR, churn rates, and subscriber growth.

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 (Platform, Analytics, Extension Studio), sales (CPQ), marketing (Zephr), finance (Billing, Revenue, Togai), and product management (Product Catalog). Using Zuora CPQ means breaking down organizational silos, making your revenue operations more agile and productive.

For businesses with recurring revenue, Zuora CPQ offers significant benefits. The most prominent ones include:

• Simplified pricing management across sales channels with an integrated, centralized product catalog and unified interface.
• More accurate quoting processes with guided selling flows, automated approvals, and advanced price calculation engines.
• Faster quote generation with a single-page interface that enables sales teams to configure dynamic service terms up to 35% faster.
• Personalized digital subscription journeys with tailored paywalls, pricing options, content access management, and use-case-specific options.
• Streamlined cross-functional collaboration with a platform that caters to the needs of every department, eliminating organizational silos and increasing efficiency.
• Revenue growth and business improvements through real-time financial impact analysis with live metrics to measure the effect of subscription changes on sales compensation, customer value, and overall business health.
• Lower accounting and compliance costs through automated payment processing, revenue recognition, reconciliation, and compliance, plus pre-built reports on audit trails and user access.

Zuora CPQ is designed to address the complex quoting challenges in the software, manufacturing, IoT, IT services, and media and entertainment industries. Here’s how it caters to them:

Manufacturing and IoT

Monetization for Industry 4.0 investments: Zuora CPQ’s insights help you identify customer signals for potential growth and determine the right offering at the right time, allowing manufacturers to capitalize on their digital transformations. From there, they can launch, expand, or experiment with new recurring revenue and XaaS offerings that build on existing products and IoT capabilities, creating a more integrated customer experience and a more resilient business.

Scalable pricing rules and product catalog: With Zuora CPQ, manufacturers can centralize their product catalog to simplify and automate complex quote creation. Reusable templates, custom scripts, advanced unit-based pricing options, volume discounts, promotions management, bundling capabilities for hardware/software bundles — these all come together to empower your sales team in creating personalized quotes at scale.

Integrated applications ecosystem: The ability to integrate Zuora with your ERP, CRM, and other back-end or front-end systems is a game-changer in the manufacturing and IoT spaces. With real-time data syncing, you get better control over the entire order-to-cash process, while eliminating silos and manual tasks. And your sales team will always be working with the most up-to-date availability info for prouct configurations.

SaaS

Support for hybrid pricing models: Zuora is designed to create winning SaaS quotes. Software companies can use it to implement and manage hybrid pricing strategies that combine subscription-based and usage-based models. Its integrated paywall software facilitates product-led growth through a freemium offer.

Quote-to-cash automation: It streamlines the entire quote-to-cash process, from initial customer quotes to billing and retention efforts. With Zuora Revenue, SaaS companies can automate revenue recognition, ensuring compliance with ASC 606 and IFRS 15.

Advanced subscription lifecycle management: Zuora CPQ provides tools to manage the entire subscription lifecycle, including sign-ups, renewals, upgrades, and downgrades. This comprehensive management ensures seamless customer experiences and supports business growth.

Media and Entertainment

Dynamic paywalls and content recommendations: Zuora’s AI displays dynamic paywalls that adjust access and pricing based on individual user behavior, maximizing revenue potential by offering personalized subscription offers and optimizing the balance between free and paid content. It can also offer content recommendations that create engaging, personalized customer experiences, increasing subscriber satisfaction and loyalty.

Seamless multichannel integration: Media and entertainment companies can adjust pricing, promotions, and content bundles across all their distribution channels, ensuring alignment with market demands and providing a consistent customer experience regardless of the platform used. This makes it easy to launch and monetize new offers, like premium streaming content or exclusive digital experiences, without the need for complex coding.

Scalable global operations: You can control and customize content access based on subscription tiers, geographic locations, or user preferences, ensuring that subscribers receive tailored content offerings that enhance satisfaction and loyalty. Zuora also supports multiple currencies, languages, and tax regulations, allowing media and entertainment companies to expand their subscriber base internationally while maintaining compliance and operational efficiency.

Zuora CPQ pricing is customized based on factors such as business size, transaction volume, and specific requirements. As a result, detailed pricing information isn’t publicly available on their website. To obtain a personalized quote, contact Zuora’s sales team directly.

For context, some sources indicate that Zuora’s pricing starts at approximately $800 per month for the Growth plan, which is suitable for small businesses with up to 1,000 orders per month.

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 Conga CPQ Alternatives

Vendori CPQ

Vendori CPQ is a versatile and robust alternative to Zuora CPQ, offering advanced features that cater to both subscription-based and one-time sales, making it ideal for technology companies with diverse offerings. With a no-code system configuration, Vendori empowers teams to manage complex pricing structures and approvals without IT dependency, enabling quick adaptation to market changes. Its comprehensive product catalog streamlines quoting for hardware, software, and subscription tiers, while lifecycle subscription management simplifies renewals, upgrades, and cancellations. Guided selling and automated workflows enhance sales efficiency and accelerate deal closures. 

MonetizeNow CPQ

MonetizeNow CPQ is offers seamless quoting and billing with a user-friendly interface for sales reps and self-service quoting. Like Zuora, it integrates smoothly with CRM and e-signature tools and excels in subscription management, automating invoicing, recurring billing, and consumption-based models. MonetizeNow combines quoting, billing, and product catalog management in one platform, enabling accurate quotes, real-time pricing, and simplified financial reporting. Its enterprise-grade product catalog supports complex pricing models, while API-first integrations streamline workflows across sales channels. 

DealHub CPQ

DealHub CPQ is a comprehensive quote-to-revenue solution particularly geared toward SaaS businesses. Both platforms streamline the quote-to-cash process by automating product configuration, contract generation, and billing to eliminate errors and accelerate deal cycles. DealHub stands out with its advanced subscription management features, supporting complex pricing models and enabling upselling and cross-selling to maximize customer revenue. The DealRoom feature fosters real-time collaboration between sales teams and customers, serving as a central hub for deal-related information. Beyond deal closure, DealHub provides subscription retention tools like automated renewals, multi-payment options, and customer engagement monitoring to reduce churn and secure recurring revenue. Its no-code integrations with popular CRMs, ERP systems, and other tools ensure seamless workflows, making it an ideal choice for businesses seeking efficiency and scalability.

Subskribe

Like Zuora, Subskribe manages complex pricing models, automates revenue workflows, and provides actionable sales insights—all essential for handling recurring revenue. Its unified platform streamlines workflows across sales, billing, and finance, eliminating data silos and ensuring accuracy throughout the quote-to-revenue process. With a user-friendly interface and seamless integrations with CRM and other tools, Subskribe accelerates the quote-to-cash process while reducing manual work. By addressing SaaS-specific pricing complexities, automating revenue operations, and delivering advanced sales analytics, Subskribe empowers sales teams to focus on strategic selling and achieve faster, more accurate outcomes.

Nue

Nue offers a comprehensive suite of tools tailored to supercharge RevOps for technology companies. Seamlessly integrated within Salesforce, Nue eliminates workarounds and ensures consistent pricing across all sales channels. Its intuitive Quote Builder allows teams to create dynamic, flexible quotes with on-the-fly pricing and discount adjustments directly in Salesforce, saving time and improving efficiency. With real-time visibility into quotes and orders, sales reps and managers gain full control over the sales pipeline. Nue also goes beyond quoting with its Price Builder, enabling RevOps teams to develop and test diverse pricing models, from bundles to subscription tiers, ensuring agility in response to market changes.

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: 19%
• $50M-$1B: 62%
• $1B-$10B: 14%
• Over $10B: 5%

Reviewer’s Industry

• IT Services: 26%
• Software: 14%
• Services (non-Government): 12%
• Media: 10%
• Other: 29%

Reviewer’s Deployment Region

• North America: 83%
• Asia/Pacific: 10%
• Europe, Middle East, and Africa: 7%

Gartner Peer Insights affirms that Zuora CPQ provides high value in subscription management and billing, as cited by the featured review on their site.

Andrew Parker

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.

Zuora CPQ Overview

• 1Why this product is good
• 2Product Details
• 3What are the advantages of using Zuora CPQ?
• 4What industries are CPQ solutions best suited for?
• 5Prices
• 6CPQ Integrations
• 7Valuable Insight From Real Customers
• 8FAQs