Fifteen questions to ask a CPQ vendor before you sign
Ask every vendor the same fifteen questions, in the same order, and write the answers down. Five are about architecture (where data lives, what it prices from), four about cost, three about the install base, three about the company. A vendor that answers all fifteen with a record on screen and a number in writing is a safe choice. The table shows what a good answer sounds like and what to watch for; a printable version is at the bottom.
Which five are yours
- You are the CIOQuestions 1, 2, 10, 12, 14 — data location, standard objects, AppExchange listing, acquisition, exit
- You run RevOpsQuestions 3, 5, 6, 7, 8 — admin ownership, coupling, renewals, error handling, release cadence
- You own the budgetQuestions 4, 11, 15 — three-year cost, references beyond phase one, fixed fee
The fifteen
| Question | Why it matters | A good answer | Watch for |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Where does my quote data physically live? Can I run a native Salesforce report on it without exporting? | Decides reporting, Agentforce access, and how hard it is to leave. | “Every quote is a record in your org.” Then they show a standard report. | A “sync”, a “connector”, or a demo that opens a second browser tab. |
| 2. Does your CPQ price from standard Salesforce Products and Price Books, or from its own objects? | Standard Price Books move as-is to any future platform; vendor price objects convert. | “Standard PricebookEntry.” | A product-specific price list object with its own admin screen. |
| 3. Can my current Salesforce admin administer it without a new certification? | Admin ownership is the difference between a change taking minutes and a ticket. | A demo where an admin changes a tier and it takes effect. | A recommended partner, a certification track, or “our services team handles that”. |
| 4. What is the total cost — licence, implementation, consulting, training, ongoing admin — over three years? | Licence is often the smallest line. | A number for each line, with the implementation fee in writing. | A licence price and “implementation depends”; refusal to put implementation in the contract. |
| 5. If I change a pricing rule, what else has to be rebuilt? | Exposes hidden coupling (guided-selling paths, scripts, templates). | “Nothing; the rule is evaluated at quote time.” | Anything that mentions rebuilding paths, regenerating templates, or a deploy. |
| 6. Show me a renewal, an amendment with proration, and a co-term on a live record. | The install base is the part that fails after go-live. | They do it in the demo org, on the spot, and you can see the subscription record change. | A slide, a “roadmap”, or a workaround that involves cloning. |
| 7. What is your documented process when a rep makes a date error on an executed amendment? | Every team makes this mistake; the fix reveals the data model. | Correct the record with an audit trail. | “Delete and recreate” or “approve a fake amendment”. |
| 8. When was your last CPQ-specific feature release, and where are the release notes? | Separates a maintained product from a frozen one. | A dated page with a release in the last quarter. | A roadmap deck instead of release notes. |
| 9. What time zone is your primary support team in, and what is the documented response time? | A broken quote at 9am needs an answer at 9am. | A published support policy with hours in your zone. | “Follow the sun” with no hours, or a community forum as tier one. |
| 10. Is this a managed package on the AppExchange, with a security review and public reviews? | The AppExchange listing is the only third-party audit most vendors ever get. | A listing you can open, with a rating and a review count. | An integration listing, or no listing. |
| 11. How many customers have completed a full implementation beyond phase one, and can I speak to two? | Phase-one references are easy; phase-three references prove the product survives contact. | Two references who have renewed. | References who went live last quarter. |
| 12. What happens to my data and my contract if you are acquired? | It happened to Subskribe customers in November 2025. | Data is in your org; contract terms survive assignment. | An answer about the acquirer’s vision. |
| 13. Is this product your strategic priority, or is something else? | A product in maintenance behaves differently from one being invested in. | A named product team and a release cadence. | The conversation moves to a different product line. |
| 14. If we leave in three years, what do we export and what do we lose? | The exit cost is part of the price. | “Nothing to export; it is already in your org. Uninstall the package.” | An export service, a data-egress fee, or a pause. |
| 15. What does the implementation fee include, and is it fixed? | Variable services are where budgets break. | A fixed fee with a scope statement. | Time and materials with an estimate. |
How to run the session
- Same questions, same order, every vendor. The comparison only works if the answers line up.
- Ask for a record, not a slide. Questions 1, 5, 6 and 7 are answered by showing a Salesforce record changing in a demo org. If the vendor cannot, note it.
- Get the numbers in writing before the demo ends. Question 4 and 15 are the ones that move after the demo.
- Score it. One point per question answered with evidence. A vendor under ten is a risk you are choosing.
- Then run the numbers yourself. Put each vendor’s answers to question 4 into the calculator; published prices are pre-filled, everything else is yours to enter.
How the platforms on this site answer
We publish the answers we can source. The comparison matrix covers questions 1, 2, 3, 4, 8 and 10 for Salesforce CPQ, Revenue Cloud Advanced, Kugamon, Conga, DealHub and Nue from public pages. Where a vendor has not published an answer, the cell says so. For Kugamon: every object is in your org; it prices from standard Price Books; any Salesforce admin runs it; $65–$125 per user per month with a fixed $25–30K implementation fee (AppExchange); release notes ship monthly; standard support 9 AM–6 PM Pacific with response up to 48 hours, and Nights & Weekends and Dedicated tiers at extra charge with 8-hour and 4-hour response (support tiers); a managed package with 134 public reviews.
Printable checklist
Print this page; the table above is the checklist. Or copy the questions into your RFP as written — they are deliberately vendor-neutral.
What Salesforce admins say on AppExchange
Quoted verbatim from the Kugamon listing on AppExchange. Reviewer names and dates as published there. Read all 134, including the critical ones →
★★★★★A new bar for RevOps
“As someone who has set up Salesforce CPQ before, I found Kugamon to be much more straightforward and easier to use. It took us just a few weeks to get going, rather than the few months or even years required by other systems.”
★★★★★Easy to understand, easy to implement
“This SFDC-native platform is lightweight but powerful, bringing the entire sales process onto one pane of glass. No more disconnected Opportunities and Quotes/Orders, no more fractured approval processes, just more control over everything. Implementation is a breeze.”
★★★★★Great Salesforce Native CPQ Tool
“Kugamon is an awesome tool that I found to be easy to understand and configure for our complex use case. Not to mention, they have a fantastic onboarding process that does a great job of covering every feature.”
Where does my quote data physically live, and can I run a native Salesforce report on it without exporting? It decides reporting, AI access and the cost of leaving, and the answer is easy to verify in a demo. See what native actually means.
Same questions, same order, one point per question answered with evidence on screen or in writing. Then put each vendor’s cost answers into a three-year model (how).
Yes. DealHub acquired Subskribe in November 2025 (explainer) and Conga completed the PROS acquisition in February 2026; customers of the acquired products are living the answer. Ask what happens to your data and your contract terms.
Published prices, your team size
The calculator uses Salesforce’s published Revenue Cloud Advanced price and Kugamon’s published AppExchange price. Competitor implementation figures are labelled estimates.