In this article, we are going to discuss the details about the key differences between the Salesforce CPQ and the Apttus CPQ. Along with this, we will walk through the various points and segments that make the difference between the two.
The CPQ (Configure, Price, and Quote) solutions are very important to the business world. It helps to configure the critical product prices and offers the best quote to the customers. There are two major players in this space; Salesforce CPQ & Apttus CPQ. Both are CPQ solutions and are native to the Salesforce platform. But it becomes difficult to judge which one to hire when there are two or similar products.
Every company needs to sell its products in the market to make money and with a good price and strategy. Today, there is a huge competition in the sales market where numerous products from different companies compete. Here, the ground sales tactics work better than the plans made in the board room. Moreover, salespeople need excellent tools that help them every moment in sales. The sales tool Salesforce CPQ helps well in this regard to the sales team of a giant company.
Similarly, Apttus CPQ is also a quote-to-cash software solution by Salesforce that delivers CPQ solutions for the sales team. Thus, the end-users for both Salesforce CPQ & Apttus CPQ are the Salespeople only. Hence, they can give more time to selling using these software solutions.
Salesforce CPQ is proven better in some cases while its execution in fulfilling business needs. Apttus also have similar grade but with variations. People confuse with both products for different needs but they have to select one.
Before we get into the main segment here, we will try to know the basic purposes of the Salesforce and Apttus.
What is Salesforce CPQ?
Salesforce CPQ is software offered by Salesforce itself and it is a sales tool for the companies that provide accurate pricing for the given product. Moreover, Salesforce CPQ provides the sales team easy to use software compatible with any device during their sales process. This software is mainly a cloud-based platform that is useful everywhere and at any moment. Using this software, the salespeople can handle price quotes and deliver the exact figure to their customers.
In case you’re already familiar with using Salesforce CRM, with Salesforce CPQ you will enjoy something more. Salesforce CPQ combines the Sales Cloud platform and offers a seamless lightning experience for the salespeople. Moreover, Salesforce CPQ uses more standard articles than Apttus software, like Price Books, Orders, Order Products, and Assets. Salesforce CPQ also maps to standard and custom fields easily by enabling users to eliminate time spent copying and pasting the sales deals.
Furthermore, it offers easy to use design software build to make it a powerful leader in the CRM field. These apps also take into consideration many things such as discounts, customization, product quality & quantity, etc.
Learn practical insights from the industry experts in Salesforce with live projects via OnlineITGuru’s Salesforce CPQ Online Course.
What is Apttus CPQ?
Apttus CPQ is also quote-to-cash software and a sales tool built for serving the purpose of the sale for the Apttus line of products. It provides real-time and adequate quotes to its customers and clients. This tool not only helps the enterprises to obtain this information but also allows Sales teams to cross-selling. Moreover, using the Apttus CPQ tool, companies gain better leads to their latest sales and cross-sells.
This is an innovative CPQ tool that works on an AI platform with smart features in products, prices, and quotes offerings. It works similarly to the Salesforce CPQ tool. Such as reduces cycle times to build the latest quotes & prices and lists, minimizes bugs in quotes, etc.
Salesforce CPQ vs Apttus CPQ
In this part of this blog, we will look into the major differences that the CPQ tools have. Both tools are the market trendsetters in Sales for several lines of businesses. But the Salesforce in this regard is one step ahead. The following points will explain the key differences in the CPQ tools.
Ease of use
Both the CPQ tools are useful for the Salespeople that help them to spend more time on selling products. It makes them more confident in selling products with accurate prices & quotes. Moreover, both Salesforce CPQ & Apttus CPQ solutions offer similar capabilities in various terms to the clients. Such as products and pricing configuration, accurate quote cycles, mobile solutions, guided selling, and other tools to deliver quotes to your customers.
Product Offering
Both Salesforce CPQ and Apttus are the market leaders with nearer product capabilities. Here, Apttus CPQ includes X-Author extension capability where the system admins are able to build excel-based applications using the extension. It directly combines with the Apttus CPQ tool. The Apttus CPQ tool easily integrates with similar solutions like Apttus Intelligent Contract Management, X-Author, Accelerate, etc.
Similarly, Salesforce CPQ also works to offer several quote-to-cash solutions with powerful, easy to use products. It also integrates easily with other Salesforce modules and products. The tool performs everything that users need a quote-to-cash platform to do. It includes guided selling, orders/renewals, automated and subscription billing, among several tasks to perform.
It may be different for multiple business products. They vary on large scale also. But choosing good products is also wise for leading better business.
While offering products both Salesforce and Apttus provide many convincing products to make better quotes delivery.
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Features available
There are many similar and different features available for both the product solutions.
For Salesforce CPQ, features available are offering
Price & quotes
Proposal producing
Product renewals and orders bearing
Contract management
Configuring products
Billings and subscription handling
Locating revenues and guided selling features.
For Apttus CPQ, the available features are;
Offering guided quotations
Providing workflow approvals
Computing commissions
Suggesting cross-sell and up-selling skills
Price changing suggestions
Discount pricing recommendation and much more.
Thus, the above features of both tools prove that there is a similarity in them but in some areas, they vary from each other. Learn more in this regard from IT Guru experts.
Pricing models
Salesforce CPQ offers an annual subscription-based pricing model to its subscribers or clients or users. Where Apttus offers quotation based pricing models to its users.
Configuration
Coming to configuration, Salesforce CPQ offers a wide range of product catalog configurations. Similarly, the Apttus CPQ also has the same feature in this regard.
Implementation
Apttus CPQ takes much amount of time to implement as a result it put professionals and other admins on compromising situation with the app. It is quite challenging with Apttus during the sales cycle while delivering product catalog and budgets on time. Sometimes the business has to expand its operations on the basis of offers given by Apttus or Salesforce CPQ tools. In these conditions, Salesforce CPQ includes a more exact & clear display of their product capabilities during the sales cycle. It helps to configure more accurate forecasts and ease of applying things, achieved business benefits, etc. This fosters trust with existing and prospective customers.
Moreover, Salesforce encourages its product partners to develop additional solutions that can combine with the rest of their products. Multiple enterprises offer extensions for Salesforce CPQ on a frequent basis. It means the platform has been able to rapidly innovate/change and perform faster than other solutions.
Apttus CPQ also offers integrations with their partner companies, but on a very smaller scale. Moreover, the development burden falls to Apttus itself or the customer, and the base product can’t do that users need. There is a lesser chance to find out better integration or a partner that can bridge that functionality gap.
Apttus CPQ support model requires its users to purchase a premium support model. The Apttus CPQ system is very complex, and the skilled support level is available via a basic support package only. Moreover, it requires users to develop several times before getting to a resource that can address their problems.
Salesforce CPQ provides an extensive knowledge base and large community support. Furthermore, Salesforce regulates updates and releases sales cycle upgrades smoothly.
Coming to Apttus CPQ, clients/users often find it much difficult to manage regular release upgrades, and the upgrade cycles are less smoother.
Agreement
Salesforce CPQ in comparison to Apttus CPQ offers clear documentation of products, features, capabilities, roadmap for products, etc. This helps business management to make informed decisions faster and accurate.
Coming to Apttus, it is quite challenging to partner with Apttus CPQ in the case of making any agreement. The partnership needs and the MSA agreement are the burden one in this regard. Thus, it’s impossible to get support for the agreement and implementing a partnership deed that works for client business. Moreover, the tool also doesn’t offer support, documentation, and improved release cycles.
Thus, agreement of making a partnership with these tools is very important for a business entity. They have to choose the right platform for their requirements for better results.
Apttus CPQ objects
The tool Apttus CPQ doesn’t use standard platform products such as Price Book Entry. It utilizes custom order objects, order products, contacts, etc. It also stores the iterations of the cart well. Moreover, Apttus CPQ is flexible in usage for its users. Users can able to rapidly test and deploy new pricing models using this tool.
Salesforce CPQ objects
The Salesforce CPQ uses standard objects, price books, price book entries as well. It doesn’t use any custom objects while its operation.
Administration
Apttus CPQ administration is easy in comparison to similar other products. With the availability of products on the Force.com platform, clients are able to cross-train their Salesforce admins easily. And they can take on the extra administrative overhead/costs without notably increasing sales ops team size.
Salesforce CPQ offers the capability for admins to configure various workflows for approval. This is based on a certain discount offers at the standard cost, offering a faster and easy way to direct automatically via the entity for approval.
Use of Apttus in Salesforce
The Apttus Omni is built on top of Salesforce and it is the most secure and scalable cloud platform for enterprises. This means Apttus Quote-to-cash solutions include Salesforce’s amazing features that it provides to its customers. Such as mobile access, analytics, run business in multiple segments and areas, etc. Furthermore, Salesforce CPQ drives the organization by application acquisition, productivity, and acceleration with an intuitive and flexible architecture.
About CPQ Software
CPQ or Configure-Price-Quote is the term that is useful much within the B2B industry. This as a result defines several tools that help sellers quote easy product configuration that is crucial in nature. We have learned earlier in this blog that either the Apttus or the Salesforce CPQ software tools help companies. This is to clearly define good product prices across a surfeit of changing variables. Further, it is understood as a tool that helps to ascertain the price of the entire product based on the final selection for the actual product configuration.
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How to use CPQ in Salesforce
To use the CPQ tool within Salesforce, the salespeople need to trained and habitat with that. It’s very easy to use for a sales team. It offers flexibility in usage like product pricing and quoting, configuring products, and close sales deals, etc. Its mobile app is also easier to use for the sales team with lots of updated features to present a product. Thus, the sales team works naturally with this application. Finally, we can say that Salesforce CPQ helps its clients, customers, salespeople, in a better way. So, this is the reason why most businesses prefer it.
Conclusion
Thus, we reach to the conclusion part of this blog. We can say that both Salesforce and Apttus are strong CPQ platforms that deliver a huge value to any organization. Because of its precise display of the product, ease of application & maintenance, business benefits realized, and customer satisfaction, etc. Many people suggest Salesforce CPQ over Apttus CPQ for the users quoting needs. Hence, this platform gives more benefits than the other one. Get more insights and knowledge on Salesforce CPQ and practical live sessions through Salesforce CPQ Online Training. You can enrich your skills in this regard from the experts in this industry.