Manufacturing is both complex and competitive. Sales teams are facing unprecedented pressure to deliver faster quotes, handle growing product complexity, and meet increasingly personalized customer expectations. Configure, Price, Quote (CPQ) software has emerged as a transformative solution, connecting sales, engineering, and production in a way that ensures speed, accuracy, and scalability.
For manufacturers, CPQ is not just a sales tool. It’s a strategic platform that combines guided selling, automated configuration, real-time pricing, and visual product engagement to empower reps, delight buyers, and improve operational efficiency. The most advanced CPQ platforms go further by embedding 3D visualization, augmented reality (AR), and CAD automation into every stage of the buyer journey and production process.
What is CPQ and Why it Matters in Manufacturing
The configure price and quote (cpq) software market stood at USD 3 billion in 2024 and is projected to expand to USD 3.49 billion in 2025, eventually reaching USD 10.8 billion by 2033, driven by a CAGR of 16.5% from 2025 to 2033.
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At its core, CPQ software enables teams to configure products based on rules and logic, calculate accurate pricing in real-time, and generate professional, production-ready quotes. In manufacturing, where customization is often complex and errors can be costly, this becomes a vital advantage.
Legacy quoting systems and spreadsheets struggle to handle the diversity of modern products, particularly when customers expect personalization as a baseline. CPQ replaces these bottlenecks with rule-driven configuration, ensuring only manufacturable products are quoted and all pricing variables are accounted for automatically.
Modern platforms now enhance this functionality with 3D and AR product visualization, enabling both sales representatives and customers to view their configured products in real-time. This interactivity enhances engagement, shortens decision cycles, and increases the average deal size by enabling buyers to visualize and validate their choices.
Many offer an immersive experience across web and mobile interfaces, enabling manufacturers to provide the kind of dynamic buying process typically reserved for consumer brands.
Empowering Sales Reps with Speed and Confidence
Sales reps in manufacturing environments often face a dilemma: either stick to the few products they fully understand, or risk misquoting something. CPQ eliminates this trade-off by equipping reps with real-time product logic, dynamic pricing, and visual configuration tools that guide every step of the sale.
Instead of memorizing part numbers or calling engineers to verify specs, reps can now build custom configurations in minutes. CPQ software automates tedious tasks, such as formatting proposals, and ensures that all outputs are accurate and production-ready. When AR and 3D previews are included, reps can even show clients how the final product will look in their actual environment, turning conversations into conversions.
Epicor CPQ reports that reps using their system see a 26% increase in meeting quotas, a 20–35% increase in productivity, an 82% reduction in errors, and a 105% boost in average deal size, thanks in part to guided selling and upsell prompts embedded in the software.
Unlocking Engineering and Manufacturing Efficiency
Beyond the sales floor, CPQ transforms how manufacturing teams operate. One of the most significant pain points in engineer-to-order businesses is the back-and-forth between sales and engineering. When quotes are inaccurate or incomplete, engineers must scramble to fix issues, often delaying orders or frustrating customers.
Advanced CPQ systems eliminate this friction by ensuring all configurations are validated at the point of sale. With native CAD automation, the system can automatically generate CAD files, BOMs, and other technical documentation, eliminating the need for engineers to create these documents manually. This saves time, reduces risk, and allows technical teams to focus on innovation rather than revisions.
Engaging Buyers Through Visual and Omnichannel Experiences
Customer expectations in B2B have changed. Thanks to platforms like Amazon, even industrial buyers now expect intuitive, responsive, and highly visual experiences. A modern CPQ platform makes this possible, especially when equipped with interactive 3D configurators and AR previews.
Products like Epicor CPQ support product visualization through web-embedded configurators that customers, distributors, and sales teams can access anywhere. These tools offer a drag-and-drop interface that allows users to customize product dimensions, swap components, or explore options—all while seeing their selections update in real-time.
This interactivity doesn’t just look impressive. It works. According to Epicor, offering a visual buying experience can increase conversion rates by 40% and website traffic by 75%. It also enables self-service quoting, critical for reaching the growing base of buyers who prefer minimal sales interaction.
Scaling Growth with Integrated, Cloud-Based CPQ
A well-chosen CPQ platform becomes more than a sales tool—it becomes a growth engine. As manufacturers expand into new geographies, product lines, and channels, the complexity of quoting and configuration grows exponentially. CPQ helps manage this growth by standardizing rules across the organization and synchronizing with ERP, CRM, and CAD systems.
Cloud-based platforms like Epicor CPQ ensure that product data, pricing updates, and configuration rules are always up-to-date, regardless of your team’s location or the channel a customer uses to place an order. This supports omnichannel sales strategies and ensures consistency across your e-commerce store, distributor network, and the factory floor.
Whether you’re selling industrial machinery, modular buildings, or biotech systems, CPQ ensures you can scale without slowing down.
CPQ software has become an essential pillar of modern manufacturing sales, empowering reps, delighting customers, and unlocking engineering productivity. By integrating visual configuration, CAD automation, and AR capabilities, platforms are redefining what it means to sell complex products at speed and scale.
To dive deeper into how CPQ bridges the gap between sales and manufacturing—and to understand the capabilities that set top-tier solutions apart—read the full whitepaper:
Download Bridging the Gap Between Sales and Manufacturing with CPQ
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