CPQ for manufacturing

CPQ for manufacturing: what it handles, and what custom equipment needs instead.

CPQ, short for configure, price, quote, is software that prices a product range your team has already modelled. Someone picks the options, and the rules work out the price. It is very good at standard models. Custom equipment is different: the request arrives as a customer's bid package, and at most manufacturers the real pricing tool is an Excel workbook. Mavlon's AI Quoting Engine reads that package and prices it in your own pricing. It is not a CPQ.

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What each one starts from

CPQThe options someone picks from a product range you have already built into the system.
ExcelThe ratings, sizes and quantities an estimator types in after reading the package.
p.9The customer's own pages. A switchgear section asks for a 135 kA rating on page 9, and its breaker table on page 10 fits a 25 kA lineup.

A configurator and a workbook both price what someone tells them, so neither one notices that page 9 and page 10 disagree. In our sample quote, that question is worth $96,800.

The CPQ most manufacturers actually run

At most custom manufacturers, the real CPQ is an Excel workbook.

When we sit with estimators at companies that build equipment to order, the pricing rarely lives in a CPQ. It lives in a costing workbook that a senior estimator built over many years, with an inputs tab, rate tables, formulas that turn sizes into hours, and a quote sheet at the end. That is not a mistake. A workbook can bend to a job nobody has built before, and a product model in a CPQ cannot.

Excel

Where the pricing lives at most custom equipment makers we meet

35 to 291

Pages in the public bid packages behind our guides

6 kinds

Of document in a typical package, from the specification to the addenda

Minutes

From a bid package to a priced draft quote in your own pricing

A workbook and a configurator have the same blind spot: both price the inputs someone gives them. Before anyone can type in an ampere rating or pick an enclosure, someone has to read the package and find it, and on a custom job the price depends on all of the pages read together.

That reading is the slow part, and it is the part Mavlon's AI Quoting Engine does. It finds the inputs in the package, each with the page it came from, and prices them the way your workbook and your past quotes do.

Video: CPQ for Manufacturing Explained: Why Custom Equipment Still Gets Quoted in Excel (2026) (12:45)

What is CPQ? CPQ vs ERP for custom work →The switchgear package, page by page →

Inside the workbook

What a typical quoting workbook holds, and who fills in each part.

Every company's workbook is different, but most of the ones we have seen share the same six parts. Here is what they look like for custom equipment. If you are building one yourself, it also works as a checklist.

Inputs

The job in numbers: ratings, sizes, materials, options and quantities.

For switchgear: the ampere rating, the short-circuit rating, the enclosure type, the number of sections, the breaker count and the paint finish.

Typed in by an estimator after reading the package

Rates

Labour rates for each part of the shop, the prices you pay for material, and the markup on parts you buy in.

A welding rate per hour, an assembly rate per hour, a price per pound of copper, and a markup on breakers bought from a supplier.

Updated by hand when prices move

Quantities and hours

Formulas that turn the inputs into parts, weights and labour hours.

A higher bus rating pulls in heavier copper and adds hours to assembly and testing.

Built up over years by a senior estimator

Rules and exceptions

The "if this, then that" your company has learned from past jobs.

If the customer wants to watch the factory test, add travel and a day of test time.

Partly in formulas, partly in one person's head

Margin and terms

Overhead, margin, price escalation and the cost of a long warranty.

A reserve for a 20-year warranty, or a higher margin for a short delivery date.

Set by the sales manager or the owner

Quote sheet

The page the customer sees.

Priced lines, a total, the exclusions, the clarifications and the questions you need answered.

Copied into a letter or a PDF

What changes with the AI Quoting Engine

The package is read for you, and priced the way your company prices.

The AI Quoting Engine learns how your company prices from your costing workbooks, your rate book and the quotes you sent in the past. Then it reads each new bid package and returns a draft your estimator can check line by line. The examples below come from public packages in our guides.

The inputs, found in the package

Ratings, sizes, quantities and options come out of the customer's pages, each with the page it came from, so nobody has to hunt for them and type them in.

p.230Heat treatment after welding: "NIL" on the vessel data sheet

Priced in your own pricing

Each line is priced from your rates and rules, as the engine learned them from your files and past quotes. It brings no price list of its own.

p.42Two spare breakers, priced separately from the lump sum

Calls priced both ways

Where two pages disagree, the draft carries the likely reading and prices the other one beside it. A configurator would simply price whichever option somebody picked.

p.10Breaker table fits 25 kA while page 9 asks for 135 kA: $96,800 in our sample quote

TBD and questions, not guesses

A line the package does not settle says TBD, and the question for the customer comes already written.

p.157Stress relief for the vessel heads: the data sheet says no, the standard says yes

Then the quote

Your estimator checks the draft, changes what they know better, settles the calls and sends the quote. The pricing stays yours, and a quote no longer waits until the one person who knows the workbook is free.

What it does not do

It is not a CPQ and does not replace one. It does not design the equipment, decide compliance or set your margin, and it never sends anything to your customer.

CPQ and the other ways to quote

A CPQ starts from your product range. Custom equipment starts from the customer's documents.

If you are looking at CPQ software for manufacturing, first ask what your requests look like. Each kind of tool below was built for a different kind of request, and each one is good at its own job.

Kind of tool	What goes in	Where the price comes from	Fits best when
Catalogue and distributor quoting toolsUsed by distributors and resellers	Part numbers and product descriptions.	Catalogue list prices, discount tiers and supplier price files.	You resell standard parts at a list price less a discount.
Sales CPQSalesforce Revenue Cloud, ServiceNow CPQ	A product and its options, picked by a salesperson.	Price books, discount rules and approval steps.	You sell standard products through a large sales team and need clean quotes, approvals and a link to your CRM.
Manufacturing CPQTacton, Epicor CPQ	Options picked from a product model, often with a 3D view of the result.	Pricing rules your team writes for each option.	You sell standard models with many variants, and the combinations follow rules you can write down.
The Excel quoting workbookBuilt in-house, often by a senior estimator	The inputs an estimator types in after reading the package.	Your own rates, formulas and rules.	Each job is different, and the pricing knowledge lives with a few people.
Quoting inside your ERPJobBOSS², MRPeasy	The materials and routing your estimator types in.	The rates and routings already stored in your ERP.	You run the shop in that ERP and quote jobs like ones you have done before.
Mavlon AI Quoting EngineFor custom equipment priced from the customer's documents. Not a catalogue tool and not a CPQ.	The whole bid package: specification, drawings, data sheets, bid form, addenda and the covering email.	Your own costing workbooks, rate book and past quotes.	Your requests arrive as bid packages for equipment built to the customer's specification: switchgear, transformers, generator sets, vessels, exchangers, machines or HVAC units.

We make Mavlon, and we do not sell a CPQ, so read this table with that in mind. Descriptions of other tools come from their own websites in October 2026, and corrections are welcome at atishay@mavlon.co. For the wider picture, see the kinds of manufacturing quoting software.

CPQ or something else

Buy a CPQ for your product range. Use something else for the bid packages.

Custom work

Mavlon is the right tool when

Your requests arrive as a customer's bid package, not as a choice from your own product range.
Your real pricing tool is a costing workbook that only one or two people fully understand.
Someone spends hours reading the specification before the workbook can be filled in.
You looked at a CPQ, and the jobs that matter most would not fit a product model.

Standard products

A CPQ is the better buy when

Your customers choose from models you have already designed, with options that follow fixed rules.
A salesperson or a dealer, not an engineer, prepares most of your quotes.
You need discount approvals, branded quote documents and a link to your CRM across a large sales team.

We make Mavlon, and we do not sell a CPQ. Many manufacturers use both: a CPQ for their standard models and the AI Quoting Engine for the jobs that arrive as a bid package. Corrections are welcome at atishay@mavlon.co.

Prove it against your workbook

Test it blind on jobs your workbook already priced.

Before you trust it with a live bid, we run it on past jobs your team has already quoted, with the pass mark agreed in writing first.

Pick one product family you often price in the workbook.
Set aside past jobs whose quotes the engine never sees.
The engine prices them from the raw bid packages.
Compare its totals with the prices your team actually sent.

A US manufacturer of engineered waterfront structures, whose pricing lived in spreadsheets and in a few people's heads, went live in production after a test like this. Its drafts came within about 2 to 3 percent of its own price on familiar product lines, and about 10 to 15 percent on brand-new jobs with many add-ons.

The pilot protocol →The waterfront structures case study →

What we have published so far

A live customer: a US manufacturer of engineered waterfront structures, name withheld at its request.
The Cape Vincent demo: a public 179-page bid package turned into a priced draft quote.
Guides on public packages for switchgear, generators, e-houses, battery storage, pressure vessels and heat exchangers, each priced line by line with sample prices.

The pass bar: seven of ten totals within 15 percent, agreed in writing first.

Guides for manufacturers comparing CPQ and quoting tools.

GuideWhat is CPQ? CPQ vs ERP for custom workWhat each one covers, and what neither one does with a bid package.GuideA Tacton alternative for custom manufacturingWhere Tacton fits, and which kind of custom work it was not built for.GuideAn Epicor CPQ alternative for custom manufacturingWhat a configurator needs from you, and what to use when the job is not in the model.Product pageManufacturing quoting softwareEvery kind of quoting software, and which one fits custom equipment.Product pageElectrical equipmentSwitchgear, transformers, generator sets, UPS systems, battery storage and e-houses.Product pageHVAC equipmentAir handling units, packaged units, chillers and cooling.

What is CPQ in manufacturing?

CPQ stands for configure, price, quote. It is software that holds a model of your product range: every option, the rules for which options go together, and the price of each one. A salesperson, a dealer or sometimes the customer picks the options, the software checks that the combination is allowed, and it prices the result and produces the quote document. It works best for standard models that a set of options can describe.

Which manufacturers is CPQ software best for?

Manufacturers whose products are standard models with options that follow fixed rules, such as a range of pumps, fans, trucks or packaged units, and who quote through a sales team or dealers. The more often the same model is sold with different options, the sooner a CPQ pays back the work of setting it up.

Can you build a CPQ in Excel?

Yes, and many manufacturers have. A typical quoting workbook has an inputs tab, rate tables, formulas that turn the inputs into quantities and hours, a list of rules and exceptions, margin and terms, and a quote sheet. Its strength is that it bends to any job. Its weak points are that only one or two people usually understand it, copies and versions multiply, and every input still has to be typed in by someone who read the customer's documents.

Why do custom manufacturers still quote in Excel instead of a CPQ?

Because a CPQ needs every option and rule written down in advance, and custom equipment changes from job to job. A workbook lets an estimator add a line or change a formula for one job. The cost is time: the estimator still has to read the whole bid package before the workbook can price anything.

Is Mavlon a CPQ?

No. A CPQ prices a product you have already modelled, once someone picks the options. Mavlon's AI Quoting Engine starts from the customer's bid package, works out what is being asked for, and prices it in your own pricing. It does not match part numbers to a catalogue either. It is built for custom equipment, which the industry also calls engineer-to-order: equipment designed to one customer's specification.

Can Mavlon work alongside our CPQ or our workbook?

Yes. Keep your CPQ for the standard models it already handles well. For the jobs that arrive as a bid package, the AI Quoting Engine reads the documents and prices them in the pricing it learned from your costing workbooks, rate book and past quotes. Your estimator checks the draft and sends the quote.

What are the alternatives to CPQ for custom equipment?

There are three common ones. Many manufacturers keep a costing workbook in Excel and have senior estimators read every package. Some use the quoting module in their ERP for jobs like ones they have done before. And some now use an AI quoting engine that reads the customer's bid package and prices it in their own pricing. Which one fits depends on how your requests arrive.

Is Salesforce CPQ still sold?

Salesforce describes Salesforce CPQ as end of sale, not end of life. Existing customers can keep using it, renew, add users and get support, and Salesforce names Revenue Cloud Advanced as the product that follows it. Like other sales CPQ tools, both price products and options that are set up in advance.

Who is behind Mavlon?

Mavlon, Inc. is a US company founded in 2024 by Atishay Jain, an AI engineer. It builds the AI Quoting Engine for custom manufacturers, and it is live in production with a US manufacturer of engineered waterfront structures. Read that case study.

Questions buyers ask

What manufacturers ask before they buy a CPQ.

Bring the package your workbook cannot read. See it come back as a priced draft.

Book a demo and watch the AI Quoting Engine turn a bid package from your industry into a priced draft quote, with every input found on its page, every open call priced both ways and the questions ready to send.

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