Salesforce CPQ vs. Zendesk Sell

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Salesforce CPQ
Score 7.8 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
Salesforce CPQ (formerly SteelBrick) is built and delivered on the Salesforce Platform and Salesforce1 Mobile App which enables users to create accurate sales quotes quickly and submit error-free orders on the fly from any device.
$30
Per User per Month
Zendesk Sell
Score 7.9 out of 10
N/A
Zendesk Sell (formerly Base CRM) is a CRM that aims to give reps access to integrated tools that provide the full context of a customer account. This keeps them in the loop and allows them to capitalize on opportunities. Zendesk Sell can be extended with Reach, a lead generation and engagement tool that automates the process of finding and keeping leads interested, so reps can focus more on building relationships and crushing their quotas. Base CRM was founded in 2009, and acquired by Zendesk…
$19
per seat/month billed annually
Pricing
Salesforce CPQZendesk Sell
Editions & Modules
Basic
$30
Per User per Month
Professional
$50
Per User per Month
Enterprise
$75
Per User per Month
Sell Team
$19.00
per seat/month billed annually
Reach prospecting enrichment add-on (requires a Sell Subscription)
$27.00
Per User Per Month (billed annually)
Sell Professional
$49.00
per seat/month billed annually
Sell Enterprise
$99.00
per seat/month billed annually
Sell Elite
$199.00
per seat/month billed annually
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Salesforce CPQZendesk Sell
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Salesforce CPQZendesk Sell
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Salesforce CPQZendesk Sell
CPQ
Comparison of CPQ features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce CPQ
8.1
31 Ratings
5% below category average
Zendesk Sell
-
Ratings
Quote sharing/sending7.330 Ratings00 Ratings
Product configuration7.731 Ratings00 Ratings
Configuration options8.029 Ratings00 Ratings
Pricing rules8.228 Ratings00 Ratings
Price adjustment8.730 Ratings00 Ratings
Purchase history and open contracts7.923 Ratings00 Ratings
Guided selling/Sales portal7.619 Ratings00 Ratings
CPQ reporting & analytics8.123 Ratings00 Ratings
CPQ-CRM integration8.728 Ratings00 Ratings
Attachments to quotes8.230 Ratings00 Ratings
Order capturing8.413 Ratings00 Ratings
Sales Force Automation
Comparison of Sales Force Automation features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce CPQ
-
Ratings
Zendesk Sell
6.6
15 Ratings
16% below category average
Customer data management / contact management00 Ratings8.814 Ratings
Workflow management00 Ratings6.115 Ratings
Territory management00 Ratings4.98 Ratings
Opportunity management00 Ratings7.713 Ratings
Integration with email client (e.g., Outlook or Gmail)00 Ratings6.815 Ratings
Contract management00 Ratings5.410 Ratings
Quote & order management00 Ratings3.97 Ratings
Interaction tracking00 Ratings7.815 Ratings
Channel / partner relationship management00 Ratings7.711 Ratings
Customer Service & Support
Comparison of Customer Service & Support features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce CPQ
-
Ratings
Zendesk Sell
9.0
12 Ratings
17% above category average
Case management00 Ratings9.07 Ratings
Call center management00 Ratings9.08 Ratings
Help desk management00 Ratings9.011 Ratings
Marketing Automation
Comparison of Marketing Automation features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce CPQ
-
Ratings
Zendesk Sell
6.9
12 Ratings
11% below category average
Lead management00 Ratings6.112 Ratings
Email marketing00 Ratings7.89 Ratings
CRM Project Management
Comparison of CRM Project Management features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce CPQ
-
Ratings
Zendesk Sell
5.3
13 Ratings
36% below category average
Task management00 Ratings7.913 Ratings
Billing and invoicing management00 Ratings1.05 Ratings
Reporting00 Ratings7.013 Ratings
CRM Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of CRM Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce CPQ
-
Ratings
Zendesk Sell
8.1
15 Ratings
6% above category average
Forecasting00 Ratings7.712 Ratings
Pipeline visualization00 Ratings7.714 Ratings
Customizable reports00 Ratings9.014 Ratings
Customization
Comparison of Customization features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce CPQ
-
Ratings
Zendesk Sell
4.1
15 Ratings
61% below category average
Custom fields00 Ratings7.615 Ratings
Custom objects00 Ratings4.910 Ratings
Scripting environment00 Ratings1.16 Ratings
API for custom integration00 Ratings3.08 Ratings
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce CPQ
-
Ratings
Zendesk Sell
9.5
14 Ratings
12% above category average
Single sign-on capability00 Ratings9.912 Ratings
Role-based user permissions00 Ratings9.011 Ratings
Social CRM
Comparison of Social CRM features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce CPQ
-
Ratings
Zendesk Sell
4.0
5 Ratings
60% below category average
Social data00 Ratings1.04 Ratings
Social engagement00 Ratings6.95 Ratings
Integrations with 3rd-party Software
Comparison of Integrations with 3rd-party Software features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce CPQ
-
Ratings
Zendesk Sell
5.4
7 Ratings
30% below category average
Marketing automation00 Ratings9.87 Ratings
Compensation management00 Ratings1.03 Ratings
Platform
Comparison of Platform features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce CPQ
-
Ratings
Zendesk Sell
8.0
13 Ratings
7% above category average
Mobile access00 Ratings8.013 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Salesforce CPQZendesk Sell
Small Businesses
QuoteWerks
QuoteWerks
Score 9.0 out of 10
Salesmate
Salesmate
Score 9.6 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
QuoteWerks
QuoteWerks
Score 9.0 out of 10
SAP Business ByDesign
SAP Business ByDesign
Score 7.7 out of 10
Enterprises
SAP Sales Cloud
SAP Sales Cloud
Score 8.5 out of 10
SAP Business ByDesign
SAP Business ByDesign
Score 7.7 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Salesforce CPQZendesk Sell
Likelihood to Recommend
8.5
(40 ratings)
8.8
(15 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.1
(1 ratings)
3.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
8.6
(3 ratings)
8.9
(4 ratings)
Availability
9.1
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
8.2
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
7.9
(24 ratings)
8.7
(5 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(2 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.2
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Salesforce CPQZendesk Sell
Likelihood to Recommend
Salesforce
What I like best is the ease of use to be able to track all opportunities and quotes in my daily sales tracker I also like the fact that you can reorganize the view for your opportunities. For instance, it is very similar to a spreadsheet where you can filter them by date, dollar amount, name, and several other ways. I found this to be less appropriate when we have to do multiple roles while assigning one task to multiple users. Column resizing within the Quote Line Editor is not supported in the Salesforce mobile app.
Read full review
Zendesk
Zendesk sell is best for organizations that want a clean and simple, yet powerfully effective CRM tool. It's intuitive, extremely user-friendly, supplies lots of video tutorials and access to the California team for FAQ's, and has all the features other, more complicated, expensive CRM's have. Great for institutions that have a need to tailor their database to fit your needs; and track sales, tasks, and pipeline projects in graphic form. It's affordable and has a great app for mobile phones that allows access to contacts, notes, tasks, and a workable platform while on the go in real time. It's simple to teach new users how to navigate and utilize. Adding or deleting users is simple, and access to the CRM information can be limited/private or made public for the entire team to access. Not as costly as some of the competing products, so if you are on a tight budget this may be the tool for you.
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Pros
Salesforce
  • Salesforce CPQ easily maps to standard and custom fields within the opportunity in SFDC, allowing you to avoid time spent duplicating effort or copying and pasting deal criteria.
  • Salesforce CPQ connects directly to pre-determined price book, making it very easy to provide a proposal based on standard cost and/or add discounts to standard cost and reflect those reductions on the order form as appropriate.
  • Salesforce CPQ provides the ability for administrators to configure workflows for approval based on certain discount %'s on the standard cost, offering a quick and easy way to route automatically through the organization for approval.
Read full review
Zendesk
  • My favorite piece is the Tasks connected to the Clients OR the Deals themselves that keep the process moving with the right steps, and helps our team from doubling our work, or missing a piece that is crucial for the completion of the sale.
  • The email integration helps to keep all things housed in one place also, so that you're not bouncing back and forth in multiple platforms to stay on top of the orders.
  • Customizations are a HUGE part of why we use Base CRM right now. We can make sure we are recording all of the right information, and not wasting time by having to fill in or skip over content that doesn't apply to our business model.
  • I also like the ability to tied Deals to multiple people, especially as Referrals come across, so we don't forget how we got in touch with different clients.
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Cons
Salesforce
  • More complex product and configuration rules seem overly complex. If any math is required in a rule, even simple quantity rules can very complicated.
  • Quote templates while easy to customize are very simple in their layout. We'd like to be able to have more dynamic and visually appealing quote templates.
  • Guided selling is lacking in very basic ways. You can't create questions with dependencies for "if this, then that" or an intuitive questionnaire or guided selling wizard.
Read full review
Zendesk
  • There was no ability to add prospects from a company domain or email to auto-fill any data.
  • You had to type in all of the data you gathered about that prospect.
  • The default only gave you two phone numbers for the company, too few.
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Likelihood to Renew
Salesforce
The company is very easy to work with and is growing by leaps and bounds. We do not anticipate switching vendors anytime in the near future
Read full review
Zendesk
We have moved on to a more robust option of CMS.
Read full review
Usability
Salesforce
After the initial set up, end users who are not the most tech savy are generally finding it easy to navigate
Read full review
Zendesk
I received about two hours worth of training on Zendesk Sell (formerly Base CRM). I will say it's a clean look and the ability to change views is extremely helpful. I do wish there were other features that allowed the views to be more simplistic. Some views can be overwhelming to look at. Nevertheless with the minimum training, I am still able to navigate through Zendesk Sell (formerly Base CRM) successfully due to the ease of usability.
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Support Rating
Salesforce
There have been some issues with multi-year pricing of certain products and services which we have been assured will be resolved but I guess are still underway, the support team apart from this has not been needed much and in the rare scenarios, it has been needed the resolutions of conflicts has been prompt and quick, so the overall support would have my high regards for being so helpful and customer-oriented so as to assure good performance of their toolset and customer satisfaction.
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Zendesk
Due to the ease of the product, I have not had the chance to reach out to support yet. I’ve had no reason. The resources provided to clients are extremely helpful and detailed. So far my questions have been pretty basic and I generally just ask my colleague or teammate. They're able to assist with the answer.
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Online Training
Salesforce
No answers on this topic
Zendesk
This product has a great backing of users, but needs more options direct from Base CRM on all operations of the software. YouTube videos do a great job of helping implement, and the back end support is a great help as well. The CRM is a great free option, and should be treated as such.
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Implementation Rating
Salesforce
No answers on this topic
Zendesk
Simple, and straight forward.
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Alternatives Considered
Salesforce
There is no comparison to a fully functional instance of CPQ. Nothing comes close due to the amount of customization and ease of use that CPQ offers once it's fully built out. Other solutions may be easier to build or administer, but for the users and business needs, CPQ is the best solution possible.
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Zendesk
Simpler than most CRMs, which can be good if your sales team is not very tech savvy. We switched to HubSpot which provides a lot more value than Base did, but it isn't right for everyone. HubSpot is focused on capturing in-bound leads and has its own flaws and limitations, but overall it's a better fit for our needs.
Read full review
Return on Investment
Salesforce
  • The use of Steelbrick has created significant positive productivity for Mitsubish Electric sales. An online price book and quote input function, along with the ability to clone a quote to efficiently start a new quote has improved sales process and inventory planning. This elevated our sales teams from monthly spreadsheet submissions to real time opportunity and inventory planning.
  • Use of SteelBrick also improved customer service. When a customer places an order today, the sales order processing team has ready access to approved proposals and pricing, instead of looking for the appropriate spreadsheet file containing a customer proposal.
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Zendesk
  • Using Base has allowed us to double the number of active sales and partner engagements that we can keep track of and make progress on.
  • This has led to us being able to follow up on many smaller deals that were falling through the cracks.
Read full review
ScreenShots

Salesforce CPQ Screenshots

Screenshot of Configure. Price. Quote. Anytime, anywhere, on any device.