Revenue Cloud Advanced is worth it

The Salesforce sales ecosystem has shifted in a positive way, with exciting new developments both around platforms and with agentic options through Agentforce.

But for many organizations, they may have seen the news around Revenue Cloud Advanced (RCA) and wondered - is it right for me? And if so, what does this truly entail?

The short answer is for most companies, RCA is the better solution for those looking to mature their use of Salesforce vs. what’s available in CPQ. In this article, we’ll dive into why, but you can skip to a two-minute assessment that walks through relevant questions (with no email required to get an answer). 

Here, let’s dive deeper into CPQ vs. RCA and related information - including future opportunities you’ll be able to build on.

Thoughts On Salesforce CPQ

Salesforce has announced they are no longer selling Salesforce CPQ. Get the details from Salesforce Ben.

Originally, Salesforce CPQ was Steelbrick in 2010. The platform was bought by Salesforce in 2015 and rebranded to Configure, Price, Quote in 2016.

It’s still in use today by thousands of companies for quoting and related sales processes, including some of our clients.

We’re fans of it (our original company name had CPQ in it!) and it’s helped elevate many companies to best-in-class sales processes. 

When CPQ is right for you

As I said in the introduction, most companies who currently have CPQ will benefit more from RCA in the long-term.

However, if you have:

• An extremely simple sales process

• Simple contract renewals (or none at all)

• A small sales team

• A one-person shop managing your Salesforce instance

• A low volume of quotes and deals

• No desire to bring invoicing and billing onto the Salesforce platform - or you have a robust Salesforce Billing process already in place

...then staying on CPQ might be the better choice for the next couple of years until your business needs change.

There are many enhancements we can provide within the platform, ranging from taking advantage of out of the box automations to simplifying pricing catalogues or quote templates (and many, many more).

However, there are two primary drawbacks to continuing with CPQ:

Development

While it’s still supported, there have not been a ton of new additions - primarily because Salesforce has developed the next iteration with Revenue Cloud Advanced. While some updates will still roll out to keep it secure, most (all?) of Salesforce’s development power will be in RCA.

In addition, CPQ relies heavily on custom objects and third-party architecture that isn’t native to the Salesforce ecosystem, which can lead to very complex solutions to meet specific requirements.

If you want nightmares, we can share some stories our consultants have untangled!

Not eCommerce friendly

Can it be done? Yes, but can vs. should is the question to consider.

CPQ can be configured to handle eCommerce transactions, but it’s not as straightforward as what’s available in RCA today. The work needed to make eComm work is a doozy (that’s the technical term), so we’re advising all of our clients to go ahead and make the transition.

The infrastructure is much easier to build and optimize in RCA.

Why We Like Revenue Cloud Advanced vs. CPQ

Suffice to say, we’re fans of this platform. Of course, news that Salesforce is also no longer selling CPQ as an option makes Revenue Cloud Advanced all the more important. But for those using CPQ today, you'll find this valuable.

Originally coined as Revenue Lifecycle Management and then rebranded as RCA in 2024, this is a built-by-Salesforce module that’s already achieved feature parity with CPQ. There’s a robust roadmap with many exciting releases coming from Salesforce, as well, meaning that as the months go by RCA will only become more powerful.

Here’s two more reasons we’re bullish on RCA vs. CPQ's functionality:

Structure

If you want to build a partner or customer portal with a degree of self-service capability, RCA provides exactly what you’re looking for.

That’s because it’s built on a headless architecture - in short, it’ll play nicely on other platforms such as a Salesforce community, your website, etc. It means you don’t have to re-work your back-end logic to make it work in other places.

In addition, CPQ locks you into specific object models - but RCA doesn’t. Have a high-volume, low-touch process that involves Salesforce objects like Cases, Products, and/or Invoicing?

It’s much simpler to build with Revenue Cloud Advanced.

Renewal Flows

Let's say you have a customer with a 12-month recurring agreement. A few months before they're set to auto-renew, they reach out wanting to add two new products and then reset the agreement for the next 12 months.

Previously in CPQ, this involves a lot of manual steps - including contract cancellation, which we've seen throw off invoicing processes if not setup properly. A lot of our clients have complained about this being a complex process that wastes a ton of time (and invites user error with all the manual steps).

RCA has an out-of-the-box way of handling this specific scenario and it's much easier. Goodbye, painful admin work!

Object Mapping

Because Revenue Cloud Advances leverages the native Salesforce quote object - and not the outsourced Steelbrick object that CPQ is built on - you get a much simpler interface that resembles more of a "shopping cart" experience when building your quote.

This makes adding discounts and single-line editing so much easier than when doing so in CPQ, which ends us saving you countless hours of admin work over the course of a year. More time selling!

Contracts

RCA provides an advanced Contract Lifecycle Management capability right out of the box. Think redlining, document generation, signatures, etc.

This streamlines the entire process around contracts and reduces the time needed to get a deal done. It's also simpler to setup in RCA vs. in CPQ.

As a bonus, it's much easier to include images in these documents - a nice touch to help customers confirm they're getting the right products and services.

The Agentforce Opportunity

With Revenue Cloud Advanced in place, you’re better-suited to layer in Agentforce agents to streamline even more.

For instance, with quoting, you can now prompt the agent to build a full quote with relevant discounts, etc. That’s because the infrastructure in RCA, with a database that’s clean enough, lends itself to this new technology.

This is far faster than picking products out of a catalog.

In addition, uncovering insights - such as if a quote falls into typical discounted ranges, or summarizing critical dashboards - can now be done conversationally with an agent.

Transitioning from CPQ to RCA

If you have Salesforce CPQ today, this section’s for you.

Here’s what the transition isn’t: a lift-and-shift approach. That’s because the systems are drastically apart in how they’re built, but also because this represents an invaluable opportunity for business evolution.

Rationalize Your Product Catalogue

What do I mean by this? Let's use ice cream as an example. Say you work for an ice cream company with dozens of flavors, toppings, and other factors from cone type to number of scoops.

That's a lot of configurable options - too much for a sales rep to browse through when building a quote.

By leveraging RCA's bundling capabilities, you can organize by similar attributes (Waffle vs. sugar cone? Those are both cones!) and simplify the entire product catalogue. You're building product attributes that live off the product record vs. having them as separate line items for every configuration.

Start Simple With Pricing

This can get complex very quickly, so take your simplest pricing options and build out the quoting, renewals, discounts, and document generation workflows based on that.

Then, go slowly with more complex situations.

Because it's built more like an eCommerce experience with a shopping cart when building your quotes, this may take some time ensuring the right data flows into the right places. Make sure to budget extra time - this can take longer than you'd think.

Revisit your current sales process

Ask questions such as:

• Where are current pain points and bottlenecks today?

• What should we improve, and what gains come of these improvements?

• What processes do we want to accelerate so they’re more efficient?

Your answers determine how you’ll use Revenue Cloud Advanced, but also lead to building a more effective sales process.

Then, the next step is determining how you’ll implement it. And if you’re looking for experts, I’ll humbly put DoubleTrack forward - because Revenue Cloud is a core competency and has been since our beginning.

And with all work backed by a Customer Success Guarantee, you can proceed with confidence knowing the onus is on us to get it right the first time.