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 - when is it right for me?
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 RCA vs. CPQ and related information - including future opportunities you’ll be able to build on.
Thoughts On Salesforce CPQ
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 the name!) 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 will benefit more from RCA. 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
Then CPQ might be the better choice. It’s something that can be quickly implemented, though depending on your needs it could involve some complex coding on the back-end.
However, there are two primary drawbacks to this platform.
Development
While it’s still supported, there have not been a ton of new additions - primarily because Salesforce has developed the next iteration with RCA. 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
Suffice to say, we’re fans of this platform.
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:
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.
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.
Transition from CPQ to Revenue Cloud Advanced
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.
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.