Quoting software or your own quote tool: what fits your business?

For most businesses, off-the-shelf quoting software is enough: your prices sit in a price list, you want tidy quotes a customer can accept online, and the package connects to your CRM or accounting. Your own quote tool only pays off when your price comes from your own pricing model, when customers need to work out a price themselves on your website, or when a request has to land complete in several systems.

In between sits a route that often gets overlooked: keep your standard package and only have the calculation or the integration built. Below you'll see how to choose, with a decision tree and an example of a quote tool we built for De Duurzame Jongens.

What does quoting software actually do?

Quoting software turns your products, prices and a template into a quote you send digitally and the customer accepts online. After that, the package passes the acceptance on as an order, project or invoice.

The features look much the same across most packages:

• Templates: quotes in your own branding, with standard text blocks and terms.
• Products and prices: a catalogue with tiers, discounts and VAT.
• Online acceptance: the customer accepts or signs digitally.
• Follow-up: see who opened the quote, with reminders when it goes quiet.
• Integrations: once accepted, customer and amounts go to your CRM, project administration or accounting.

You'll find these features in standalone quoting tools, but also as a quoting module in many CRM, project and accounting packages. If you already use one, check what it can do before adding something next to it.

When is off-the-shelf quoting software enough?

When your price comes from a list and a quote mainly needs to be a clean document with an accept button. You're then paying a subscription for something thousands of businesses use in the same way, which is cheaper than building.

• You sell products or services with fixed prices and a few tiers or discounts.
• A salesperson can put the quote together from the catalogue in a few minutes.
• The integration with your CRM or accounting already exists as a standard connector.
• You don't need visitors to your website to work out a price.

Then choose on integrations, not templates. You can set up a nice template in an afternoon. What makes the difference is what happens after acceptance: does the customer end up in your CRM correctly, does the acceptance become an order or project, and do the amounts match in your accounting without retyping?

When does your own quote tool pay off?

When your price is a calculation only your business makes that way, or when your customer needs to see that calculation themselves. Standard software calculates from price lists, not from your pricing model.

• Your price comes from your own pricing model, often a spreadsheet with tabs, exceptions and rules one person really understands.
• Customers need to work through their own situation on your website before they request a quote.
• A request has to land complete in several systems: CRM, planning and ERP.
• You want to capture requests even when someone stops halfway.
• You want to know which ads bring in requests that become customers, not just which ones bring in forms.

Your own tool does ask more: building, hosting and maintaining it. And pricing rules change. So agree up front who updates a price or rule, and how you check that the tool still calculates the same as your spreadsheet after a change.

If you're weighing buying against building more generally, the step-by-step approach in custom software or an off-the-shelf package helps.

How do you choose between quoting software and your own quote tool?

With three questions: should the customer calculate themselves, does your price come from a list, and does your price live in your own pricing model? The first question you answer yes to sets the route.

The third outcome is the route most often overlooked. Your pricing model leaves the spreadsheet and becomes a shared module in code. Your salespeople keep working in their familiar quoting package or CRM, but the price comes from the same rules as always, without anyone opening a spreadsheet.

What does your own quote tool look like in practice?

De Duurzame Jongens install solar panels, heat pumps, home batteries, air conditioning and EV chargers. Their pricing rules already existed, in a spreadsheet model with installation prices per number of panels, mounting systems, inverters and the savings per product. A visitor to the website saw none of it.

We converted every rule in that model into code, per product, with a document that names the tab and column in the spreadsheet for each rule. That way their team can trace where an amount comes from. On the website, a visitor works through their situation in four steps: contact details, home and energy use, the products with a 3D house that builds along, and a price indication with investment, annual savings and a monthly amount with financing.

Most of the work came after the form. A custom WordPress plugin puts every request into their CRM, Sollit, with a separate request per product. Contact details are already there after step one, even if someone stops afterwards. Anyone who finishes the tool later doesn't come in twice. If sending fails, the plugin tries again. And once a request in Sollit becomes a consultation or an accepted quote, that is reported back to Google Ads and Meta.

That's where your own quote tool earns its keep: not in the form, but in the line from click to acceptance. The full story is in the case on the quote tool and CRM integration for De Duurzame Jongens.

How do you connect quotes to your CRM and accounting?

First agree, per type of data, which system is the source, then build the integration. Without that agreement, the same customer and the same price live in two places, and within a month they differ.

• Customers and contacts: usually the CRM is the source, such as HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive.
• Products and prices: the ERP or price list, not the quoting package.
• The acceptance: becomes a deal, order or project, in the system where the work is planned.
• The invoice: is created in your accounting, such as Exact Online, AFAS, Moneybird or Twinfield.

Many quoting packages have standard integrations. If the one you need is missing, you build it. We can connect any system. Examples of how that works per combination are in connecting Exact Online to HubSpot, connecting AFAS to HubSpot and connecting Exact Online and Pipedrive. What such an integration costs is covered in what an integration between two systems costs.

Can you automate quotes with AI?

Yes, but the draft, not the price. AI can read a request, find similar past quotes and write a first version with your own text blocks. The price should come from your system or pricing model, and a person approves the quote before it goes out.

How to set that up, and which mistakes cost money, is in creating quotes with AI. As AI employees we've worked it out in the Quote Assistant, which drafts within your agreed margins, and the Quote Follow-up Assistant, which chases open quotes. That works alongside off-the-shelf quoting software and alongside your own tool.

What does your own quote tool cost?

It depends on three things: how many rules and exceptions your model has, how many systems the tool has to talk to, and who maintains the rules afterwards. A calculator that only gives a price indication is a different thing from a tool that puts requests in your CRM and reports statuses back.

Set it against what you pay now: a package licence over a number of years, plus the time salespeople spend retyping, checking and fixing mistakes. How to work that out for a single process is in the download below. If you want a tool built, see what we do in custom software development.

Where do you start?

First count what a quote costs today. How many quotes do you make a month, how much time goes into one, how often is something wrong, and how many requests slip away before anyone follows up? Then you'll see whether the problem is in making, in calculating or in what happens after acceptance.

Not sure where in your sales process the most time and revenue leaks away? The AI Opportunity Audit maps that first, with what it costs and which step pays off most. Even if the outcome is that your current quoting package is fine.