If you’re looking for software to create quotes or determine manufacturing costs, you’ll encounter many products described as “quoting software” or “estimating software,” often competing on promises of greater speed and more AI.
They do different jobs. Some are best suited to automating the sale of established products. Others help a shop quote unfamiliar parts quickly. Others help manufacturers develop the economics of entirely new programs.
This article explains those differences so you can recognize the problem you need to solve and look for the right kind of software.
Start with the problem slowing you down
| What your team is experiencing | Where to start |
|---|---|
| Sales representatives spend too much time preparing quotes from established rules, or accepted quotes require excessive manual work to become BOMs and production routings. | Configure, Price, Quote CPQ |
| Quotes for custom parts take too long, even though your shop already has the equipment and processes to manufacture them. | Job-shop estimating and quoting software |
| Uncertainty in your cost model makes it difficult to price new programs competitively and confidently. | Manufacturing program cost modeling software |
Another way to distinguish these approaches is by their inputs and outputs:
What do we already know when the RFQ arrives, and what do we need the software to figure out?
CPQ is especially effective when the manufacturing line is established and the offering and its governing rules are largely defined. For job-shop estimating, the manufacturing environment is known, but the part and the time required to make it are new. For program cost modeling, the opportunity introduces a new manufacturing program whose production assumptions and economics need to be developed.
Individual products can span these categories, and a business may use one, two, or all three approaches.
CPQ: Make established engineering and pricing rules easy to use
CPQ is fundamentally a sales tool. It makes engineering knowledge and pricing policies available to the people preparing the quote, usually sales representatives or distributors. Some tools also let customers configure a product and receive an instant self-service quote.
Consider a manufacturer selling industrial pump systems. A sales representative selects the pump size, motor, power supply, controller, and enclosure based on the customer’s requirements. The software prevents incompatible combinations, includes required accessories, applies pricing rules, and prepares the proposal.
In a self-service system, a customer might configure an industrial workbench online, choosing its dimensions, load rating, drawers, and accessories. The system guides the customer through valid choices and produces a price or quote request. Configuring a new car on a manufacturer’s website is a familiar consumer-facing example of the same interaction.
In each case, engineering and commercial decisions have been translated into reusable rules:
- ConfigureDetermine which products and options are permitted, compatible, or required.
- PriceApply price lists, costs and markups, customer agreements, discounts, and approval requirements.
- QuoteProduce the customer-facing proposal and move it through the sales workflow.
CPQ makes those rules efficient, automatic, and consistent. With the appropriate ERP integration, the accepted configuration can also generate or populate the bill of materials and manufacturing routing, reducing the work between winning an order and preparing it for production.
- Inputs
- Reusable setup: permitted offerings, engineering logic, and pricing policies.
For each quote: the customer’s selected configuration and quantities. - Outputs
- A price for the configured items and a customer-facing commercial quote.
Tools worth considering
For manufacturers, I would start with CPQ products that fit the existing ERP and engineering workflow. A well-connected system can deliver value well beyond faster quote preparation.
- Epicor CPQ
Visual configuration and engineering automation for complex manufactured products.
- Infor CPQ
Guided configuration, quoting, and ordering, with manufacturing information carried into connected business systems.
- Tacton
Manufacturing-focused CPQ for complex industrial products, supporting sales teams and self-service buying.
Quote new parts using existing capabilities
Job-shop estimating software helps your estimating team turn unfamiliar drawings and models into quotes quickly.
A customer sends a drawing for a machined bracket and requests pricing at three quantities. You have not made that bracket before, but you know your machines, available processes, shop rates, and general manufacturing capabilities.
The work is to determine how this part will use those resources: material requirements, workholding, operations, setup time, run time, inspection, outside processing, and other job-specific costs.
Software in this category helps apply your shop’s knowledge consistently. Depending on the product, it may use CAD geometry, process models, historical information, or CAM integration to estimate manufacturing effort. It can also reduce the administrative work of collecting RFQ information and assembling the final quote.
The primary benefit is faster, more consistent quoting of custom work. Estimator judgment remains important for unusual requirements, unfamiliar materials, or manufacturing risks.
- Inputs
- Reusable setup: the shop’s equipment, processes, rates, and capabilities.
For each quote: the customer’s CAD files, drawings, specifications, and quantity requirements. - Outputs
- Estimated manufacturing times, the equipment and processes to be used, costs at the requested quantities, and a customer-facing quote.
Tools worth considering
- Paperless Parts
Combines geometry-based estimating with RFQ management, quoting workflows, and customer communication. Particularly relevant when both technical estimating and administrative work slow quote turnaround.
- Costimator
Offers extensive manufacturing cost models and cycle-time calculations for machining and fabrication, with or without a 3D model. A useful option when repeatable, detailed process estimates are central to the work.
- Uptool
Uses AI to help machine and fabrication shops organize RFQs, extract information from documents, and prepare estimates for review. Particularly relevant when handling incoming information consumes too much of the estimator’s time.
These products approach the workflow differently, but all address the need to quote custom manufacturing work more efficiently.
Understand new economics well enough to compete
Program cost modeling is useful when an RFQ requires you to develop the manufacturing plan and its economics together.
Imagine an opportunity involving six related assemblies at several annual volume levels. The program may require new equipment, fixtures, engineering work, supplier arrangements, and production methods. Some resources are shared across the assemblies; others belong to individual part numbers.
Even when existing equipment will be used, the combination of products, production volumes, and shared resources can create substantially different economics.
The estimator needs to understand questions such as:
- How should setup and run costs change with production lot size?
- Which costs belong to individual products, and which should be shared?
- How will equipment and engineering costs be recovered?
- Which purchasing quantities minimize total cost?
- How do annual volume and product mix change each finished good’s cost?
Uncertainty in those answers can make a manufacturer unnecessarily conservative on an attractive opportunity—or insufficiently conservative on a costly one. A detailed model gives the team a way to examine assumptions and understand the consequences of changing them.
This work is especially valuable for new manufacturing programs, where applying familiar rates to a new cycle time does not capture enough of the opportunity. High volume can increase the stakes, but lower-volume programs can also justify detailed modeling when equipment, engineering, or shared costs are significant.
- Inputs
- Labor rates, cycle and setup times, crew sizes, BOMs, material costs, equipment, indirect labor, non-recurring engineering (NRE), and volume assumptions. Target margins are added when pricing is needed.
- Outputs
- A detailed cost analysis showing how costs behave across products and volumes, plus pricing and a customer-facing proposal when needed.
Where Emura fits
Emura is designed for this work. It brings materials, sourcing, direct and indirect labor, equipment, subcontracts, non-recurring engineering, and risk into one model spanning multiple finished goods and volume breaks.
The estimator defines the assumptions. Emura calculates their consequences and can carry the resulting pricing into customer proposals. This class of software also supports internal cost analysis, optimization, and what-if planning.
Its purpose is to make the cost model detailed enough to support confident decisions and clear enough for the rest of the team to understand.
How these approaches work together
A manufacturer might develop a new program’s economics in Emura, then use the established costs and engineering decisions to create CPQ rules for its sales team. Program-level cost analysis can also inform the rates and assumptions used in job-shop estimates.
The appropriate tool can change as the work moves from developing a manufacturing program to selling it repeatedly.