CPQ Without the Chaos: Why ServiceNow is About to Disrupt Salesforce (Again)

For years, Salesforce has positioned its CPQ solution as the go-to answer for sales automation. But talk to anyone who has implemented it, and a different story emerges: complexity, bolt-ons, costly customizations, and a steep learning curve.

Enter ServiceNow’s new CPQ capabilities—a smarter, cleaner way to manage Configure, Price, and Quote, natively on the Now Platform.

What’s Different About ServiceNow CPQ?

Native to the platform: Instead of another siloed application, CPQ lives right where your service, customer, and IT data already reside. That means seamless alignment between quoting, fulfillment, and customer service. No endless integrations.

Guided selling with AI: ServiceNow CPQ leverages the platform’s built-in AI to recommend configurations and pricing dynamically—reducing errors and accelerating deal cycles. One early customer saw quoting time drop from days to minutes.

Real-time pricing and approvals: Rather than relying on static spreadsheets or disconnected tools, ServiceNow connects CPQ directly to your enterprise workflows. Discounts, approvals, and compliance checks happen automatically in one system of record.

Faster time-to-value: Because it’s part of the Now Platform, ServiceNow CPQ inherits the same low-code/no-code flexibility, making it easier to adapt rules, products, and pricing without massive development projects.

Why It Matters

Salesforce CPQ often requires extensive customization and a specialized skill set to maintain. Customers end up investing as much in administration as they do in licenses. ServiceNow is rewriting that equation.

And this isn’t a one-off. It’s the same pattern we’ve seen with ITSM, ITAM, and Security Operations:

Phase 1: Established players dominate.

Phase 2: ServiceNow enters, builds core features, and embeds them into workflows.

Phase 3: ServiceNow quickly catches up, out-innovates, and customers who adopted early reap huge rewards.

We’re now in Phase 2 for CPQ. And if history is any indicator, it won’t take long before ServiceNow becomes the platform of choice.

The Provocation

Why would an organization lock themselves into Salesforce’s heavy, siloed CPQ tool—when ServiceNow is delivering a leaner, workflow-native alternative, on the same platform you already trust for IT, HR, and Customer workflows?

Early adopters will once again enjoy the best economics, the fastest value, and a front-row seat to innovation that will leave the legacy tools scrambling.

At Crossfuze, as the ServiceNow Implementation Partner of the Year, we’re already seeing the excitement from customers who are ready to break free from Salesforce’s CPQ bloat and embrace a smarter, faster, platform-driven approach.

The CPQ disruption has begun. And ServiceNow is leading it.