Industry Experts
Best low-code and no-code CPQ for subscription pricing in 2026: Six platforms compared
Excerpt Six CPQ platforms compared for subscription pricing in 2026 on codeless administration, margin governance, and multi-CRM orchestration, with three tests to run in every demo.
Legacy CPQ has nothing to do with age: five conditions decide
Legacy CPQ is any pricing system that fails one of five conditions, whatever its age. Five tests you can run in an afternoon, starting with the exit test, and where servicePath™ sits against its own.
We’re rolling back the quarter: what AI alignment teaches leaders about organizational alignment
OpenAI cancelled GPT-6.1 Astra over scope, authorization, and honest reporting. Daniel Kube on what AI alignment teaches CEOs, CFOs, and CROs about incentives, guardrails, and the brake.
Dreamforce 2026 drew the line: revenue can’t be probably right
Dreamforce 2026 ran from 15 to 17 September at Moscone Center in San Francisco. Salesforce launched AIforce and Koa, its first CRM reasoning model. For revenue teams, though, the message was simpler. AI can recommend a price. Something deterministic has to decide...
88 hours to solve, two years to trust: a board’s guide to AI risk in quote-to-cash
OpenAI’s agents proved a Millennium Prize result in 88 hours. The Clay Mathematics Institute has not accepted it. Daniel Kube on what the verification gap means for boards putting AI near pricing and quoting, with 10 questions to ask your team and every vendor.
Every CPQ vendor has AI now. Three other things decide the future of CPQ.
Every CPQ vendor claims AI, so AI no longer sets them apart. The future of CPQ turns on who owns the vendor, how many people must say yes, and who answers for the price. Seven questions to put to any vendor this week.
Your deal desk or your AI agents: four tests for who controls the price
Today your deal desk decides what a non-standard price may be. Soon a quoting agent will decide it too, and far faster. Daniel Kube on the four layers of AI agent pricing governance, four deal desk scenarios an agent inherits, the re-performance standard auditors apply, who owns each control, and four tests plus one gate question.
A strong CPQ foundation matters more than the next hundred tools
Independent analyst MGI Research puts CPQ implementation failure at 30 to 35 percent and blames how buyers choose, not what they chose. Daniel Kube sets out the ten controls that make a strong CPQ foundation, why AI raises the cost of a weak one, and two tests you can run this quarter without buying anything.
AI depreciates, context appreciates.
Every competitor can rent the same model. They cannot rent your pricing rules, product dependencies, customer terms, approval logic, and contract history. Daniel Kube on why model selection is procurement, context ownership is strategy, and how to test your own commercial context on ten historical quotes.
Your CPQ Vendor Was Acquired: 7 Questions to Ask Before Renewal
A CPQ vendor acquisition changes what your renewal is worth before the price moves. Seven questions, each with the role that owns the answer and the wording to put in writing, cover the notice window, contracting entity, lifecycle, price protection, migration funding, historical quote logic, and integrations. Then four decisions: renew, renegotiate, evaluate, or migrate.
Salesforce CPQ is not end of life. That is the harder problem.
Salesforce removed the deadline. That is the risk. A five-line worksheet, four framing questions, and five RFP tests, all runnable without talking to any vendor.
Your Q4 quotes are next year’s audit file
AI made your quotes faster. Gartner’s 2026 data says speed was the wrong half of the problem. On offers launched this year on consumption or outcome terms, nobody has costed the floor at the top of the range. Nineteen working weeks remain.
Hybrid pricing pays. Until the deal changes.
Hybrid pricing won the market. Then the amendments started. The 2026 data on where hybrid contracts break, a 24 hour test any finance or revenue team can run, and the governance layer that closes the gap..
Top 5 best CPQ for technology service providers in 2026, ranked on governance and lifecycle change
Twelve platforms assessed, five ranked, every claim sourced. Why governance beats feature count in 2026, and where each platform stops.
The $3.8T PE exit backlog: why cross-selling shouldn’t wait for CRM consolidation
Private equity holds $3.8 trillion in unsold assets. The cross-sell thesis in most buy-and-build decks is waiting on CRM consolidation it does not need. Here is how a commercial control plane unlocks multi-CRM cross-selling and finance-grade pricing governance before diligence starts.
Deterministic AI governance: 5 reasons AI revenue projects fail in 2026, and how to fix each one
By 2027, Gartner expects 40% of enterprises to pull their AI agents from production over governance gaps, not technical ones. Here are five reasons AI revenue projects fail in 2026, grounded in current Gartner, McKinsey, Deloitte, BCG, and Forrester research, and how deterministic AI governance prevents each one.