“The biggest difference is that Merkato Essentials is positioned to help companies with a less complex configurator. You only pay for the functionalities you use.”
Now that you know why we use Merkato as our base, you may be wondering where is the difference? The biggest difference is that Merkato Essentials is positioned to help companies with a less complex configurator. You only pay for the features you use. We have gone back to basics and only the most important features are included in our software. But the pricing is also different. Whereas with Merkato you buy a licence with a quarterly M&S fee, CPQing provides you with Merkato Essentials on a SaaS (Software-as-a-Sevices) basis and you only pay for your monthly usage. Merkato Essentials is therefore terminable on a monthly basis.
There are more differences but are not mentioned in this blog because you need to have more knowledge of the rule engine to do so. These include number of Custom Columns, use of Stylegroups, limitation of Settings, limitation of number of Statuses, etc.
Mekato Essentials | Merkato | |
---|---|---|
Basic functionalitiy | Yes | Yes |
All functionalities | No | Yes |
Pay per functionality | Yes | No |
No investment costs | Yes | No |
Monthly terminable | Yes | No |
Basic project functionality | Yes | Yes |
Full project functionality | No | Yes |
Maximum number of user interface languages | 4 | Oneindig |
Database analyse | No | Yes |
It seems like a small difference, paying only for the features you actually use. But in practice, it is a world of difference. The biggest ones are in:
The basic functionalities of Merkato Essentials (including 2 simultaneous users) can already be used from €230,- p.m. Because each customer has extended the basic functionality with functionality relevant to him/her, users pay an average of €400,- p.m. which makes them 75% cheaper compared to big brother Merkato. Should you require more features over time, this is of course no problem. You can always upgrade to a more extensive set of functions or eventually to Merkato. Implementation technically has no consequences. You can reuse the templates with knowledge rules 100%. That is a guarantee. It is exclusively a commercial switch.
Thanks to its own API and links for almost all modern sales and production systems, Merkato Essentials can be deployed as more than just a product configurator. For example, it easily composes beautiful quotation documents, making it also deployable as quotation software. But even if you have very complex products where the customer often needs to be taken by the hand, Merkato Essentials can be used for Guided Selling or as sales configurator. It is even possible to allow your customers to configure products online on your website. Within half an hour, you can easily integrate the configurator into your website. It doesn’t matter which platform you use.
Have you become enthusiastic about Merkato Essentials’ customised capabilities? We will gladly discuss the possibilities for your organisation without any obligation, but you can also first request a demo to see the software in action.
CPQing Solutions has its own API (Application Programming Interface) and links with almost all modern sales and production systems. Start the sales process in your CRM system by selecting the customer you want to create the quote for. Configure the solution in CPQing Configurator and send the quotation document to your customer by email or upload it directly to your system. To maintain an overview, you can link the quotation document to the customer data in your CRM system. Automatically create a production order with the correct BOM in your ERP system when the customer orders. But links with ordering systems, customer portals and many others are also possible.
The CPQing Software can be used in (almost) every industry. See for yourself.