Today, we are proud to celebrate 33 years of QuoteWerks.
That is a meaningful milestone in any industry, but in software, it is especially rare. Technology changes quickly. Platforms come and go. Customer expectations evolve, business models shift, and entire categories get redefined.
In a market where many software companies are acquired, rebranded, sunset, or rebuilt beyond recognition, QuoteWerks has continued to evolve while staying true to the customers and workflows it was built to serve.
Just as important, QuoteWerks has always been a privately held, bootstrapped software company. We have never been driven by outside investors, private equity timelines, or pressure to chase growth at the expense of our customers. That independence matters. It means we are accountable to the businesses that use QuoteWerks every day, not to outside stakeholders pushing us toward short-term decisions.
When QuoteWerks started, quoting software was not a well-known category. Most businesses were using spreadsheets, word processors, printed catalogs, and manual processes because dedicated sales quoting software simply was not something many people knew to look for. QuoteWerks was one of the early solutions built specifically around that need.
Today, the market looks very different. There are hundreds of quoting, proposal, and CPQ solutions available. The fact that QuoteWerks is still here, still innovating, and still helping businesses modernize their quoting process says a lot about the durability of the product and the customers who have helped shape it.
Through all of that, QuoteWerks has continued to do exactly what it was created to do from the beginning: help businesses create accurate, professional quotes and proposals faster, with less manual work and fewer mistakes.
As we look back on where we started, where we are today, and where we are going next, one thing remains clear: QuoteWerks has always been built around the real-world needs of our customers.
How We Got Started
The story of QuoteWerks begins with a practical problem, but John Lewe’s interest in building software started much earlier.
When John was 12 years old, one of his middle school teachers introduced the class to programming in BASIC on the school’s only computer: a Tandy TRS-80 with no floppy drive and no hard drive. That meant spending the class period typing in a program, running it, fixing the errors, taking notes, and then turning the computer off, losing all the work.
It did not matter. John was hooked.
After a few days, his teacher could no longer answer his questions, so John continued learning on his own. He started getting a pass to the computer room instead of study hall and eventually got his first computer, a Commodore VIC-20.
Years later, QuoteWerks was originally released as QuotePro, a tool created to solve the quoting challenges John was experiencing firsthand.
After graduating from the University of Illinois, John started an IT consulting company in Chicago. Like many consultants at the time, he was installing Windows 3.1, setting up Novell NetWare networks, configuring printers, supporting backup systems, and helping businesses manage their technology infrastructure.
He also had to create quotes, and back then, quoting was painfully manual. At the time, dedicated quoting software was not something most businesses knew to look for. Most companies used spreadsheets, word processors, printed catalogs, and manual processes because there were not purpose-built tools designed around the full quoting workflow.
Distributor catalogs from companies like Tech Data and Ingram Micro were printed books. Finding products meant flipping through pages, locating part numbers, and manually typing descriptions, costs, and prices into spreadsheets. Then came the fight with formatting just to present a clean document to the customer.
Excel could get the job done, but it was not built for quoting. It did not solve the core workflow or connect the customer, products, pricing, vendor details, and accounting processes together.
Then distributors began shipping electronic price catalogs on 3.5-inch floppy disks. John saw the opportunity immediately. Instead of manually looking up products and retyping information, he could build an application that searched the distributor databases and pulled product details directly into a quote. Using Visual Basic 3 and Microsoft Access, the early version of the product was born.
From there, the pieces came together quickly. QuoteWerks added the ability to retrieve customer information from ACT!, and then GoldMine after one of the first customers John met through CompuServe introduced him to GoldMine’s DDE technology. That GoldMine connection became the first API John wrote to, and it helped QuoteWerks bring customer information directly into the quote.
The next major step was accounting integration. QuoteWerks later introduced QuickBooks integration so customer and product information from the quote could move into accounting without unnecessary retyping.
With product sourcing, contact management, and accounting connected, QuoteWerks had brought together the major pillars of the quoting workflow: customers, products, pricing, and accounting.
What started as QuotePro, practical quoting software for one consultant, became QuoteWerks: a solution that would help tens of thousands of users around the world.
As John’s original story reminds us, QuoteWerks started because quoting was too manual, too time-consuming, and too disconnected. That same problem still exists for many businesses today, and it remains central to why we continue building.
A Look Back at the QuoteWerks Journey
QuoteWerks has grown steadily over the last 33 years, but the direction has always been the same: remove friction from the quoting process and help businesses move from customer need to accurate quote faster.
QuotePro is released: QuoteWerks was originally released as QuotePro, a practical solution to a real quoting problem faced by an IT consultant trying to build quotes more efficiently.
QuoteWerks helps define the quoting software category: When QuoteWerks started, quoting software was not yet a familiar category for most businesses. QuoteWerks was one of the early solutions built specifically to replace manual quoting processes with a dedicated quoting system.
Product sourcing becomes easier: Electronic distributor catalogs create the opportunity to search product databases and pull product details directly into quotes, reducing manual lookup and retyping.
Contact management integrations are added: QuoteWerks begins connecting quoting with contact management, helping users pull customer information directly into the quote from systems like ACT! and GoldMine.
Accounting integration becomes part of the workflow: QuickBooks integration helps customers move quote, customer, and product information into accounting without unnecessary re-entry.
QuoteWerks API and scripting capabilities expand flexibility: QuoteWerks adds API and scripting capabilities that allow customers and partners to build their own integrations, automate workflows, and customize QuoteWerks around their specific business needs.
QuoteValet expands the customer-facing experience: With QuoteValet, customers can receive, review, accept, sign, ask questions, and make payments online.
QuoteWerks Web brings quoting to the browser: QuoteWerks Web gives teams a modern browser-based quoting experience while preserving the depth, flexibility, and workflow focus that customers expect from QuoteWerks.
QuoteWerks supports connected sales workflows: QuoteWerks continues to expand through QuoteWerks Web, QuoteValet, CRM and PSA integrations, accounting integrations, product sourcing, approvals, purchasing, procurement, receiving, APIs, Webhooks, Zapier, and AI-assisted productivity.
Built on Practical Innovation
We never built QuoteWerks to be flashy just for the sake of it. We built it to solve real problems.
That philosophy has shaped our product and company for 33 years. We have always focused on practical innovation: features that help sales teams save time, reduce errors, protect margins, and give customers a better buying experience.
Over time, QuoteWerks has grown into much more than a quote creation tool. Today, businesses rely on QuoteWerks for:
Document Generation: Professional quotes, proposals, and bundles.
Deep Integrations: Connections with CRM, PSA, and accounting platforms.
Sourcing & Pricing: Real-time product sourcing, distributor integrations, and vendor management.
Workflow Management: Approval workflows, purchasing, procurement, and receiving.
Customer Experience: QuoteValet online delivery, e-signatures, and payment collection.
The software has evolved, but the mission has stayed consistent: make the quoting and ordering process faster, more accurate, and more connected.
Where QuoteWerks Is Today
Today, QuoteWerks is used by businesses across industries ranging from IT, managed services, and manufacturing to healthcare, AV, and security.
That versatility has always been one of our core strengths. While many tools are built for a narrow niche, QuoteWerks was designed around the universal fundamentals of quoting. Different industries sell different products, but they face many of the same core bottlenecks:
- Quotes take too long to build.
- Pricing and cost data live in too many disconnected places.
- Sales reps rely heavily on manual spreadsheets.
- Approvals are inconsistent, and handoffs to operations are messy.
- Customers expect a modern, digital buying experience.
QuoteWerks brings those fragmented pieces together.
One of the things we are most proud of is the longevity of the QuoteWerks community. Many customers have used QuoteWerks for years, and some have been with us for decades. That kind of loyalty is not something we take for granted. It is a reminder that software has to do more than look modern. It has to be dependable, useful, and worth continuing to trust.
Some customers have grown with QuoteWerks across multiple technology eras, from printed catalogs and desktop contact managers to modern CRM, cloud, and browser-based quoting workflows. That long-term relationship with our customers continues to shape how we build.
In recent years, QuoteWerks Web has become a major part of that solution, giving teams a modern, browser-based experience while preserving the depth and flexibility our users have relied on for decades. Whether used as a standalone solution, alongside QuoteWerks Desktop, or in a hybrid environment, it gives businesses flexibility in how they deploy quoting across their teams.
Recent innovations continue to expand what customers can do, including modernized layout design, rich text capabilities, AI-assisted productivity features, improved integrations, QuoteValet enhancements, and deeper workflow automation.
What Has Not Changed
A lot has changed in 33 years, but our core values have not. We still care about solving the actual workflow, not just creating a nice-looking document.
A polished proposal matters, but it is only one part of the process. The real challenge is ensuring the quote is accurate, the pricing is right, approvals are handled, the CRM is updated, the customer can easily sign, and the order can move forward without unnecessary rework.
We are also still committed to long-term customer relationships. Many of you have used QuoteWerks for decades. That loyalty matters to us, and it drives how we make decisions. Instead of chasing the newest software trend, we take a more durable path: listen to feedback, improve the product, support the customer, and keep building for the long term.
Being bootstrapped is part of that. It has allowed us to grow responsibly, keep our priorities grounded, and make product decisions based on customer value rather than outside pressure. We do not have to reshape the company every few years to satisfy a funding cycle or acquisition strategy. We can focus on building useful software, supporting our customers, and improving the quoting process in a way that lasts.
That approach has helped us remain independent, focused, and committed to building software for customers who value long-term reliability over short-term hype.
Where We Are Going
The future of QuoteWerks is focused on making your quoting process even more connected, intelligent, and efficient.
That includes continued investment in QuoteWerks Web, deeper integrations, expanded APIs, Webhooks, and tools that help sales teams move faster without losing accuracy or control. To better fit into modern sales workflows, we are continuing to focus on automation, extensibility, and connected systems.
New APIs and Webhooks: We are expanding our development ecosystem with new APIs and Webhooks. This allows businesses to build custom integrations, trigger actions in external systems when quote-related activity happens, and sync data more efficiently.
Zapier Integration: By introducing native Zapier support, we are opening the door to thousands of no-code automation possibilities. Customers will be able to connect QuoteWerks to productivity tools, marketing platforms, customer databases, and other systems that support their sales process.
Ecosystem Expansion: Businesses need their quoting solution to communicate with their CRM, accounting platform, distributors, vendors, payment processors, and customer-facing tools. We will continue to strengthen those bridges so teams can reduce manual entry, improve accuracy, and keep work moving between systems.
Artificial intelligence and automation will also play a growing role. Our goal is not to replace the judgment of sales teams, but to help them work smarter by parsing information faster, reducing repetitive data entry, and helping users move from customer need to accurate quote faster and with fewer manual steps.
As we continue investing in QuoteWerks Web, we also remain mindful of the customers and workflows that rely on QuoteWerks Desktop today. Our goal is evolution, not disruption.
Most importantly, we will continue to evolve without abandoning the customers and workflows that got us here. That balance matters. We are proud of our history, but we are not standing still.
Thank You to Our Customers, Partners, and Team
Thirty-three years does not happen by accident.
It happens because customers continue to trust the product. It happens because partners continue to recommend, implement, and support it. And it happens because our employees care enough to solve the hard problems behind the scenes.
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To our customers: thank you for using QuoteWerks, challenging us, providing invaluable feedback, and trusting us with your sales process.
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To our partners: thank you for helping businesses get more value from our platform and for being a vital part of the QuoteWerks community.
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To our team: thank you for continuing to build, support, improve, and care about this product and the people who use it.
Thirty-three years ago, QuoteWerks started because quoting was too manual, too time-consuming, and too disconnected. That problem still exists for many businesses today, but we have spent 33 years solving it.
If QuoteWerks has been part of your quoting journey, thank you for being part of ours.
And if your team is still relying on spreadsheets, disconnected systems, or manual quote processes, we invite you to see how QuoteWerks quoting software can help you create accurate, professional quotes faster.
We are just getting started!
Related: Official Press Release https://www.einpresswire.com/article/916571367/quotewerks-celebrates-33-years-of-helping-businesses-create-accurate-quotes-and-proposals-faster