Customers, Partners, and Why QuoteWerks Doesn’t Have “Clients”
Words matter, especially in CPQ and quoting software. The labels companies choose define expectations, accountability, and who owns success. At QuoteWerks, this is intentional. We have customers. We have partners. We have development partners. What we do not have are clients, and that distinction is foundational to how we operate as a CPQ and quoting software platform.
Why QuoteWerks Has Customers
QuoteWerks is a product company focused on CPQ and quoting software. Customers license the software, deploy it into their business, and rely on it every day to generate accurate quotes, manage pricing, and integrate with CRM and ERP systems. They measure value by outcomes such as speed, accuracy, reliability, and how well the CPQ solution fits into real sales workflows.
That relationship creates healthy pressure. The CPQ and quoting software must stand on its own. Documentation must be clear. Updates must be predictable. Integrations must work. If we fail, customers leave. That accountability sharpens the quoting software over time.
Calling someone a customer reinforces a simple truth. The value lives in the CPQ software itself, not in ongoing human intervention.
Why We Have Partners
Partners play a fundamentally different role in the CPQ ecosystem. They recommend QuoteWerks, resell it, implement it, support it, and build long term service relationships around CPQ and quoting software for their customers. They succeed when QuoteWerks is stable, extensible, and partner friendly.
Partners are not end users by default. They are multipliers. They build businesses around CPQ and quoting software, not inside it. Clear separation between customer and partner avoids confusion around ownership, support responsibility, and accountability.
Development Partners Are Still Partners
This distinction becomes even more important with development partners.
QuoteWerks has a strong ecosystem of developers who build custom solutions, integrations, and add-ons using the QuoteWerks API and SDK. These development partners extend our CPQ and quoting software into other platforms, verticals, and workflows, sometimes in ways we could never productize directly.
They are not clients.
They are not hired to write code for QuoteWerks. They choose to build with QuoteWerks CPQ. They own their solutions, their customers, their pricing, and their roadmap. QuoteWerks provides a stable CPQ platform, tooling, and documentation. Development partners create differentiated value on top of the quoting software.
That is partnership, not a services contract.
Why QuoteWerks Doesn’t Have Clients
Client implies a services first relationship. It suggests dependency on people such as custom work, billable hours, ongoing intervention, and bespoke outcomes. That model can make sense in consulting. It does not align with how modern CPQ and quoting software should work.
We do not sell time.
We do not sell one off CPQ implementations.
We do not want customers dependent on us to make quoting software usable.
When a CPQ or quoting software vendor starts calling users clients, it is often a signal that the product alone is not carrying its weight. The service layer is compensating for gaps in the software.
That is not the business we are building.
The Industry Confusion Around “Partners”
This is where terminology in the CPQ and quoting software industry becomes misleading.
Some platforms publicly state that they only have partners. In reality, those organizations are purchasing, licensing, and using the platform in the same way any other customer does. They are not co owning the product. They are not operating under a shared risk model. They are customers, regardless of how collaborative the language may sound.
Calling that relationship a partnership does not change its nature. It is still a customer relationship framed differently.
This is not a criticism of those organizations. It is a recognition of how software platforms actually operate at scale. Buying, using, and depending on a platform makes you a customer.
True partners build around a platform. Customers run on it. When those roles are blurred, expectations break down. Customers assume influence they do not have. Vendors assume alignment they have not earned.
Clarity avoids that confusion.
When Client Does Make Sense
Lawyers have clients. Consultants have clients. Agencies have clients.
In those cases, the value is inseparable from the people delivering the service. You are hiring judgment, expertise, and representation, not licensing CPQ or quoting software. The term fits because the relationship is inherently personal and dependent.
Software companies that blur that line risk confusing expectations and weakening accountability.
The Bottom Line
QuoteWerks believes in clarity across CPQ and quoting software relationships:
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Customers run QuoteWerks CPQ in their business
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Partners sell, implement, and support quoting software
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Development partners extend CPQ through integrations and custom solutions
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Clients hire people, and that is not what we sell
Clear language leads to clear expectations. Clear expectations lead to better CPQ products, stronger partner ecosystems, and long term trust.
In a CPQ and quoting software market full of rebranded terminology, clarity is still a competitive advantage.