With recent chatter in the ecosystem about Salesforce CPQ reaching End of Sale, it’s a perfect time to see where one of Salesforce’s flagship products began.
Let’s rewind the clock.
2014 – Becoming SteelBrick CPQ
Before it was ever a Salesforce product, Salesforce CPQ started as a quote solution by SteelBrick. SteelBrick CPQ’s origins actually trace back to 2009 with the launch of QuoteQuickly, a CPQ solution built natively on the Salesforce1 platform. While the product was useful, in 2010, they reported only roughly five customers and $10,000 in revenue. It wasn’t until 2013, with third party funding, that their product started to gain major traction, reporting roughly 110 customers and $2 million in revenue. In 2014 they rebranded from QuoteQuickly to SteelBrick CPQ.
2015 – A Billing Solution & Salesforce’s Acquisition Move
Recognizing the need for a billing component, SteelBrick announced the acquisition of Invoice IT in Q3 2015. Invoice IT’s billing solution was a program also built on the Salesforce1 platform, making it a natural fit to fill SteelBrick’s needs.
Salesforce saw potential in SteelBrick’s CPQ and Billing capabilities, backed by the company showing 300% year-over-year growth. By Q4 2015, they announced its acquisition. This move marked a major step toward Salesforce offering an integrated Quote-to-Cash solution beside their Sales Cloud CRM (released in 2000).
2016 – The Birth of New Salesforce Core Products
By Q1 2016, SteelBrick CPQ had a new name: Salesforce CPQ. Just a few months later, Billing 1.0 (based on Invoice IT) launched in Q3 2016. While it wasn’t perfect, it did lay the groundwork for the future of Salesforce’s revenue solution.
2018 – A More Unified Quote-to-Cash Experience
Billing 1.0 faced challenges and didn’t meet expectations. As a result, Salesforce delivered a more cohesive Billing 2.0 in Q1 2018.
At this stage, Salesforce CPQ and Billing were firmly positioned as a core offering for businesses. Companies with Salesforce could manage a large portion of their sales and revenue lifecycle. The combined package of CRM, CPQ, and Billing fully fleshed out what became known as Salesforce Quote-to-Cash.
2020 – Industry-Focused Expansion, Quote-to-Cash Becomes Revenue Cloud
In Q3 2020, Salesforce made another strategic acquisition: Vlocity, a company with a CPQ specializing in industry-specific solutions for verticals like manufacturing, media, and finance.
Following the acquisition, Vlocity CPQ was rebranded as Salesforce Industries CPQ. This was a significant move as highly complex, industry-specific pricing and contract model frameworks were prebuilt, instead of having them be continually custom-built from scratch.
A quarter later (Q4 2020), Salesforce officially rebranded its Quote-to-Cash suite as Revenue Cloud.
2022–2023 – The Short-Lived Subscription Management
Salesforce introduced Salesforce Subscription Management between 2022 and 2023. This shouldn’t be confused with the subscription management feature in CPQ. Salesforce Subscription Management was an independent, meant-to-be-core product with a “headless Subscription Management API”. It didn’t last long before being replaced; however, it did have the first notions of what eventually became Revenue Lifecycle Management (RLM)—particularly a subscription-based, omnichannel experience.
2024 – The CPQ Successor – Revenue Lifecycle Management
In Q1 2024, Salesforce introduced Revenue Lifecycle Management (RLM) as an evolution of the Revenue Cloud package. This offering brought a software built on the Einstein 1 (Lightning) Platform touting deeper automation, AI-driven insights, and tighter integrations across sales and billing operations.
RLM could be described as, essentially, a Frankenstein: an amalgamation of previous Salesforce products and new features, bundled alongside AI. These previous products included the modern Salesforce iterations of SteelBrick and Vlocity CPQ. While small elements of SteelBrick still existed within its framework, RLM seemed to lean more heavily into Vlocity CPQ’s advanced industry-specific pricing and lifecycle management features.
By the end of the year, in classic Salesforce fashion, they rebranded: RLM became Revenue
Cloud. Confusing? Quite—as before the name change, CPQ, Billing, and CRM were under the Revenue Cloud umbrella; with the rebrand, however, Revenue Cloud became its own separate product. While interconnected and sometimes still considered part of the Revenue Cloud suite, Salesforce CPQ and Salesforce Billing became distinctly separate offerings.
2025 – The End (of Sale) for CPQ
And now, here we are at the present.
As of Q1 2025, Salesforce insiders have confirmed: Salesforce CPQ is officially End of Sale. While it’s not entirely gone, the writing seems to be on the wall. After an entire decade, Salesforce CPQ is nearing it’s sunset.
What’s Next? The Future of Quote-to-Cash and You
Revenue Cloud, with its stronger focus on automated, industry-specific revenue solutions is primed to be Salesforce’s main flagship. While Salesforce CPQ’s end is looming, its legacy lives on as whispers in the current (and future) iterations of Revenue Cloud.
Need help making the jump from CPQ to Revenue Cloud? Not sure how your current setup fits into this new world? ITeq built its name through Salesforce’s longstanding workhorse, Salesforce CPQ. With its imminent closure, we’ve taken the steps necessary to assure that our customers won’t be outdated. We can help.
Book a meeting with us today, and we’ll guide you to future-proofing your business’ revenue lifecycle needs.
