7 questions to ask any quoting software vendor before you sign

Every quoting platform demos well. The things that decide whether you regret it are almost never in the demo, and most of them can be settled with seven questions and a written answer.

Choosing quoting software for a blind, curtain or shutter business is a decision you live with for years. Moving is painful, so most people who pick badly stay put and work around it.

The problem is that a demo shows you the best hour of the product. It does not show you what happens in month eight, when a supplier lifts prices and you need the grid updated by Friday. That is where the real differences live.

Below are seven questions worth putting to every vendor on your shortlist. Ask them in writing. A vendor who is comfortable with their answer will put it in an email. That is most of what you need to know.

1. Do I own my data, and can I export it?

Your pricing, your customers, your quote history. Ask directly whether you can see it, work with it, and take it with you if you leave.

This is the first question one of our customers asked us before anything else, before features, before price. He had come from a platform where he could not get at his own numbers, and it had cost him enough that it became the only question that mattered. It is a good instinct. Software that holds your data hostage has leverage over you forever.

Watch for answers that dodge into reassurance. “Your data is safe with us” is not an answer to “can I get it out.”

2. Can I change my own pricing, today, without contacting you?

This is the question that separates platforms more than any other, and it almost never comes up in a demo.

Supplier price rises are not an edge case. They happen every year, sometimes twice, and they arrive with a fortnight’s notice. If updating your grid means lodging a request and waiting, you will spend that fortnight quoting on prices you know are wrong, or not quoting at all.

3. What does a change cost after onboarding?

Get specific, because “support is included” can mean very different things. Ask about four scenarios:

A monthly subscription that still generates invoices for routine changes is a different commercial arrangement to the one you thought you were signing. Better to know the shape of it before you commit than to discover it the first time you need something.

4. Who actually does the onboarding, and how long does it take?

There is a large gap between “we will set you up” and “here is your login, the help docs are excellent.”

Ask who runs the sessions, how many you get, whether it is one to one or a group webinar, and what it costs. Then ask the harder version: at the end of it, will I know how to change things myself, or will I be dependent on you?

Be sceptical of anyone promising it will be quick. Setting up a quoting platform properly is real work, because the detail that makes pricing accurate does not live in a supplier price list. It lives in the owner’s head. The discount you give one builder and not another. The install rate that changes past a two hour drive. The margin you quietly add on motorised because the callbacks cost you. None of that can be loaded from a file, and any vendor claiming otherwise has not done it.

A realistic answer is somewhere between one and five weeks depending on how many products you carry. We have written about what that timeline actually looks like if you want the unvarnished version.

5. Does it handle my actual product range?

Most platforms in this market were built around one product category and extended outward. That is fine if you sell roller blinds. It is a problem if you also sell curtains, shutters, awnings, security doors and fly screens.

Do not accept a yes. Bring a real job to the demo, ideally an awkward one, and ask them to quote it in front of you. A customer who wants an awning, three fly screens and a door should come out as one clean quote, priced correctly, not three separate documents stapled together.

Two specific things worth testing, because they break more systems than anything else. If you make your own curtains, ask them to price one with fabric, track and making price calculated per panel rather than per window. And if you carry price break tables, ask what happens at the boundary between two brackets.

6. Does it track what I owe my installers and reps?

Most quoting software stops at the quote. For a business running sales reps on commission and installers per job, that is exactly where the admin starts.

Installer pay in this trade is full of variables. Install into brick rather than timber and the rate goes up. A wide curtain pays more than a narrow one. Different products carry different rates entirely. Multiply that across a few installers and a week of jobs, and checking it by hand is slow and unreliable, with errors running in both directions. Overpay and the margin quietly disappears. Underpay and you have a bigger problem than money.

Same question for commission. If a rep discounts a job to close it, does the system still calculate their commission off the original price or the sold price? That single detail decides whether your reps are incentivised to protect your margin or to give it away.

7. What happens if I leave?

Nobody enjoys asking this during a sales conversation, which is exactly why it is worth asking.

Is there a minimum term or a lock in contract? What notice do you need to give? How do you get your pricing and customer history back, and how long do you have to do it after cancelling?

A vendor confident in the product will answer plainly. A vendor who needs a long lock in to keep customers is telling you something about the product.

Our answers, since you asked

It would be a bit rich to publish this list without answering it ourselves. Here is Rollify on all seven, in the same order. Hold us to it.

One thing we will not claim: that setup is quick. It is not. A customer described it as painful but in a good way, and we have not found a more accurate description. What you get for it is a system that prices jobs the way you actually price them, and the knowledge to change every number in it yourself.

Common questions

What should I ask before buying quoting software?

Ask whether you own your data and can get it out, whether you can edit your own pricing without contacting the vendor, what changes cost after onboarding, who runs onboarding and how long it takes, whether it handles your full product range, whether it tracks installer pay and commission, and what happens if you leave. Get the answers in writing.

How long does quoting software take to set up?

Typically one to five weeks for an Australian window furnishings business, depending on how many products you carry and how quickly your team takes to it. A single category business is at the fast end. A range spanning blinds, curtains, shutters and security products takes longer, because every configuration and price break has to be built in properly rather than approximated.

Should quoting software let me edit my own pricing?

Yes. Supplier price rises arrive with little notice, and a business that cannot action them the same day ends up quoting on numbers it knows are wrong. Before signing, confirm in writing that you can update pricing grids, discounts, install rates and margins yourself, at no charge.

Where these questions came from

Not from a marketing exercise. Every one of them came from an operator who had already been through it once and knew what they had missed the first time.

If it is useful, our customer stories go into what those businesses were dealing with before and what changed. Parker Blinds & Curtains is where question one comes from. EHI Group is where questions three and six come from. Blinds With An Edge is question four.