Is this another CPQ subscription like Salesforce CPQ or DealHub?

No. CPQ platforms are software you rent and configure yourself, priced per seat per month, built for enterprise B2B sales teams. This is a done-for-you system wired into the CRM and cost data you already have. You pay once to build it and you own it. There is no per-rep fee and nothing stops working if you stop paying us.

Do I have to replace my CRM or dealer software?

No. The quoting system sits on top of what you run today. We pull your unit specs, cost basis, freight and prep numbers, and margin rules from your existing CRM, spreadsheets, or DMS, and write the finished quote back. Your systems stay exactly as-is.

Our units are not standard. Every quote has attachments, freight, and prep. Can it handle that?

That is the point. Off-the-shelf CPQ assumes a clean product catalog with fixed options. Equipment dealers do not have that. We build the rules around how your dealership actually prices: base unit, attachments, freight by region, prep and recon, dealer pack, and margin floors. The system applies your logic, not a generic template.

What does the system actually need from us to work?

Three things: where requests come in (email, web form, or CRM), your real cost and pricing logic, and a few recent quotes to model. We use those to build the rules, then test it against your live requests before you trust it with a customer.

What is the ballpark cost?

The quoting build is fixed fee, scoped during the AI Operations X-Ray. The full Backlot install (intake, daily ops brief, quote and document generation, system glue, inbound triage) is $9,500 plus a $500 per month care plan, with a $15,000 expanded tier. You can also start with the quoting module alone. Ongoing run cost in API and infrastructure fees stays low.

How long does it take to build?

The standard timeline is six weeks: two weeks for the AI Operations X-Ray and scoping, three weeks for the build on a shared workspace where you watch it come together, one week for handoff and training. We do not start building until scope is agreed in writing.

What happens if we stop working with you?

The system keeps running. The workflows, the prompts, and the credentials live in your accounts. We hand you the keys at the end and walk away if that is what you want. The only reason to keep us around is to build the next thing.

AI Automation for Equipment & Machinery Dealers

Automated quoting for equipment and machinery dealers

Specs in, real-data quote out, no rep retyping. Built into the CRM you already run. Fixed fee. You own the code.

Live map

active

System type

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Replacement

not required

Next step

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Every quote your team types by hand is a deal your competitor is already closing

A buyer requests a quote on a wheel loader, a grain cart, or a dump trailer. Your salesperson opens last quarter's quote for a similar unit, digs through email for the current freight number, guesses at prep and pack, copies pricing that may already be stale, and hopes the margin holds. The finished quote goes out a day later. By then the buyer has already called two other dealers, and the one who answered first with a real number is the one having the conversation.

Quote turnaround is not an administrative detail at an equipment dealership. It is the first signal a buyer gets about whether you are responsive, accurate, and worth the deal. Dealers selling through MachineryTrader and TractorHouse are competing against every other listing on the page. The bottleneck is almost never the price. It is the hours between the request and the quote, hours your best closer spends doing data entry instead of selling.

Why CPQ software like Salesforce CPQ, Conga, and DealHub does not fit a 30-person dealership

The standard answer to slow quoting is CPQ, short for configure, price, quote. The category is real and the leaders are serious software: Salesforce CPQ, Conga, DealHub, and Tacton. The problem is who they were built for. CPQ is enterprise B2B software priced per seat per month, designed for manufacturers with a clean product catalog, a dedicated sales-ops team to configure it, and a multi-month implementation budget. Salesforce has even announced end-of-sale for its standalone CPQ product, pushing buyers toward a heavier platform commitment.

An equipment dealership does not look like that. Your catalog is not clean. You sell new and used, you price attachments and freight and prep per unit, your margin floors move by line and by season, and the person who knows how a quote should actually be built is the owner or the GM, not a Salesforce admin. You end up paying enterprise prices for a tool that cannot model how your dealership really quotes, then paying a consultant to force it to fit. The Associated Equipment Distributors membership is full of dealers in exactly this spot: too complex for a generic quoting app, too lean to run an enterprise CPQ implementation.

The alternative: specs in, real-data quote out, no one typing

Instead of renting a platform and bending your process to fit it, you build a quoting system that already knows how your dealership prices. It works in three steps.

Specs come in. A request arrives by email, through a form on your site, or straight from your CRM. The system reads the unit, the configuration, and the customer, no matter how the request is worded.
It pulls from your own data. Real cost basis, current freight by region, prep and recon, dealer pack, your margin rules, and what comparable units actually sold for. Not a generic template, your numbers.
A finished quote comes out. Branded, accurate, and ready to send, built in seconds instead of hours, with a human reviewing rather than retyping.

This is not theory. We built this exact system for an equipment dealer: specs in, real-data-backed quote out, no one typing. The salesperson stops being a data-entry clerk and goes back to doing the part only a person can do, which is closing. The quote generation engine is one of five modules in Backlot, our AI ops manager for equipment dealers, and it is usually the one worth installing first because the payback is the most direct.

The four places automation moves real margin at an equipment dealership

Quoting is the lead, but it is not the only place the math works. These are the four areas where the return is consistent across equipment and machinery dealers.

Quote turnaround speed. The dealer who answers first with a real number controls the conversation. Cutting quote time from a day to minutes does not require winning on price. It requires not losing the buyer while they wait.
Margin protection. Hand-built quotes leak margin through stale cost numbers, forgotten freight, and a salesperson rounding down to close. A system that applies your real cost basis and margin floors on every quote stops the slow bleed that no one tracks.
Intake triage. Not every request is a buyer. The system can sort the tire-kickers and the parts questions from the people ready to write a check, so your team spends its hours on the requests that turn into deals.
Follow-up that does not depend on memory. Most quotes that go cold go cold because nobody followed up on day three. An automated nudge fires on schedule so a quiet quote gets one more touch before it dies.

The comparison: enterprise CPQ versus a custom build you own

Here is how the two options stack up for a 5-to-100-person equipment dealership.

	Enterprise CPQ (Salesforce, Conga, DealHub)	Custom build with Moore IQ
Pricing model	Per seat, per month, forever	Fixed fee once, low monthly run cost
Built for	Enterprise B2B with a clean catalog	Real dealer pricing: units, attachments, freight, pack
Setup	Multi-month implementation, admin required	Six weeks, we build it around your process
Works with your CRM?	Replace or heavily integrate	Sits on top of what you already run
Ownership	Vendor, cancel and it stops	You, the system keeps running
Fit for a lean dealership	Poor	Strong

A CPQ subscription compounds every month and you own nothing at the end of it. A custom build is a one-time investment against ongoing savings, and the software keeps running even if you never talk to us again. For a dealership where a single unit carries real gross, one extra deal saved from a faster, more accurate quote pays the build back quickly.

What you own at the end

Everything. The workflows run on your infrastructure or a VPS you control. The pricing logic and prompts are documented and yours to edit. Your CRM credentials, your cost data, and your customer records stay in your accounts. If you decide tomorrow you never want to hear from us again, the quoting system keeps building quotes. That is the core difference between owning a build and renting a subscription: SaaS survives because you need it to keep running, a custom build survives because it actually works.

The fastest way to see whether this fits your dealership is the AI Operations X-Ray. It takes 90 seconds, it is free, and it maps the specific automation opportunities in your operation based on how you actually quote and sell, not a generic dealer template. If you want the full picture of the productized install, see Backlot, the AI ops manager for equipment dealers. The deeper write-ups below go module by module. They publish in phases, so a link that 404s today resolves when that post ships.

Frequently asked questions

Is this another CPQ subscription like Salesforce CPQ or DealHub?: No. CPQ platforms are software you rent and configure yourself, priced per seat per month, built for enterprise B2B sales teams. This is a done-for-you system wired into the CRM and cost data you already have. You pay once to build it and you own it. There is no per-rep fee and nothing stops working if you stop paying us.
Do I have to replace my CRM or dealer software?: No. The quoting system sits on top of what you run today. We pull your unit specs, cost basis, freight and prep numbers, and margin rules from your existing CRM, spreadsheets, or DMS, and write the finished quote back. Your systems stay exactly as-is.
Our units are not standard. Every quote has attachments, freight, and prep. Can it handle that?: That is the point. Off-the-shelf CPQ assumes a clean product catalog with fixed options. Equipment dealers do not have that. We build the rules around how your dealership actually prices: base unit, attachments, freight by region, prep and recon, dealer pack, and margin floors. The system applies your logic, not a generic template.
What does the system actually need from us to work?: Three things: where requests come in (email, web form, or CRM), your real cost and pricing logic, and a few recent quotes to model. We use those to build the rules, then test it against your live requests before you trust it with a customer.
What is the ballpark cost?: The quoting build is fixed fee, scoped during the AI Operations X-Ray. The full Backlot install (intake, daily ops brief, quote and document generation, system glue, inbound triage) is $9,500 plus a $500 per month care plan, with a $15,000 expanded tier. You can also start with the quoting module alone. Ongoing run cost in API and infrastructure fees stays low.
How long does it take to build?: The standard timeline is six weeks: two weeks for the AI Operations X-Ray and scoping, three weeks for the build on a shared workspace where you watch it come together, one week for handoff and training. We do not start building until scope is agreed in writing.
What happens if we stop working with you?: The system keeps running. The workflows, the prompts, and the credentials live in your accounts. We hand you the keys at the end and walk away if that is what you want. The only reason to keep us around is to build the next thing.

Next step

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