Salesforce CPQ Discounting: Discount Schedules vs. Price Rules

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Salesforce CPQ Discounting: Discount Schedules vs. Price Rules

Managing discounts manually in Salesforce CPQ can be time-consuming and prone to error. Thankfully, Salesforce provides robust tools—Discount Schedules and Price Rules—to automate and streamline your discounting process. Below, we’ll walk through the pros, cons, and key setup steps for each method, helping you determine the best approach for your organization.

Understanding Discount Schedules

Discount Schedules let you automate discounts based on quantity, volume, or other repeatable criteria. Rather than manually applying discounts, you set up ‘tiers’ that automatically apply the correct discount during quoting.

Types of Discount Schedules:

Range: Applies the discount to all units once a minimum threshold is reached.
Slab: Only applies the discounted rate to units within a specific tier (like tax brackets).

Setup Steps:

Create a Discount Schedule with a specific name (e.g., “Volume 10 to 20”).
Select Discount Type: Choose between Range or Slab based on your use case.
Choose Discount Unit: Set whether the discount is a percentage or a fixed amount.
Define Tiers: Input the range of units and the corresponding discount percentage or amount (e.g., 0–10 units = 0%, 10–20 = 10%, 20–30 = 20%).
Save and Attach: Assign the discount schedule to the desired product(s), ensuring that when these products are quoted in the specified quantities, the correct discounts are automatically applied.

Pro Tip: Discount Schedules are best for products where volume or quantity-based discounts are straightforward.

Diving Into Price Rules

For more complex discount needs—such as applying different discounts based on account variables (e.g., industry, region)—Price Rules are a powerful alternative.

What Are Price Rules?
Price Rules allow you to set specific conditions under which a discount (or pricing action) is triggered. For example, if a customer is in the healthcare industry, you may want to automatically apply a bespoke discount.

Setup Steps:

Create a New Price Rule: Name the rule according to its use case (e.g., “Healthcare Industry 15%”).
Set Evaluation Scope: Typically set to ‘Calculator’ so that the rule runs when a quote is saved.
Define Conditions: Specify when the rule should be activated (e.g., if the Account Industry equals ‘Health Care’).
Set Price Actions: Establish what happens when the condition is met (e.g., apply a 15% discount).
Save and Test: Add the rule to your system and verify it works by creating quotes that meet the criteria.

Pro Tip: Price Rules offer flexibility for organizations with nuanced discounting policies tied to customer attributes, contract terms, or other quote line details.

Comparing Discount Schedules & Price Rules

Discount Schedules: Ideal for automating standard, volume-based discounts for products.
Price Rules: Best when discounting needs to respond to more complex or dynamic conditions, such as customer characteristics.

You can combine both tools to build robust, error-resistant, and automated discounting systems that drastically reduce manual input, speed up the quoting process, and guarantee pricing consistency across your Salesforce CPQ environment.

Final Thoughts

Implementing Discount Schedules and Price Rules not only saves time but also minimizes costly pricing errors. As your CPQ environment grows more complex, leveraging these features will help your team manage discounts with confidence and precision.

Ready to optimize your Salesforce CPQ setup? Explore more tutorials and best practices on the SOLVD.cloud channel and ensure your revenue operations are streamlined and scalable.

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