Best RFQ-to-quote automation tools in 2026

For most manufacturers and distributors the shortlist looks like this. Paperless Parts if you are a job shop quoting from CAD files. Mercura for text-heavy specifications and tenders in HVAC, electrical and building materials. Canals for a US distributor on Eclipse, Prophet21 or Infor whose requests arrive as takeoffs, spreadsheets and voicemails. Conexiom and Workist if RFQs are one document type among the orders and invoices you already want automated. Lleverage for a European company that wants a quote agent next to procurement and planning agents. Elfsquad if the slow part is configuring the product, not reading the request. And Elentaria for the company where the RFQ is answered on time and the days still disappear between the quote and the paid invoice.

None of these is best in general. The tools split into three families that solve three different problems, and the useful question is which problem you have.

What is RFQ-to-quote automation?

An RFQ, a request for quotation, is a customer asking for a price on a defined set of items or a part they have drawn. RFQ-to-quote automation is software that reads that request, whatever form it arrives in, works out what is being asked for, matches it to your products or your capabilities, applies your pricing and produces a quote a person can approve and send.

Most quoting is still slower than that. In a July 2025 survey of 200 decision-makers at US manufacturers, wholesalers and distributors, run by TrendCandy for the CPQ vendor Aleran, quotes took at least a day to produce for 71 percent of respondents, and only 37 percent said their quoting was fully automated. Respondents put the cost of manual quoting and sales processes at an average of 5 percent of revenue a year. The sponsor sells quoting software, so treat the size of the numbers with care. The direction is not in doubt for anyone who has watched an inside sales desk on a Monday morning.

The tools on this page fall into three families. Estimating tools read a drawing or a CAD file and work out what the part costs to make; Paperless Parts is the clearest example. Intake and matching tools read the request as it arrives, by email, PDF, spreadsheet, tender file or phone, and match the lines to your catalogue and price list; Mercura, Canals, Conexiom, Workist and Lleverage are here. Configuration tools build the quote from rules about how your product goes together; Elfsquad is here, and the wider CPQ market is covered in best quote-to-cash automation tools for manufacturers.

Elentaria sits across the families rather than inside one: it reads and qualifies the RFQ, prepares the quote under your rules, and then keeps going into the order, the delivery coordination, the invoice and the reorder.

How we evaluated these tools

Five criteria, applied the same way to every entry.

1. What it reads. Email bodies, PDFs, spreadsheets, CAD files, tender formats, handwritten notes, voice. Named from the vendor's own pages.
2. How it builds the quote. Product matching against a catalogue, cost estimation from geometry, or rules-based configuration. These are different jobs and a tool built for one rarely does another.
3. Where the automation stops. Every tool hands off somewhere. Most stop at the quote or at the ERP record. What happens after the customer says yes is usually still manual.
4. Evidence you can check. Review counts on Capterra or OMR Reviews, stated implementation times, named customers.
5. Pricing transparency. Where a vendor does not publish, this page says "pricing on request" and quotes no number.

The order is not a score. It runs from broadest scope to the most specialised.

RFQ-to-quote automation tools at a glance

Tool	What it reads	How it builds the quote	Where it stops	Pricing
Elentaria	RFQs from email, PDF and portals, plus the customer's history and your rules	Qualifies the request, extracts requirements, prepares the quote for approval	At judgment. Continues into order, delivery, invoice and reorder	On request, on a live demo
Paperless Parts	RFQ packages with CAD files and drawings	Geometry analysis and cost estimation for sheet metal, CNC, Swiss and additive	At the quote and the order in the ERP	On request
Mercura	Emails, PDFs, GAEB tender files, specifications, phone calls	Semantic matching of request lines to your catalogue	At the quote and the ERP record	On request
Canals	Handwritten notes, takeoffs, spreadsheets, PDFs, voice audio	Matches to your ERP items and pricing, builds a quote or an ERP-ready order for the rep	At the rep's approval and the ERP entry	On request
Conexiom	Emails, PDFs and spreadsheets, alongside orders, acknowledgements and invoices	Extracts lines and applies customer-specific pricing and availability from the ERP	At the ERP record	On request
Workist	Price and availability requests by email and PDF, orders, lists of services	Prepares ready-to-send quote suggestions for the team	At the quote suggestion and the ERP order	Monthly subscription by document volume, no numbers published
Lleverage	Email, Teams, Slack, EDI portals, shared drives	A quote preparation agent drafts the quote inside your ERP	Works alongside the ERP. Not a configurator	One monthly price per agent, no numbers published
Elfsquad	Sales rep or dealer input into a configurator	Rules-based configuration, pricing and quote generation	At the order sent to the ERP	One fixed-fee plan, unlimited users, no numbers published

1. Elentaria

What it does. Elentaria is one system for commercial operations. For a manufacturer it covers RFQ intake, requirements and feasibility, costing and quotation, order and delivery coordination, billing and repeat business as one chain. Incoming RFQs are qualified, requirements are extracted and the quote is prepared, all according to the company's own rules, terminology and approvals. Anything above a threshold or outside standard terms goes to the responsible person rather than being actioned.

Who it is for. Companies where the RFQ is not really the bottleneck. The quote goes out, and then the time goes into everything after it: the purchase order that does not match the quote, the delivery date nobody confirmed, the invoice finance has to correct, the reorder nobody chased. It is set up around one workflow the company already runs, scoped on a live demo, and the existing ERP, CRM and email stay in place.

Where it stops. At judgment, on purpose. It prepares quotes, orders and invoices for a person to approve. It does not decide a pricing exception or sign off on feasibility, and it does no physical execution.

Pricing. Not published. Scoped per company on a live demo, matched to the workflows and systems involved. There are no fixed plans.

Watch out for. Elentaria does not analyse CAD geometry and it is not a product configurator. If your quoting problem is estimating what a machined part costs to make, Paperless Parts is built for that and Elentaria is not. If it is configuring a machine with thousands of option combinations, look at Elfsquad. Elentaria is also newer and smaller than every other vendor on this page, and it needs your operating rules written down before it can follow them.

2. Paperless Parts

What it does. Paperless Parts is quoting and estimating software for job shops and contract manufacturers. It takes in the RFQ package, analyses the part files for sheet metal, CNC, Swiss screw and additive manufacturing, and produces the estimate and the quote in one searchable place. Named ERP integrations are ECI E2, Epicor, Fulcrum, Infor Visual and MIE Solutions.

Who it is for. Shops that quote from drawings. It says more than 800 manufacturers use it, including Standard Iron, Reata Engineering and KMM Group, across aerospace and defence, heavy machinery and medical devices. It is ITAR registered, hosted on GovCloud and CMMC compliant, which matters for defence work.

Pricing model. Not published. The pricing page describes tiers "designed to meet the unique needs of any sized business" and gives a phone number.

Where it stops. At the quote and the order handed to the ERP. It does not read a distributor's emailed price request and it is not built for catalogue matching. Its own claims, that a single component quote drops from up to 2 hours to 15 minutes, are the vendor's figures.

Reviews. 4.9 out of 5 from 25 reviews on Capterra, the highest score on this page. Reviewers mention limits on integration with some ERPs and on file sizes.

3. Mercura

What it does. Mercura reads emailed requests, specifications and tender texts, including PDF and the GAEB tender format, matches each line to your catalogue with a semantic search that copes with vague descriptions and typos, generates the quote and populates the ERP fields. AI voice agents take phone inquiries. Named ERPs are SAP and Oracle.

Who it is for. Distributors and manufacturers in HVAC, electrical and building materials that receive long, text-heavy requests. Named customers include the HVAC distributors Muffenrohr and Sanitaer-Heinze. It is a Munich company from the Y Combinator W25 batch, hosted in Europe on ISO/IEC 27001 and 27018 certified servers. Not to be confused with Mercura CPQ, a separate Danish company.

Pricing model. Not published. Pricing on request.

Where it stops. At the quote and the ERP record. It does not estimate manufacturing cost from geometry and it does not describe order follow-up or invoicing.

Reviews. No listing on Capterra or G2 at the time of writing. That is what being founded in 2024 looks like, and it means references are the only way to check the claims of 100 percent of inquiries processed and up to 60 percent faster responses.

4. Canals

What it does. Canals calls itself operating AI for distributors. Its order entry product reads whatever a customer sends, handwritten notes, takeoffs, spreadsheets, PDFs, voice audio and its own ASAP forms, matches it to the distributor's items and pricing and builds a quote or an ERP-ready order. In its own words, reps review the pre-built quote and submit to the ERP with a click. Around it sit inquiry handling, accounts payable, receivables and PO tracking.

Who it is for. US distributors in electrical, plumbing, HVAC, mechanical, industrial and MRO, lumber and building materials, running Eclipse, Prophet21, Infor CSD, Infor SX.e, SAP S/4HANA or Microsoft Dynamics. It says more than 100 distributors use it and it raised $35 million in May 2026. For common ERPs it states technical implementation in a few days, and 30 days or less for systems it has not integrated before.

Pricing model. Not published. Capterra lists it as "Contact vendor" with no free trial.

Where it stops. At the rep's approval and the ERP entry. It is built around the construction and industrial supply chain, so a food, apparel or consumer goods distributor is outside the shape it was designed for.

Reviews. A Capterra listing exists with zero reviews. Well funded and growing fast, but with no independent review record yet. More on that in best Canals alternatives.

5. Conexiom

What it does. Conexiom names RFQs first in the list of documents it automates, alongside orders, vendor order acknowledgements and invoices. Its glossary page describes extracting line items and quote request details from emails, PDFs and spreadsheets, then populating pricing, terms and availability from ERP data to generate the response. Its product pages centre on sales order entry, vendor acknowledgements and AP invoices, so ask specifically about the RFQ workflow on a demo.

Who it is for. Manufacturers and distributors that want one document automation vendor for the whole inbox rather than a quoting specialist. It states pre-built integrations with more than 40 ERPs, a 30-day average implementation and 1.5 billion line items a year.

Pricing model. Not published. Pricing on request.

Where it stops. At the ERP record. It does not estimate cost from drawings and it does not configure products.

Reviews. 4.7 out of 5 from 44 reviews on Capterra, the longest track record on this page.

6. Workist

What it does. Workist is a German document AI for the order desk. Its inquiries agent, in its own words, analyses price and availability requests and prepares ready-to-send quote suggestions for the team. Next to it sit order entry from email and PDF, processing of lists of services, and a voice agent for phone orders. It names more than 20 ERP integrations including SAP S/4HANA and ECC, NetSuite, Business Central, Dynamics NAV, Sage, proALPHA and abas.

Who it is for. Mid-sized manufacturers and distributors, mostly in Europe, whose requests and orders arrive as email attachments. It states that NetSuite and Business Central are usually live in a week, and that a mid-sized customer at around 50 orders a day sees a return after three to six months.

Pricing model. A monthly SaaS subscription priced on document volume and the use cases and ERP tenants connected. No numbers are published.

Where it stops. At the quote suggestion and the ERP order. It reads the request and drafts the answer; the follow-up, the order confirmation and the invoice are downstream.

Reviews. 4.8 out of 5 from 21 reviews on OMR Reviews. Reviewers praise the interface and support and mention slow loading under heavy load.

7. Lleverage

What it does. Lleverage calls itself the autonomous back office for companies that make, move and sell physical products. Its quote preparation agent reads requests arriving through Outlook, Gmail, Teams, Slack, EDI portals and shared drives and drafts the quote inside the ERP; one customer example on its site describes 80 percent of every draft done automatically. Other agents cover sales orders, procurement, invoice matching and planning. Named systems include SAP, Business Central, Dynamics 365, Exact, AFAS, Infor, Oracle and Salesforce.

Who it is for. European manufacturers and distributors that want several agents on one platform rather than a quoting tool. Named customers include Koninklijke Dekker, Royal Kaak and Topa. Data stays in Europe, with SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001.

Pricing model. One monthly price per agent with no seat or usage charges, in Standard, Complex and Enterprise tiers, set after Lleverage has seen the work. No numbers are published.

Where it stops. It works alongside the ERP, not as a buyer-facing configurator, and there is no independent review record on Capterra or G2 yet.

8. Elfsquad

What it does. Elfsquad is a CPQ for manufacturers: product configuration, pricing, quote generation, bills of materials and document automation, with 3D visualisation, guided selling and dealer management as options. Named integrations include Dynamics 365, Business Central, Ridder iQ, Odoo, Exact Online, Salesforce and Windchill.

Who it is for. Machine builders selling configurable products, where the RFQ says "we need a lift for this shaft" and the work is turning that into a valid, priced configuration. It says more than 200 manufacturers use it, including Handtmann, Cibes Lift Group, Damen and Dewulf, and states 3 to 6 months to the first productive phase.

Pricing model. One plan with a fixed fee and unlimited users, covering configure, price, quote and order, with paid add-ons for an online showroom, dealer management, a testing environment and advanced visualisation. The fee is not published.

Where it stops. At the order sent to the ERP. It does not read an emailed RFQ; someone enters the requirement into the configurator.

Reviews. 4.5 out of 5 from 13 reviews on Capterra. Reviewers praise the rule engine and note that ERP integration takes technical effort.

How do you choose between them?

Start from what the RFQ actually contains, because that decides the family.

"Our RFQs are drawings and CAD files." Paperless Parts. Nothing else on this page estimates cost from geometry.

"Our RFQs are long spec sheets and tenders." Mercura, especially in building services and electrical where the GAEB format matters.

"Our RFQs are a distributor's mess: takeoffs, spreadsheets, voicemails." Canals if you are in the US on a distribution ERP. Workist or Conexiom if you also want the orders and invoices in the same inbox automated, Workist for Europe and Conexiom for a longer track record and a wider ERP list.

"Our RFQs need a configuration before anyone can price them." Elfsquad, or the wider CPQ field in best quote-to-cash tools for manufacturers.

"We want agents on several back-office processes at once." Lleverage.

"The quote is fine. Everything after it is the problem." That is the case for Elentaria. A faster quote will not reach the order that does not match it, the delivery nobody confirmed or the invoice that needs correcting. How that whole chain runs is set out in the B2B commercial operations process, from quote to cash.

Common mistakes when buying RFQ automation

Buying an intake tool for a geometry problem. If your estimators spend their time working out cycle times and material from a drawing, a tool that reads emails brilliantly will save the five minutes of retyping and leave the two hours of estimating where they were.

Buying a configurator for an intake problem. The opposite mistake. A CPQ makes the quote correct once someone has entered the requirement. If the requirement arrives in a 40-page tender, the CPQ does not read it.

Counting the quote as the finish line. Most vendors here measure success at the moment the quote leaves. Ask each one what happens when the customer sends a purchase order back: who checks it against the quote, who confirms the delivery date, who raises the invoice. Usually the answer is still a person with two screens open.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between RFQ automation and CPQ?

RFQ automation reads the request and turns it into a quote, so the hard part is understanding what arrived. CPQ, configure price quote, builds a correct configuration and price once the requirement is known, so the hard part is the product. Mercura, Canals, Workist, Conexiom and Lleverage are on the intake side. Elfsquad is CPQ. Paperless Parts is a third thing, estimating cost from geometry. Many manufacturers run an intake tool and a CPQ together.

Which RFQ-to-quote tools publish their prices?

None of the eight publishes a number. Workist and Lleverage describe the model, document volume for one and a monthly price per agent for the other. Elfsquad states one fixed-fee plan with unlimited users. Paperless Parts, Mercura, Canals, Conexiom and Elentaria all price on request.

How long does RFQ automation take to implement?

It depends on the family and the ERP. Canals states a few days of technical work for the common distribution ERPs. Workist states a week for NetSuite and Business Central. Conexiom states a 30-day average. Elfsquad, as a configurator, states 3 to 6 months to the first productive phase. In every case "live" means the first document type running, not everything.

Is Elentaria an RFQ automation tool?

Partly. Elentaria reads and qualifies incoming RFQs and prepares the quote under your rules, so it does the intake job. What makes it different is that it does not stop there: the same system carries the order, the delivery coordination, the invoice and the reorder, with a person approving anything outside the rules. It does not analyse CAD and it does not configure products.

How the full cycle runs in a manufacturer, from RFQ to repeat business, is set out in manufacturing.