QUOTING SOFTWARE FOR DISTRIBUTORS, COMPARED
Quoting software for distributors: 8 tools compared (2026)
A distributor’s quote starts as whatever the customer sent: an email, a PDF, a spreadsheet, a photo of a handwritten list. The tools that claim to help fall into different groups. Some read the request and prepare the quote. Some capture orders and invoices into your ERP. Some govern pricing, and some are the quote screen inside a business suite. This page puts eight of them side by side, in alphabetical order, so you can see which group each belongs to before you book demos.
We are Qotora AI, and we are one of the eight, so read this with that in mind. We do not rank the tools or pick one for you, because that depends on your requests, your ERP and your budget; the how-to-choose section below is built to help you decide. Everything said about another tool comes from that vendor’s own public website, read on 5 November 2026. Anything we could not confirm there is left out or marked “not published”. Everything said about Qotora AI is what we ship today.
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Eight quoting tools at a glance
| Tool | Built for, per its own site | What it does with a customer request | Price on its site | Setup, as stated |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Conexiom | Manufacturers and distributors | Captures orders and invoices from many formats and delivers ERP-ready data; the pages we read do not describe quotes | Not published | 30-day average implementation |
| Esker | Finance and customer-service teams; distributors not named | Processes B2B orders from many channels into the ERP; quote management not described | Not published | Not stated |
| Go Autonomous | Manufacturers and B2B distributors | Reads RFQs in any format, prices them with ERP data and sends a quote back | Not published | No standard timeline stated |
| Odoo (Sales app) | Any business, as a suite of business apps | You build quotes in the app, from templates and pricelists; reading customer emails or PDFs into quotes is not described | Published; first app free | Not described on the Sales page |
| Parspec | MEP distributors and rep agents | Pulls products and quantities from documents such as quotes and schedules into a bill of materials, then prices it | Not published | White-glove implementation, no timeline |
| Proton.ai | Growing, mid-market and enterprise distributors | Reads emails, PDFs, spreadsheets, photos and voicemail and prepares quotes and orders for approval | Not published | Full platform rollout 12 to 16 weeks |
| Qotora AI (us) | Independent distributors in any trade | Reads a request in any format, finds each line in your catalogue, applies your price rules, prepares a quote for review | Published: from US$49 first month | Included; done by our team |
| Zilliant | Manufacturers and distributors, for pricing | Sets pricing guidance and approvals around deals and quotes; how requests arrive is not described | Not published | Not stated |
Each row comes from that vendor’s own public pages, read on 5 November 2026 (sources in the page’s source notes and on the three comparison pages). “Not published” means we found no price on the pages we read. A tool not named here may suit you; this is not a complete market list.
The four kinds of tool on the list
The first question is not which tool but which job. The eight fall into four groups, and a distributor often needs more than one.
- Request-to-quote tools read what the customer sent and prepare the quote: Go Autonomous, Parspec, Proton.ai and Qotora AI. They differ in what they read (project documents, RFQs, counter requests), who they are for and how they connect.
- Order and invoice capture tools turn incoming documents into ERP-ready records: Conexiom and Esker. Their pages describe orders, invoices and acknowledgements rather than quotes.
- Pricing and CPQ governance tools set pricing guidance, guardrails and approvals around deals: Zilliant. Its pages do not describe how a customer request reaches the quote.
- Quotes inside a business suite: Odoo’s Sales app builds quotes from templates and pricelists in the same system as your stock and invoices.
Each tool in a few lines, from its own website
- Conexiom: “AI order and invoice automation” for manufacturers and distributors. Its Relay product takes orders and invoices, flags what needs attention and hands them off as ERP-ready data, from email, PDF, images, spreadsheets, SMS, ecommerce and handwritten notes. It states native integrations with more than 40 ERPs and a 30-day average implementation. When an order needs a person, it says the hand-off comes with the reason. No price is published.
- Esker: an automation platform for finance and customer-service teams, covering source-to-pay and order-to-cash. Its Order Management processes B2B orders from email, EDI, portals, e-commerce, punchout and mobile, flags discrepancies for a person and creates validated orders in the ERP. It says it integrates with over 70 ERP solutions. Its pages do not describe quote management, and no price is published.
- Go Autonomous: an “Autonomous Execution Fabric for B2B commerce” for manufacturers and B2B distributors. Its Quote Execution use case reads RFQs from email text, PDFs, EDI, customer portals and spreadsheets, pulls customer-specific pricing from the ERP, applies margin logic and sends a quote back; pricing outside agreements is surfaced for supervised resolution. It names a long list of ERPs, reads live data and writes confirmed results back. No price or standard timeline is published.
- Odoo (Sales app): quotes, templates, pricelists, a customer portal and e-signature inside Odoo’s suite of business apps. Its Sales page does not describe reading incoming emails or PDFs into quotes. Odoo publishes its prices, per user per month, and its first app is free with unlimited users.
- Parspec: an “AI-native platform” for quoting, submittals and project management for MEP distributors and rep agents. It pulls products and quantities from documents such as quotes and schedules into a bill of materials and finds spec-compliant alternatives. It says it is ERP-agnostic, with integrations for Eclipse, Prophet 21 and SAP. No price is published.
- Proton.ai: a platform for distributors with a CRM, product data and eCommerce, plus Quote & Order Entry, which prepares quotes and orders for approval from emails, PDFs, spreadsheets, photos and voicemail. Its page says the team reviews every draft before it goes to the ERP or the customer. It says a full rollout can take 12 to 16 weeks. No price is published.
- Qotora AI: us. One job: a customer request becomes a quote that a person reviews. Prices come from your own catalogue and rules, it is read-only on your ERP, and the price is public.
- Zilliant: pricing software for manufacturers and distributors, with Price Manager, Price IQ, Deal Manager and a Configure, Price, Quote product, and native connectors for SAP and Oracle among others. Its CPQ page says guardrails replace blanket approvals so only true exceptions escalate. No price is published.
- Conexiom Alternative for Distributors | Qotora AI
Conexiom and Qotora AI side by side, with sources.
- Parspec Alternative for Distributors | Qotora AI
Parspec and Qotora AI side by side, with sources.
- Proton.ai Alternative for Distributors | Qotora AI
Proton.ai and Qotora AI side by side, with sources.
How to choose: five questions that narrow the list
1. How many quotes do you send, and who sends them? A counter that sends a few dozen to a few hundred quotes a month has a different problem from a group processing large volumes of orders and invoices a day. Check the unit each vendor sells by: Qotora AI prices by quotes sent a month with unlimited users, Odoo by user. For the others, ask how pricing scales before the demo, because their sites do not say.
2. What do your requests look like? List the last twenty requests you quoted. If they are emails and spreadsheets, almost every request-to-quote tool above reads them. If a share are photos of handwritten lists or voice notes, check that format explicitly: Proton.ai lists photos, handwritten notes and voicemail, Conexiom lists images, SMS and handwritten notes, and Qotora AI reads photos, text messages and voice notes. If your work is project bids built from specifications and schedules, Parspec’s pages describe that. If it is formal RFQs, Go Autonomous names them.
3. Which ERP do you run, and must the tool write into it? Some tools deliver into the ERP (Conexiom, Esker, Go Autonomous, and Proton.ai through paths your team approves). Others only read from it. Qotora AI reads and never writes: it connects directly to Odoo, and for other systems such as Sage 100 or SAP Business One our team sets up a read-only database connection or a scheduled export at onboarding. If you need approved quotes or orders posted into your ERP automatically, favour a tool that writes back, and ask the vendor to confirm your exact version.
4. What is your budget, and can you see the price? Odoo and Qotora AI publish prices. The other six tools we looked at show no price on the pages we read, so budget a conversation, and ask for the total first-year cost including setup. Qotora AI’s setup is included in every plan, and the first month is US$49 on the Counter plan.
5. How long, and how much of your time, will setup take? Stated timelines differ: Conexiom a 30-day average, Proton.ai 12 to 16 weeks for a full platform rollout, and no timeline from Go Autonomous, Parspec or Esker on the pages we read. For Qotora AI, our team does the connection remotely and it is included. Whatever you choose, ask who does the work, what you must provide, and what happens if it does not fit; Qotora AI offers a 7-day money-back guarantee from the first quote sent.
Which tool to look at first, by situation
| Your situation | Tools whose pages describe it |
|---|---|
| Counter requests in many formats, quoted from your own catalogue and price rules, with a person approving each quote | Proton.ai, Qotora AI |
| Formal RFQs, with the quote priced from ERP data | Go Autonomous, Proton.ai, Qotora AI |
| MEP project bids from specifications and schedules, with submittals and project management | Parspec |
| High volumes of customer orders and invoices to capture into the ERP | Conexiom, Esker, Go Autonomous |
| Pricing guidance and approval rules across large deal volumes | Zilliant |
| One system for stock, invoicing and basic quotes, with prices on the website | Odoo |
A starting point for a shortlist, not a verdict. Each tool’s page may describe more than the row shows, and the pages we read may be out of date by the time you read this.
Tools in two groups often work side by side: one that captures the orders customers place, another that prepares the quotes that come before them. The comparison pages for Parspec, Conexiom and Proton.ai set each against Qotora AI in more detail.
Tools you will see in search results that serve other buyers
Two names come up often when you search for quoting software. ScalePad’s Quoter describes itself on its own pages as an MSP-native quote-to-cash platform, designed for managed service providers, so it is not built for a distributor’s counter. DealHub calls itself an agentic quote-to-revenue platform for sales and deal teams; its home page names no industry and does not mention distributors. We did not compare them further for that reason. If you disagree, tell us at contact@app.qotora.com.
Frequently asked questions
Which quoting software suits a small distributor?
It depends on your requests, your ERP and your budget, so we do not name one. Start from the job: a tool that reads customer requests and prepares quotes, a tool that captures orders into your ERP, or the quote screen of your business suite. Then test two or three on the same five real requests. We are Qotora AI, one of the eight tools on this page.
Which quoting software reads emails, PDFs and photos?
Several. Proton.ai lists emails, PDFs, spreadsheets, photos, handwritten notes and voicemail. Go Autonomous lists email text, PDFs, EDI, portal submissions and spreadsheets for RFQs. Conexiom lists email, PDF, images, spreadsheets, SMS and handwritten notes for orders and invoices. Qotora AI reads emails, PDFs, Excel and CSV files, photos of handwritten lists, text messages and voice notes. Check the exact format you receive with each vendor.
Which of these tools publish their prices?
Of the eight, Odoo and Qotora AI show prices on their websites. For Conexiom, Esker, Go Autonomous, Parspec, Proton.ai and Zilliant we found no price on the pages we read, and each directs you to a demo or a call. Qotora AI is US$49 for the first month, then US$149 a month on the Counter plan (up to 150 quotes sent a month, unlimited users); Team is US$349 and Network US$799.
Does quoting software need to connect to my ERP?
It needs your catalogue, stock and prices, so yes in some way. Some tools write quotes or orders into the ERP; Qotora AI only reads from it, through a direct Odoo connector or, for other systems such as Sage 100 and SAP Business One, a read-only database connection or a scheduled export set up by our team. We do not claim a native or certified integration with systems beyond Odoo.
Should a person approve every quote?
That is a policy choice, and vendors differ. Proton.ai’s page says the team reviews every draft before it goes to the ERP or customer. Go Autonomous says out-of-agreement pricing goes to supervised resolution. In Qotora AI a person reviews every quote before it is sent, and there is no automatic sending. Ask each vendor whether anything can leave without a person.
How was this page written, and how do I report a mistake?
We are Qotora AI. Every fact about another tool comes from that vendor’s own public website, read on 5 November 2026, and we left out what we could not confirm. We do not rank the tools. If something is out of date or wrong, write to contact@app.qotora.com and we will correct it.