Subcategory · AI Citation Index

Proposal & CPQ

Proposal & CPQ is a contested category with no consensus pick — Salesforce is the only brand that both captures eyeballs in discovery and wins more head-to-heads than it loses. PandaDoc dominates the AI discovery shortlist, showing up in 96% of buyer queries across all five engines, yet loses most head-to-head comparisons to Proposify, Qwilr, and Salesforce. Proposify wins more matchups than any other brand across a dozen head-to-heads but trails PandaDoc and Salesforce in raw discovery share. The category remains fragmented: no single brand holds both the AI attention lead and the evaluation win-rate crown.

54 discovery queries · 84 head-to-heads · refreshed May 1, 2026

Discovery stage

The shortlist

Across 54 buyer-style "Proposal & CPQ" queries

PandaDoc and Salesforce trade the top two discovery slots, each surfacing across all five engines tracked in more than 92% of buyer queries about proposal and CPQ tools. Built lands in 91% of prompts but has no evaluation-stage data to confirm head-to-head strength. Qwilr and Proposify follow at 80-83% discovery share, with Conga Grid a step behind at 74%. SAP CPQ surfaces across every engine but appears in only 30% of discovery prompts, leaving thin AI attention despite ubiquitous engine presence.

1%24%46%68%90%Coverage — share of discovery prompts where the brand surfaces66%74%83%91%100%Engine diversity

Hover or click a logo to see brand details

X = coverage across discovery prompts · Y = engine diversity · Bubble size = total mentions
Tracked acrossChatGPT,Gemini,Claude

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Signal by intent

By topic

Top 5 most-cited brands per intent cluster. Brands with zero citations in a topic are not shown.

1Salesforce
7/7
2PandaDoc
7/7
3Conga
6/7
4Proposify
6/7
5Qwilr
6/7
1Salesforce
6/6
2PandaDoc
6/6
3Qwilr
6/6
4Proposify
6/6
5Built
5/6
1Built
6/6
2Salesforce
5/6
3Conga
5/6
4PandaDoc
5/6
5Netsuite
5/6
1Built
5/5
2Salesforce
5/5
3PandaDoc
4/5
4Proposify
4/5
5Qwilr
4/5
1PandaDoc
5/5
2Proposify
5/5
3Better Proposals
5/5
4Qwilr
5/5
5Salesforce
4/5
1PandaDoc
4/4
2Salesforce
4/4
3Built
3/4
4Conga
3/4
5Netsuite
3/4
1Built
4/4
2PandaDoc
4/4
3Proposify
4/4
4Qwilr
3/4
5Salesforce
3/4
1Salesforce
4/4
2Built
4/4
3Proposify
4/4
4PandaDoc
4/4
5Qwilr
4/4
≥50% cited
25–49%
<25%
Topics are discovery-stage prompt clusters · proposal-cpq

Evaluation stage

Head-to-head

How often AI cites each brand across uniform category evaluation prompts · median 60/100

Proposify wins the most head-to-head matchups, scoring 79 across a dozen comparison queries — well above the category median of 60. Salesforce and Qwilr each win more matchups than they lose, while PandaDoc and Conga Grid fall below the median despite strong discovery share. IBM Sterling Configure, Price, Quote loses most head-to-heads, scoring 41 across twelve comparisons.

0255075100Evaluation citation rate — % of category evaluation prompts citing this brand0481115Evaluation prompts cited inmedian citation ratemedian exposure

Hover or click a logo to see brand details

X = evaluation citation rate · Y = evaluation prompts cited in · Bubble size = citation exposure
Median citation rate 60/100

Each brand's score is the share of category evaluation prompts where AI cited them across all four engines — the same prompt pool for every brand. Brands above the median citation rate have stronger presence in evaluation-stage queries.

Citation sources

Where AI pulls citations from

480 citations captured across Proposal & CPQ prompt runs.

Vendor pages

221

Product, help, and marketing pages from tracked vendors

Independent sources

120

Reviews, encyclopedias, forums, press — not vendor-owned

Buyer questions

What AI cites for top Proposal & CPQ questions

Every query in this category is top-of-funnel exploration — buyers ask AI for proposal and CPQ tools tailored by company type, vertical, or compliance need. Sample phrasings include 'proposal and CPQ tools for SaaS companies', 'proposal and CPQ solutions for enterprise companies', and 'How do I ensure compliance in my proposals?' No head-to-head comparison queries, pricing questions, or conversion-stage prompts appear in the data set.

Discovery

Buyers exploring the category

Evaluation

Buyers comparing options

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