Picture the end of the quarter. The owner asks over coffee: "Was it worth it?" The salesperson looks at the ceiling. Nothing was written down before launch, and "it feels quicker" doesn't fit in a spreadsheet.
Product configurator ROI can be measured with five numbers from your own firm: the time from enquiry to quote, the share of enquiries that can be priced without questions, the number of quote versions, the hours spent on quotes and the share of quotes that end in an order. Record them before launch and again after. You need nothing else.
Why other people's percentages aren't enough
A percentage from another firm is like another firm's price list: pleasant to read, useless for writing your quote. Vendor articles like to quote double-digit gains, usually without a sample and without saying which industry they came from.
Peer-reviewed sources are more careful, and their limits need to be read together with the number:
- Haug, Hvam and Mortensen (2011). A peer-reviewed study of 14 engineering-oriented companies found that after a product configurator was deployed, quote preparation time fell by an average of 85.5%. It measures internal quoting efficiency, not website sales, and any one company's result depends on its product and process. The methodology is in the published study.
- Gürlek, Letizia and KC (2026). A field experiment across more than 1.3 million visits to a global luxury-accessories retailer found that the configurator raised purchase probability. The effect was stronger for pricier products and negative for cheaper ones. It is still a preprint, and it doesn't cover construction or made-to-order manufacturing.
Both point the same way: the result depends on the product and the firm. So measure yours.
Five numbers to write down before launch
Five numbers are enough, and all of them can be found in your inbox or CRM.
1. Time from enquiry to quote sent
From the moment the enquiry arrived to the moment the quote went out. Use the median, not the average. One quote that sat for two weeks because the salesperson was on holiday ruins an average, but not a median.
2. Share of enquiries that can be priced without questions
For each enquiry, note whether you could work out at least an estimate, or had to ask. This number shows how well the enquiry captures the brief. What a complete enquiry should contain is covered in What a made-to-order enquiry should contain.
3. Number of quote versions per job
The customer changes 4 m to 4.5 m and the quote goes round again. Count versions from the email thread or the CRM. Fewer versions means less recalculating, and also fewer chances of an old price in a quote that has already gone out.
4. Salesperson hours per week on quotes
Write down for two weeks how much time quotes take. It doesn't have to be exact to the minute, a rough log is enough. Until you write it down, it stays a guess.
5. Share of quotes that ended in an order
The most important number, and the slowest. The order arrives weeks or months later, depending on the product, and plenty besides the configurator affects it. Keep recording it, but don't expect a quick answer from it.
How to measure without special tools
A spreadsheet or a notebook is enough for the first measurement.
Give the sheet one row per quote and these columns: enquiry date, quote sent date, number of follow-up questions and number of versions. The steps:
- Record at least 20 quotes in a row before launch. If you don't have them, rebuild them from the last 20 emails. The dates are in your inbox.
- Record another 20 after launch. Same columns, same method.
- Compare like with like. A fence with five corners and three gates isn't the same job as a straight run. Compare a pergola with a pergola.
- If your sales are seasonal, compare similar periods, not spring with December.
It's the simplest measurement there is, and for most firms it is enough.
Product configurator ROI in hours, from your own numbers
The same numbers show how many hours a year you could win back. The formula is the one in the readiness checklist: quotes per month × time per quote × the share you expect the configurator to take over. A year has 12 months and a working day has 8 hours.
Say a firm prepares 40 quotes a month, each takes 2 hours and the estimate is that the configurator takes over 30% of that work. That gives 24 hours a month, so 288 hours a year, or 36 working days. The numbers are invented for illustration.
It's a model estimate, not a forecast. The real difference comes from comparing similar quotes before and after launch, as above. The share the configurator takes over is your own estimate, and you set it yourself in the checklist.
What gets measured wrongly
- Only the writing of the document is timed. In made-to-order sales the paperwork isn't the delay. The delay is the brief that needs filling in. If you time only how long the template takes, you won't see the difference. There is more on this in How to cut your quote turnaround time.
- The whole result is credited to the configurator. Today the Moja Pergola system brings in hundreds of enquiries a month, and 16% of them ended in an installation. That is the result of the whole journey, not of the configurator alone. The journey is the landing page, campaigns, configurator and CRM, and the Moja Pergola case study describes all of it.
- Everything changes at once. A new price list, new ads and the configurator in the same month. Then nobody knows what caused the change.
- Unlike is compared with unlike. Jobs of different size and complexity, or a different season.
Which numbers show early and which late
Numbers 1 to 4 show up in the first weeks after launch, because they apply to every new quote. Number 5, orders, needs time: a customer takes weeks or months to decide.
So don't judge the configurator by orders after the first week. Watch the quote time, the share of enquiries without questions, the versions and the hours first. Add orders when there are enough to compare.
Frequently asked questions
How quickly does a configurator pay back?
It depends on the number of quotes, the time per quote and how much of the work the configurator takes over, so there is no single figure for everyone. Work it out with the formula above or in the checklist. On the other side are the costs: running it starts from €200 a month and implementation is priced by scope, with details in the pricing.
What if I have no numbers from the past?
Rebuild them from the last 20 quotes: the enquiry date and the sent date are in your inbox, and versions and questions can be counted from the thread. If you have a CRM, most of it is there.
Is Google Analytics enough to measure it?
It shows visits and clicks, not quote time or the number of versions. It is useful for how many people opened the configurator. ROI, though, is made of numbers that sit in your inbox and CRM.
And the end of the quarter?
The owner asks again: "Was it worth it?" This time the salesperson opens the sheet. Twenty quotes before and twenty after, four columns, one answer.
How many hours a month you could win back from your own numbers, you can work out in the readiness checklist. What a configurator with treede CRM costs is in the pricing.
