Excel holds together a surprising share of made-to-order sales.
Behind the website, the ads and the project photos, most makers of pergolas, fences and conservatories run on a single file. A sheet per model, a column of colour surcharges, area formulas and a note that says "careful, different beam above 4 m". Every quote starts there.
There is a good reason for it. Excel is flexible. When a profile's price changes or a new model arrives, someone adds a row and nobody has to write any code.
The problem starts when that temporary solution becomes permanent. A file one person built becomes the whole company's process. Versions pile up, exceptions pile up, and every salesperson reads it slightly differently. And the customer, the person all of this exists for, never gets to see it.
The price list does not have to be a dead end, though. It is a ready-made brief for a configurator.
What running made-to-order sales from Excel costs
Excel is quick to set up and easy to change. In made-to-order sales, however, it does a job it was never built for: it holds product rules the customer ought to know too. The typical costs look like this:
- Every quote starts with questions. The customer cannot see the rules the price follows, so they send an incomplete enquiry. The salesperson asks about dimensions, model, colour and accessories before they can even begin.
- Errors from retyping. A dimension from an e-mail into Excel, a price from Excel into Word, a quote from Word into an e-mail. Every copy is a chance for a mistake the customer will spot before you do.
- One person knows the price list. The rules live in the formulas and in the head of whoever wrote them. When that person is on holiday, quotes wait.
- Versions.
pricelist_2026_final_v3.xlsxandpricelist_2026_final_NEW.xlsx. An old price in a quote you already sent is a more expensive mistake than a typo. - The customer can only imagine the product. A spreadsheet will not show how the pergola will look against the house, or what a darker frame changes.
- No overview. Which models and sizes do people ask for most? You cannot count that from e-mails.
This is not a failure of people. It is the ordinary state of a company that grew out of Excel while its process stayed inside it.
Why a configurator is especially valuable for made-to-order products
A made-to-order product is combinatorics: models times sizes times colours times accessories. On top of that sit the rules: what cannot be combined with what, where the profile changes, when another post is needed. Excel keeps those rules quietly in its formulas. A configurator makes them visible and applies them in front of the customer, not later in the quote.
The traditional argument against was time and cost: a configurator had to be built from scratch for every product. That changes when a ready-made foundation already exists for the product type. The treede catalogue describes 304 made-to-order product types, and for pergolas, fences and verandas the engines are already running. Your price list then stops being a spec that someone codes from zero and becomes the settings of a system that already works.
Every manufacturer sells differently. Your configurator can, too.
What you gain by turning the price list into a configurator
When the rules move from Excel into a configurator, what changes is who works with them. Not only the salesperson, but the customer as well.
The customer designs the product and sees it in 3D
Dimensions, model, colour, louvres, side walls. Every change shows up on the model at once, so the customer is not buying a row in a table but a pergola they can picture against their own house.
The rules apply every time, not only when someone remembers them
Maximum span, allowed combinations, required accessories. The configurator will not let anyone assemble what cannot be built, so it never reaches a quote either.
A price built from the same rules the salesperson quotes from
The price is assembled from your price list, line by line. The customer does not see a rough estimate but a figure built on the same logic as the quote.
The enquiry arrives with a complete specification
Dimensions, options, price, contact details and a link to the design in one message. The salesperson does not write the first e-mail full of questions. They write the second one, with a quote.
The price list changes in one place
When a profile's price changes, it changes in the configurator and in the quotes at once. No file versions, no old price in a quote already sent.
You finally see what people want
Every configuration is a record. You can see which models, sizes and colours customers put together most often, something e-mails never let you count.
Where to start: four signals it is time
Not every price list needs to become a configurator on day one. These four situations are a good reason to start, though:
- One person prepares the quotes. When they are away, sales stop. That is not a process, it is a risk.
- Customers keep asking the same questions. Which sizes, which colours, what can be combined. The answers are in the price list; the customer just cannot see it.
- The price list has more exceptions than rows. Notes, coloured cells and "does not apply when…". The rules exist, they are just not written down in a way a system can apply.
- The website collects contacts but does not sell. A "send us an enquiry" form brings in messages nobody can build a quote from.
Which products suit a configurator best
The biggest difference comes where a product is assembled from dimensions and rules, and where the customer needs to see it:
- Pergolas and carports: dimensions, roof type, louvres, side walls and lighting.
- Fences and gates: the shape of the plot, height, infill, gates.
- Verandas and conservatories: floor plan, roof pitch and glazing.
- Garden sheds and saunas: dimensions, layout, cladding and extras.
- Windows, doors and shading: dimensions, divisions, colours and controls.
The full list is in the configurator catalogue.
What it looks like in practice
For Moja Pergola we took a process that lived in phone calls, Excel and Word and joined it into one path: a landing page, campaigns, a 3D configurator and a CRM. The system now brings in hundreds of enquiries a month, and 16% of them became installations. That is the result of the whole path, not of the configurator alone. But it started with the price list.
If you have a price list in Excel, you have a brief. See what a configurator costs, or send us your price list and we will show you a configurator on your own product.
