In a move that has sent ripples through the CRM and revenue operations landscape, HubSpot has acquired Cacheflow, a leading player in the configure, price, quote (CPQ) space. This strategic acquisition promises to redefine how businesses manage their revenue processes, particularly for scaling companies and those in the SaaS and professional services sectors.
To truly understand what this means for HubSpot customers, we spoke with Jack Coopersmith, Commerce GTM & Onboarding Manager at HubSpot. Keep reading for the highlights or watch the recording here.
What is Cacheflow?
To put it simply, Cacheflow is a robust CPQ product (Configure Price Quote) that allows sellers to easily create proposals and close deals faster without juggling multiple systems.
And if you want the nitty-gritty: the system truly shines in its ability to set up different governance and rules for pricing, approvals, and product bundles. The platform allows you to define clear pricing rules, automate approval workflows, and easily create product bundles, ensuring consistency and accuracy across your sales organisation. This level of control is essential for managing complex pricing models and providing a seamless customer experience.
Why did HubSpot acquire Cacheflow?
To answer this question, we need to look back slightly. Over the years, HubSpot has done a really good job of moving upmarket. And this move has brought some challenges.
As HubSpot expanded into enterprise markets, customers managing complex deals found that the platform's basic quoting tool couldn't handle their sophisticated pricing and configuration requirements. These users needed more advanced features to manage intricate deal structures.
This essentially forced some customers to purchase a separate CPQ tool.
HubSpot, listened to these customers. They wanted one bill, one tab open, one data set, and one unified interface. Hence, this acquisition!
What kind of businesses will this acquisition benefit?
HubSpot's quoting tool works the most effectively for small to mid-sized businesses with straightforward pricing needs. However, as companies grow beyond 75 employees, they often require more sophisticated capabilities:
Enterprise needs:
- Multiple sales teams operating independently
- Regional pricing variations and localization
- Complex approval workflows
- Custom pricing rules and discounting structures
- Volume-based pricing tiers
- Multi-currency support
- Advanced revenue recognition
This acquisition positions HubSpot to serve these larger enterprises that previously had to look elsewhere for solutions.
In terms of industry, this acquisition is pretty agnostic but professional services and services more broadly is an area where the commerce tools have seen quite a bit of traction, and we don't see that changing at all.
How does the Cacheflow solution complement HubSpot's existing offering?
The real value prop that we see here is allowing for people to stay within Hubspot and manage all of their revenue alongside where they manage all of their customers, which is in the CRM.
Add onto that things like the drag-and-drop editor and you’ve got a great mix. Whilst the details are still under wraps, it’s pretty safe to assume HubSpot will likely use that infrastructure for users to create custom quote templates without the need to get into the code at all.
It's also likely going to improve the reporting aspect. If you have all of your customer information in one place, and your commerce information in a completely different place, it's hard to really understand the full picture. We’re hoping that HubSpot is really going to give you that full closed loop reporting.
How will this acquisition impact HubSpot's pricing and packaging?
When it comes to pricing and packaging, this takes time - especially in the commerce space. HubSpot is going to be appropriately loud in 2025 on this, so hang tight for the details!
But we do know that if you're using the tools currently, they're only going to get better - that we can promise.
HubSpot has made other acquisitions recently (like Clearbit). How does the Cacheflow acquisition fit into HubSpot's overall growth strategy and product roadmap?
HubSpot's been playing the long game, carefully crafting a unified platform where everything just works. They're all about that "crafted, not cobbled" philosophy. This means they're laser-focused on building a cohesive system where all the pieces fit together seamlessly, not just randomly bolting on new tools.
The Cacheflow acquisition is a prime example of this "thoughtful and targeted" approach. It addresses a specific need in the market (advanced CPQ for mid-sized businesses) and fills a gap in HubSpot's existing product offering.
When asked about the future, Jack was reassuring: “When it comes to the question, is this how we're gonna solve for growth moving forward? No, I'm confident in saying that we're not just going to be growing by acquisition by any means. I see us being very, very thoughtful and targeted about the things that we want to do.”
The HubSpot-Cacheflow union is more than just a headline-grabbing acquisition; it's a statement. It signals a future where CRM isn't just about managing contacts, but about orchestrating the entire revenue journey - and we can’t wait.
If you’d like to watch the full interview with Jack, click here.
