Choose by the job you’re hiring for
The right platform depends on your bottleneck, and on who has to use it. Four leaders usually choose it: the head of sales (at a smaller company, often the founder), the head of value or solutions engineering, the chief customer officer and, where there is one, the head of pricing. What each should weigh most, and the question to put to every vendor:
Find your role
The leaders who usually choose
| Role | Weigh most | Ask every vendor |
|---|---|---|
| CRO, Head of Sales or founder | Win rate, price held without discounting, fewer deals in the forecast with no economic reason to act, and a business case on every deal that needs one, not only the largest | Can every deal in the forecast carry a case the buyer's finance team can check, with the buyer's own numbers confirmed, and value set against price before the discount conversation starts? |
| Head of Value or Solutions Engineering | Coverage on the deals your team never reaches, at the bar your team would sign: evidence behind every number, no value counted twice, and control over how models change, so the method stays when people move on | Can reps build a case my team would sign off, on the deals we never touch, while we approve and version the models? |
| Chief Customer Officer | Net and gross revenue retention, renewals defended on documented value, and expansion built on results | Can we see, across the book, which accounts are short of what was promised at signature, early enough to act before renewal, and build the renewal and expansion case from that? |
| Head of Pricing | Value modelled by product, segment and competitor, so price levels, pricing metrics, packages and discount policy follow value, not cost or the competitor's list price; the value each price leaves the customer; and the gap between the price you set and the price the field gets | Can we model value by segment and against each competitor, test more than one pricing approach against it, break down a competitor's pricing page, and see which discounts were given with no value reason behind them? |
The people who use it every day, and others who shape the choice
| Role | Weigh most | Ask every vendor |
|---|---|---|
| Account Executive | A credible case in the time a deal allows, built from what was learned in discovery, without waiting for a specialist | Can I build a case for this deal in one sitting, and explain every number when the buyer's finance team asks? |
| Customer Success Manager | Starting from the case that was sold, tracking the value realized against it, and a renewal or expansion case built from those results | Can I pick up the case agreed at signature, show the customer what has been realized, and build the renewal or expansion case from that evidence? |
| Head of Product | Which capabilities create value, for which segments | Can we trace product capabilities to separate value drivers by segment, not just produce deal cases? |
| CEO of an AI-native company | Repeatable differentiation and the link between value, price and cost to serve | Can it show our advantage against an incumbent, an internal build and another AI agent, and what each costs? |
Last updated 29 October 2026
