Quote, Checkout
A Checkout Quote in Salesforce B2B Commerce is the priced summary a business buyer reviews on the way to placing an order, or the formal Quote record they request from the cart when they need negotiated pricing before they commit.
Definition
A Checkout Quote in Salesforce B2B Commerce is the priced summary a business buyer reviews on the way to placing an order, or the formal Quote record they request from the cart when they need negotiated pricing before they commit. It pulls the cart contents together with the prices, discounts, taxes, and shipping that apply to that buyer.
The phrase covers two related moments. One is the cart summary shown during the standard checkout flow, where every line is priced for the buyer's account before payment. The other is the Request for Quote path, where the buyer sends the cart to a sales rep as a Quote, the rep adjusts pricing, and the approved quote is bought or copied back to the cart.
From cart to priced order in a B2B store
Why B2B checkout needs a quote at all
Consumer checkout is simple. You see a price, you pay it, you are done. Business buying rarely works that way. A buyer might have a contract that sets custom prices, a buyer group that points at a different price book, or an order large enough to need a manager's sign-off. The Checkout Quote exists to hold all of that in one place so the buyer sees a number they can trust. During a normal B2B Commerce checkout, the cart summary already reflects this. Each line is priced for the buyer's account using the price book assigned to their store and buyer group, with any contract or entitlement prices layered on top. Taxes and shipping are added per delivery group so the buyer reads a complete total, not a list price they will have to argue about later. When the price still needs a human, the buyer does not just abandon the cart. They request a quote. That turns the cart into a Quote record a sales rep owns, which keeps the deal inside Salesforce instead of moving it to email or a spreadsheet.
The two shapes of a Checkout Quote
It helps to keep the two meanings apart because admins configure them differently. The first shape is the in-line cart summary. It is part of every checkout flow and shows prices, promotions, taxes, and shipping for the items in the cart. The buyer reviews it, enters payment, and places the order without any sales rep touching the deal. This is the default experience and needs no extra setup beyond pricing the store correctly. The second shape is the requested Quote, delivered through the Request for Quote feature. Here the buyer clicks a Request Quote button on the cart page or a product page. Salesforce creates a Quote with the requested items and any notes the buyer added. A sales rep picks it up, edits pricing or terms, and moves it through a status of Draft, Approved, Rejected, or Accepted. The buyer then accepts and buys, copies the quote back to the cart, or asks to renegotiate. The first shape is about showing a price. The second is about agreeing on one.
What the checkout flow actually does
The cart summary the buyer reads is the visible end of a managed checkout flow built in Flow Builder. B2B Commerce ships these flows so admins assemble checkout without writing the plumbing themselves. The flow runs a set sequence: it checks inventory, confirms pricing, calls out for shipping options, calculates tax, authorizes payment, and finally converts the cart into an Order. Pricing and tax matter most for the quote view. The B2B pricing engine resolves each cart line against the right price book entry and any adjustments, so the summary shows the buyer's real price rather than a generic one. Shipping and tax run as integrations or as Commerce extensions, which are the newer and recommended way to plug in providers. A single call can fetch both shipping and tax once a shipping address is known. Because these steps can be slow, parts of the flow run asynchronously. The storefront polls checkout status and refreshes the summary as each calculation lands. By the time the buyer reaches the final review, the quote on screen reflects every rule that applies to the order.
Request for Quote, step by step
Request for Quote is the feature most people mean when they say a buyer gets a quote at checkout. The buyer builds a cart, then chooses Request Quote instead of Checkout. A form captures a title, a description, and any custom fields the sales team wants, plus notes if the admin enabled them on the Quote object. Salesforce creates a Quote that carries the requested products. From there the work moves to the sales side. A rep reviews the quote, applies negotiated pricing or contract terms, and sets the status. An approval process can gate large or unusual quotes before they reach Approved. The buyer watches the status from a quotes list in the store and gets the result without leaving the site. When the quote is ready, the buyer has clear actions. Accept Quote and Buy turns the agreed quote into a purchase. Copy Quote to Cart drops the quoted items and prices back into the cart for a normal checkout. Renegotiate or Decline sends it back for another round or closes it out. The loop keeps pricing, history, and approvals on one record.
Where the negotiated price lives
A Checkout Quote is only as good as the price behind it, so it is worth knowing where that price comes from. In B2B Commerce, products are sold through a price book tied to the web store, and buyer groups can route different accounts to different price books. That is the baseline list pricing the cart summary uses before anything custom applies. Contracts add the next layer. When an account has prices negotiated in a contract, B2B Commerce can honor those custom prices in the cart so the buyer never sees a number higher than what was agreed. Prices can also come from an external system through an integration that sets cart prices at runtime, which is common when a separate pricing or ERP engine owns the truth. The Request for Quote path goes one step further. A sales rep edits the Quote directly, so the agreed figure can differ from any standing price book or contract. Once accepted, that quoted price is what the buyer pays. Keeping all of this on Salesforce objects means the price the buyer saw is auditable later, which matters for B2B deals that get reviewed.
Limits and gotchas worth knowing
The Request for Quote feature has real boundaries. It does not support subscription products, so a cart with subscriptions cannot be sent through the quote path. If your catalog mixes one-time and recurring items, plan the experience around that rather than discovering it in production. Setup order matters too. If you use Revenue Cloud, the foundational quotes setup has to be done first or you will hit errors when buyers request a quote. The Quote object also needs the right status picklist values present, Draft, Approved, Rejected, and Accepted, because the store components key off them. Miss one and the buyer-facing buttons behave oddly. The two shapes of the quote can also confuse buyers if both are exposed without thought. A store that shows Checkout and Request Quote side by side should make clear when each applies, for example reserving quotes for carts above a threshold or for products that always need negotiation. Treat the cart summary as the fast path and the requested Quote as the deliberate one, and the experience stays clean.
Set up Request for Quote in a B2B store
Request for Quote lets a buyer turn a B2B Commerce cart into a Quote a sales rep can price and return. Set it up in Setup and Experience Builder for the store. These are the core moves; check the current Help article for your release before going live.
- Enable Quotes and Notes
In Setup, open Quotes Settings and clear the option that disables quotes. Turn on Notes Settings and add the Notes related list to the Quote page layout so buyers can leave comments on a request.
- Confirm the Quote status values
On the Quote object status field, make sure Draft, Approved, Rejected, and Accepted exist. The store components rely on these values to drive the buyer-facing actions.
- Add the store components
In Experience Builder, place the Request Quote component on the Cart page and, if wanted, Request Quote for Product on the Product page. On the Quote Summary Details page add Accept Quote and Buy, Copy Quote to Cart, and Renegotiate or Decline Quote.
- Shape the request form and publish
Configure the Request Quote component to capture Title, Description, and any custom fields your sales team needs. Save your changes, then publish the store so buyers can start requesting quotes.
The cart-page button that creates a Quote from the current cart and captures the buyer's title, description, and notes.
A Quote Summary action that converts an approved quote into a purchase without re-pricing the items.
Drops the quoted items and prices back into the cart so the buyer can run a standard checkout.
Lets the buyer send the quote back for another pricing round or close it out.
- Request for Quote does not support subscription products, so carts with subscriptions cannot use the quote path.
- If you use Revenue Cloud, finish the foundational quotes setup first or buyers hit errors when they request a quote.
- Missing status picklist values on the Quote object break the Accept, Copy, and Renegotiate buttons in the store.
Trust & references
Cross-checked against the following references.
Straight from the source - Salesforce's reference material on Quote, Checkout.
- B2B Checkout Flow DesignSalesforce
- Pricing Data Model (B2B Commerce Developer Guide)Salesforce
Hands-on resources to go deeper on Quote, Checkout.
About the Author
Dipojjal Chakrabarti is a B2C Solution Architect with 29 Salesforce certifications and over 13 years in the Salesforce ecosystem. He runs salesforcedictionary.com to help admins, developers, architects, and cert/interview candidates sharpen their fundamentals. More about Dipojjal.
Test your knowledge
Q1. What is a Checkout Quote?
Q2. Why is B2B checkout more complex than B2C?
Q3. What does checkout quote include?
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