Compare - basic form apps vs. a negotiation workflow
Basic form apps capture the request. QuotWay closes the deal.
A basic “request a quote” form app captures a buyer’s request and emails it to you - and for many stores, that’s enough. QuotWay is a B2B quote and negotiation app for Shopify by EFOLI that starts where the form ends: versioned proposals and two-way counter-offers, two-sided approval workflows, partial line-item acceptance, and one-click conversion into a native Shopify draft order. This page compares the two approaches, factually.
Two honest ways to handle a quote request
A basic “request a quote” form app collects a buyer’s request and sends it to you to handle - usually by email. A negotiation workflow keeps the whole exchange inside one tracked, versioned thread: you reply with a priced proposal, the buyer can counter, you counter back within a floor price, and the agreed version converts straight into a real Shopify order. The difference isn’t quality; it’s where the workflow stops.
What a basic form app does well
Basic “request a quote” form apps are simple and low-cost, and they do a real job: they put a request-a-quote button on your storefront and turn buyer interest into a message in your inbox. If that’s all you need, a simpler app may be the right fit.
- Capturing a request - a configurable form on a product, collection, or cart turns a “what’s your price?” into a structured submission
- Simplicity - less to learn and set up when the job is purely to collect requests
- Lower price point - form-only apps in this category often sit at a lower monthly price than a full negotiation workflow
- Familiar handling - the request lands in email, where many small teams already work
Where the form-app workflow usually ends
Many basic form apps stop at the moment the request is captured: the buyer submits the form, you reply by email, and from there the back-and-forth, the sign-off, and the re-keying into Shopify happen by hand. That’s fine for a simple capture-and-reply flow. It becomes a constraint when a quote needs several rounds, an approval, or to become a real order without manual re-entry. Stated factually, basic form apps generally focus on capture:
- Multi-round negotiation - the reply-and-counter exchange typically moves to email, so there’s often no single record of who offered what, in what order, and what was finally agreed
- A version of every round - without versioned proposals, “what did we agree to?” is reconstructed from an email thread rather than read off a sealed record
- Two-sided approvals - routing a quote for sign-off, on your team’s side and the buyer organization’s side, is generally outside a capture form’s scope
- Partial acceptance - accepting some lines now and deferring others, then converting only the accepted lines, isn’t usually part of a form-and-email flow
- Native draft-order conversion - turning the agreement into a real Shopify order is commonly a manual re-entry step rather than a one-click, prices-locked-in conversion
What QuotWay adds beyond the form
QuotWay adds the workflow that runs after a request is captured: a structured B2B negotiation engine, two-sided approvals, partial acceptance, and one-click conversion into a native Shopify draft order - all inside Shopify, with an append-only record of every step. QuotWay also captures quote requests, so you don’t give up the form to gain the workflow.
Versioned, multi-round negotiation
Reply with a complete versioned proposal; every change after that creates a new version with a price diff. Versioned proposals and merchant counters are on every plan; buyers counter from their account or the hosted portal on Starter+.
Two-sided approval workflows
Route sign-off through your team’s policy and the buyer organization’s chain on a visual WHEN → WHICH → STEPS → THEN canvas. Professional+; advanced routing (parallel/conditional steps, timeouts, escalation, delegation) on Enterprise.
Partial acceptance, split orders, native conversion
An agreed quote becomes a native Shopify draft order with prices carried over exactly - no CSV export. Convert and the drift check are on every plan; partial acceptance and split conversion are Professional+.
Two native buyer surfaces
Buyers manage quotes inside the native Shopify customer account or a hosted portal with magic-link access. Both are on all plans; in-app messaging and portal/PDF branding are Starter+.
Auditable record, automation, multi-currency
An append-only event log records every proposal, counter, approval, and decline in order. Rule-based automation (Professional+, not AI) and FX-snapshot multi-currency (Starter+) round it out.
Capability comparison
What a basic “request a quote” form app generally includes, compared with QuotWay. The form-app column describes the category in measured terms, not any specific app - features and plans vary by product, so treat it as a general picture and verify any individual app against its own listing.
| Capability | Basic form apps (generally) | QuotWay |
|---|---|---|
| Capture a quote request (button + form) | Yes - the core job | Yes - configurable form, custom fields (Starter+), conditional logic (Professional+) |
| Hide price on the storefront | Sometimes ¹ | Yes - visually hide prices, storewide or targeted (Starter+) ² |
| Targeting (which buyers/products see quoting) | Varies | Yes - product, collection, tag, type, vendor, customer, customer tag, logged-in/guest; segments (Starter+), B2B company/location (Professional+) |
| Guest quoting (no account needed) | Varies | Yes - guest quoting with email-claim verification (all plans) |
| Multi-round versioned negotiation | Many stop at form → email reply | Yes - versioned proposals + merchant counters (all plans); buyer counters (Starter+) |
| Price diff between rounds | Generally not provided | Yes - changed lines and totals highlighted each version |
| Two-sided approval workflows | Generally not provided | Yes - merchant-side and buyer-organization sign-off (Professional+); advanced routing (Enterprise) |
| Partial line-item acceptance | Generally not provided | Yes (Professional+) |
| Native draft-order conversion | Often manual re-entry into Shopify | Yes - one-click native Shopify draft order, prices locked in (all plans) |
| Split a quote into multiple orders | Generally not provided | Yes - by group or shipping address (Professional+) |
| Drift check (re-verify tax & shipping) | Varies | Yes - recalculates tax and shipping before conversion (all plans) |
| Native customer-account quote view | Varies | Yes - a customer-account extension and a hosted buyer portal (all plans) |
| FX-snapshot multi-currency | Varies | Yes - buyer-currency quoting, rate captured at quote time (Starter+; Lite view-only) |
| Append-only auditable event log | Generally not provided | Yes - full ordered history of every quote (all plans) |
| Free plan | Varies by app | Yes - Lite is free (10 quotes/mo, full quote-to-order loop) |
- ¹ Hide price is offered by some apps in the broader request-a-quote category; whether a given app includes it varies by product.
- ² QuotWay’s hide price is visual today (it hides the price on your storefront). It does not yet remove the price from page source or structured data, so don’t read it as “hidden from search engines.”
Keep exploring
Questions, answered
What’s the difference between a request-a-quote form app and QuotWay?
A basic request-a-quote form app captures a buyer’s request and emails it to you - that’s its core job. QuotWay starts where the form ends: versioned proposals and two-way counter-offers, two-sided approval workflows, partial line-item acceptance, and one-click conversion into a native Shopify draft order, with an append-only record of every round. QuotWay also captures the request, so you keep the form and gain the workflow.
Do basic form apps support price negotiation?
Many basic form apps focus on capturing the request and hand the reply-and-counter exchange back to email, so multi-round negotiation often isn’t part of the app. QuotWay keeps the negotiation inside one versioned thread: merchant counter-offers and versioned proposals are on every plan, and buyers counter back from their customer account or the hosted portal on Starter and above.
When is a basic form app the better choice?
A basic form app may be the better choice when you only need to collect a quote request and reply by email - single-round quotes, no sign-off to route, and you’re comfortable creating the Shopify order by hand. If budget is the deciding factor and you don’t need negotiation, approvals, or native conversion, a simpler app can fit. QuotWay’s free Lite plan lets you try the fuller workflow at no cost.
Can QuotWay capture quote requests like a form app does, too?
Yes. QuotWay puts a request-a-quote button and a configurable quote form on your storefront, with custom fields (Starter+), conditional logic (Professional+), targeting, hide price (Starter+), and guest quoting. So you don’t trade away request capture to gain negotiation, approvals, and native draft-order conversion - QuotWay does both.
Pick the workflow your deals actually need
If you only need to capture a request, a simpler form app may fit - and that’s a fair choice. If your quotes get negotiated, need sign-off, or should become a real Shopify order without re-keying, add QuotWay free and try the full workflow on the Lite plan. Upgrade only when your deals call for it.
Free Lite plan · 14-day trial on paid plans · Works with Shopify Plus