Metal garage configurator: how to turn a price list into a tool that sells
A guide for manufacturers and distributors of metal garages who currently quote by email or from a PDF and are considering a metal garage configurator on their website. We describe how to prepare the price list, which price to show the customer, how to use the tool in the sales office and what to do with an enquiry so that it does not go cold.
Start with the price list, not the look
Most manufacturers keep their price list in Excel or a PDF: a price per size, plus surcharges for the door, cladding, colour and foundation. A configurator needs the same data, just organised into a few layers. The more precisely you set it out before the project, the shorter the discovery phase and the fewer surprises in the quote.
| Layer | Garage example | Question for your team |
|---|---|---|
| Base price | size and structure type | Does the price rise linearly with the floor area or in steps? |
| Surcharges | up-and-over or sectional door, cladding, side door | Is the surcharge fixed or does it depend on the size? |
| Rules | a sectional door requires thicker sheet metal | Which combinations are impossible or need a conversation? |
| Delivery | local, regional and national zone | Where does automatic pricing end? |
Fill in this table together with the salesperson who answers most of the enquiries. They know which exceptions happen every week and which happen once a season. The former go into the configurator; the latter stay in the conversation.
A configurator is not always necessary. If you sell a few standard sizes in one colour with no options, a clear price table and a form will do the same job for less. The tool starts to pay off when there are so many combinations of sizes, doors, cladding and foundations that your sales team calculates them by hand every day.
Exact, indicative or “from” price?
Customers compare several companies in the evening, so a price has to appear. The question is how binding it should be. For standard sizes and typical access, you can show a specific price. For large sizes, difficult terrain or installation far from the factory, it is better to show an indicative price and say clearly what the salesperson will still check.
The worst case is a price that later goes up without explanation. That is why the summary should break the total down into items: structure, door, cladding, foundation, delivery. The customer sees where the total comes from, and any discussion about a discount concerns a specific item, not the whole offer.
Another good compromise is to say what might change the price after the site survey. A short list such as “sloping ground, no paved access, non-standard size” sets the customer’s expectations. When the salesperson later adjusts the price, the customer knows it is not a surprise but a point they read about in the configurator.
Colour, sheet metal and door: 3D or 2D?
A garage buyer mainly wants to see the colour and the door layout. The demo above shows this in 3D: the sheet profile, the wall, roof and trim colours and the door change on the model straight away, and the door can be opened. A simpler option is a 2D visualisation: a front-view drawing with a swappable colour, photos of completed projects and a cladding colour chart. In both, every choice immediately changes the preview and the price.
For colours, it helps to add a short note that a phone screen does not reproduce the shade of the metal faithfully, along with the option to order a sample. It is just a few words in the interface that save misunderstandings after installation.
A metal garage configurator on your website, in campaigns and in the office
A configurator works best embedded directly on the product pages rather than hidden in a separate tab. A customer reading about a double garage should be able to start configuring that model straight away. The same link with the variant preset is useful in ad campaigns and in replies to questions on social media.
The configurator does not have to live only on the website. The same engine can help a salesperson during a phone call: the customer says what they need, the salesperson clicks, and after the call sends a link or a PDF with the finished configuration. Quotes from the office and from the website then look the same and are calculated from the same price list.
This matters especially for B2B orders of several garages, where the customer comes back with changes. Instead of rewriting the quote in a word processor, the salesperson changes one parameter and generates a new version of the document. It also removes the risk of two people in the company giving the same customer two different prices.
What to do with an enquiry so that it does not go cold
A customer who has gone through all the steps is ready to talk right now. If the answer comes a few days later, they will have spoken to your competitors in the meantime. That is why lead handling matters as much as the configurator itself.
- The lead goes straight into the CRM with the full configuration and price, not as an ordinary email to a shared inbox.
- The system assigns it to a salesperson by delivery region.
- The customer receives an automatic confirmation with a summary of their configuration.
- The salesperson gets a reminder if nobody has called back within the agreed time.
- Every enquiry has a status: new, surveyed, quote sent, won, lost.
The last point is the least visible but yields the most insight. After a season you know which sizes and option sets end in a contract and which only generate questions. That is the basis for decisions on prices and promotions for the following year.
After launch: who changes prices and options
A garage price list never stands still: material prices change, and seasonal promotions and new sizes are added. If every change needs a developer, a metal garage configurator quickly goes out of date and customers see outdated prices.
That is why prices, options and simple rules should sit in a CMS panel managed by your team. Only bigger changes go back to the vendor, such as a new structure type with its own set of rules. It is also worth agreeing who on your side approves price list changes before they go live.
You can try the step-by-step and dynamic pricing mechanics in the modular house configurator; we write about generating quotes and costings in our digital quoting service, and the JSON Hub CRM shows how leads from the configurator are handled.