How does CPQ relate to Salesforce Revenue Cloud?

Salesforce Revenue Cloud is Salesforce's unified revenue platform combining CPQ, Billing, and related products into a cohesive solution for the entire revenue lifecycle. Key relationships:

1. CPQ is a component of Revenue Cloud: Salesforce CPQ (formerly Steelbrick CPQ) handles configure-price-quote; it is the quoting engine within Revenue Cloud.
2. Revenue Lifecycle Management (RLM): Salesforce has introduced a next-generation, native (non-managed-package) CPQ solution called Revenue Lifecycle Management built on the core Salesforce platform with a new Product Catalog object model. RLM is Salesforce's long-term direction to replace the managed package CPQ.
3. Transition Path: Customers on legacy CPQ package can continue using it; Salesforce is investing in migration tooling and feature parity for RLM.
4. Revenue Cloud includes: CPQ + Billing + Subscription Management + Revenue Intelligence (CRM Analytics for revenue reporting).
5. For CPQ Specialists, understanding this positioning is important: new implementations may start with RLM/Revenue Cloud rather than the managed package CPQ, while existing large deployments will remain on package CPQ for years.