Understand value models

A value model defines how sellers articulate the value of their offering in Showpad. It combines discovery items, inputs, formulas, and report templates into a single unit that administrators build, test, and publish. Once published and made available in Showpad, sellers choose the model and create a calculation for a prospect.

Plan your value models

Base the number of models on who you sell to and how each audience judges value. For example, a company that sells to small businesses and enterprises might build one model that calculates hours saved for small businesses, and a separate model focused on cost savings and financial impact for enterprises.

Common reasons to create a separate value model:

• Different outcomes for different customer segments
• Partner distribution with custom branding
• A single product offering
• A combined offering that shows the business case for several products together
• Regional differences in how value is calculated or how buyers judge outcomes

These approaches can coexist. Choose the models that match how your teams sell and how your customers judge value.

You can create a value model four ways:

• From scratch: Configure every item yourself. 
• ValueWizard: Generate a first draft with AI from guided questions. 
• ValueStudio: Create or refine a model at any time through an AI conversation. 
• From a spreadsheet: Import the structure from an existing calculator. 

How the pieces fit together

The build sequence in Value Model Configuration follows this order:

1. General settings
2. Discovery Items
3. Inputs
4. Calculations / Formulas
5. Report templates (built separately)
6. Test
7. Publish

Basic and enhanced discovery

The Required setting splits discovery items and inputs into two tiers.

Draft and published status

Sellers can't see a model while it's in Draft. Use Draft while you build and test, then publish when the model is ready. If you edit a published model, it returns to Draft until you publish again.

Note: Publishing doesn't make a model visible to sellers. The Visible toggle controls whether a published model appears in Showpad, so you can publish a model and keep it hidden until you're ready to release it.

What to prepare before building

• The business outcome the model should calculate
• The inputs sellers can realistically collect from a prospect
• The formulas or logic that compute the results
• Report examples showing how results should be presented
• The seller audience and any visibility restrictions

What’s in each tab

General

The foundation of your value model. This is where you give the model a name, set the currency used in calculations, and control whether the model is in Draft or Active status. Save this tab before you work in any other tab; nothing else is editable until you do.

Discovery Items

The questions and prompts sellers use with a prospect before running a calculation. Think of these as the interview: sellers use them to understand the prospect's situation, capture business challenges, decision criteria, and desired outcomes before numbers come into play. For example: "What industry are you in?" or "What is your current process?"

You can group related questions together so they appear in a logical order for the seller. You can mark individual questions as externally visible, meaning they appear in prospect-facing shared Experiences like live report links.

Inputs

The fields sellers fill in that the model calculates from. If discovery items are the interview, inputs are the spreadsheet cells. For example: "Number of deals closed per month" or "Average deal size." Each input can be a number, integer, monetary value, percentage, boolean, or text field. You can set a default value (called an assumption) that sellers can accept as-is or replace with a figure from the prospect. You can also mark individual inputs as externally visible if you want them to appear in prospect-facing shared Experiences.

You can also configure inputs with response values, which turn a free-entry field into a controlled list. Instead of typing a value, the seller selects from a set of options you define. Use response values when formulas depend on a fixed choice, when you want consistent data across calculations, or when sellers may not know the exact figure and a banded option is more practical.

Calculations / Formulas

The math behind the model. Formulas take input values and compute a result -- for example, multiplying "Number of deals closed per month" by "Average deal size" to get projected monthly revenue.

Formulas can also reference other formulas, so you can build calculations in stages rather than writing one long expression. Each formula produces a number that appears in reports. Formulas marked as key drivers appear in scenario testing and key-driver comparisons.

Opportunity Visibility

Controls who can see the results of a specific calculation once a seller runs the model for a prospect. For example, you might allow only the owning seller and their manager to view results, keeping deal-level data private from other reps. This tab becomes editable after you save the General tab.

Note: Report templates control how formula results display and are shared with prospects. You don't configure them in Value Model Configuration. Build report templates separately, then associate them with the model. See Create and configure a report template.

Manage a value model

On the Value Models page, you can select any value model's three dot menu to access the following options:

• Visitor Activity: View engagement data for the model, including how sellers are using it.
• Value Model Configuration: Open the configuration tabs to edit discovery items, inputs, formulas, and visibility settings.
• ValueStudio: Open the model in ValueStudio to refine its structure through a guided AI conversation.
• Report Templates: Open the report templates associated with this model.
• Branding Configuration: Apply or update branding specific to this value model.
• Embedding Configuration: Configure settings for embedding the model in external pages or forms.
• Duplicate: Create a copy of the model. Useful for creating variations without rebuilding from scratch.

Monitor visitor activity

Visitor Activity shows how prospects are engaging with shared value model Experiences. To access it, open the model's three dot menu and select Visitor Activity.

The page shows three summary metrics and a detailed log:

• Total Visitors: The number of unique visitors who accessed the shared experience.
• Engagement: The percentage of visitors who interacted with the content.
• Submission: The percentage of visitors who submitted a response.

The Visitor Activity Log shows individual records with Visitor ID, Location, Visit Time, Submitted At, and Dropped Off At. Use the date and report filters at the top to narrow the results.

Key concepts