ZeroExport vs Conga Composer: A Head-to-Head Comparison

Conga Composer is the default answer to "how do we generate documents from Salesforce." It has been the default for a long time, it is deployed at enormous scale, and for a large class of documents it is genuinely the right tool.

This is a direct comparison rather than a checklist. If you are still deciding whether to move at all, the evaluation checklist is the better starting point, and if you have already decided, the phased Composer migration plan covers the mechanics. This post is the middle question: how do the two actually differ, and which one fits the documents you have.

A note on scope. We build ZeroExport, so read this accordingly. Every factual claim about Conga below is sourced to Conga's own documentation or to public discussion, and the section on where Conga wins is real rather than decorative. Where ZeroExport makes no claim, this post says so.

The one structural difference

Everything else follows from a single architectural choice.

Conga Composer merges data into an Office file. You author a template in Microsoft Word, Excel, or PowerPoint, place merge fields, upload it, and Composer merges Salesforce data into that file at generation time. Word merge templates are Conga's most dynamic template type, with special merge fields for logic, formulas, and repeating rows.

ZeroExport builds a structure-aware template. The document is modeled as structure — sections, groups, repeaters, computed values — authored inside Salesforce as a managed package and rendered through a modern pipeline. There is no Office file in the loop.

Neither is universally better. The choice determines what is easy and what is painful.

Side by side

	Conga Composer	ZeroExport
Template medium	Word / Excel / PowerPoint file	Structure-aware template, built in Salesforce
Where templates live	Uploaded files, versioned by you	Inside your org
Authoring	Microsoft Office plus merge-field syntax	Native builder, no Office round-trip
Deeply nested data	Nested tables are a known friction point	Nested hierarchies render as real structure
Grouping and subtotals	Achievable, expressed in merge-field syntax	Declarative grouping with per-group rollups
Missing field	Typically a blank gap or a raw token	Layout reflows, with a build-time warning
Output formats	Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF, HTML email	PDF and HTML
Maturity	Very mature, large install base	Younger product, narrower surface

Where the merge-template model gets expensive

Nested structures fight the format

A Word file is a linear flow of paragraphs and tables. A quote with products, then features, then options is a tree. Expressing a tree in a linear format means nested tables, and nested tables plus the queries that feed them are a long-running source of difficulty. It is doable. The cost is that the complexity ends up inside a Word file that one person understands.

The template lives outside the platform

The document that governs what your customers see is a binary file. It is not part of your org's configuration, it does not move through your environments the way the rest of your setup does, and comparing two versions means opening both in Word. Most orgs running Composer for a few years have a folder of near-identical templates nobody wants to touch. The related problem — logic hidden inside the template file itself — is what makes those folders risky rather than merely untidy.

Failures are silent

This is the one that costs real money. In a merge model, a merge field pointing at data that is not in the result set generally produces nothing. The document renders, it looks plausible, and the subtotal is simply absent. You find out when a customer asks.

ZeroExport treats that as a structural problem rather than a formatting one: a section set to hide when its data is null disappears along with its header instead of leaving a gap, adaptive layout reflows around a missing value rather than stranding a label, and a readiness check warns you before you generate. The outcome-based comparison walks through this scenario in detail.

Cost moves with volume

Public discussion of Composer pricing includes a customer reporting a shift from a license model to per-use, with a renewal moving from $5,800 to $17,800. We cannot speak to anyone else's contract, and pricing is negotiated and varies. The general point stands on its own: per-document metering ties document cost to business volume. ZeroExport is priced as a flat annual fee per org, so the two shapes diverge as you grow. Model your real numbers rather than taking either vendor's word for it.

Where Conga Composer is the better choice

Genuinely, not as a courtesy:

You need Word or Excel as the output. An editable .docx, a working spreadsheet with live formulas, a PowerPoint deck. ZeroExport renders PDF and HTML. If someone downstream needs to edit the file, Conga wins outright.
Your document authors live in Word. If legal or marketing owns the template and edits it weekly, handing them a Word file is a real advantage rather than a compromise.
High-volume batch generation. Composer has Batch and Trigger and years of production hardening at scale. Raw rendering performance at very high volume is not a claim we make.
Breadth of surface. Conga covers ground — signature workflow, contract lifecycle adjacency, a large partner ecosystem — that a focused tool does not.
Longevity matters more than fit. Conga will be here. We intend to be, but we are a smaller bet and you should price that in.

We would also rather you not switch for a reason we cannot support. We make no claim on pixel-exact page-break control. If those are your requirements, evaluate carefully before committing.

If you land on "keep Composer," that is a fine place to land, and you can still test the assumption for free. ZeroExport's free tier is three active templates, free forever, with no credit card — enough to rebuild a document or two and compare against what Composer produces today, without touching your Composer setup or starting a migration.

Who should actually switch

The switch makes sense when your documents have structure rather than just fields:

Quotes with product features and options, or bundles that need to render as a hierarchy
Line items grouped by charge type, product family, or term, each with its own subtotal
Sections that appear conditionally, and headers that must disappear when their table is empty
A Word template patched so many times nobody will open it
Anywhere a wrong or blank number has already reached a customer once

If your document is a flat list of fields and one total, Composer will do it, and you should leave it alone.

Switching does not mean a cutover. This is the part most comparison pages skip. You do not rip Composer out and rebuild forty templates over a weekend — you migrate by pain, starting with the single document that costs you the most. The free tier is three active templates, which is the size of a real first wave rather than a trial: rebuild the worst quote and the two documents behind it, run them in parallel, and decide about the rest with evidence instead of a forecast. The phased Composer migration plan covers what comes after that, including the Composer-specific traps — merge queries holding undocumented logic, button parameter strings that turn out to be the real spec, and the Salesforce metadata that only ever existed to feed a merge.

FAQ

Is ZeroExport fully native to Salesforce?

Yes. It is a managed package that runs entirely inside Salesforce. There is no external service to authenticate, patch, or account for in a security review, and document data is not sent out of the org to be rendered.

Do I have to rebuild my Word templates?

Yes. The models are not compatible, so a structure-aware template is rebuilt rather than imported. For a simple document that is a short exercise. For a complex quote it is a real project, and the phased migration plan exists because it should be scoped honestly.

Can ZeroExport output editable Word files?

No. ZeroExport renders PDF and HTML. If an editable .docx is a hard requirement, Conga is the right tool for that document.

How does ZeroExport pricing compare to Conga?

ZeroExport is a flat annual price per org rather than a per-document or per-use fee, so cost does not scale with document volume. Whether that is cheaper for you depends entirely on your volume, so model both against your real numbers.

What happens if a merge field points at data that is not there?

Rather than printing a raw token or leaving a blank gap, the layout reflows around the missing value and the structural problem surfaces as a build-time warning before the document ships.

Can I run Conga and ZeroExport at the same time?

Yes, and several teams do. Composer for Word-output and batch documents, ZeroExport for the structurally complex PDFs. They are not mutually exclusive, and a phased migration usually means running both for a while anyway.