Sales Pipeline Metrics Glossary & Cheat Sheet

Pipeline Volume & Health

Pipeline Coverage Ratio

• Plain English: how much open pipeline you have relative to the quota you still need to hit.
• Formula: Total Open Pipeline Value ÷ Remaining Quota
• Healthy range: 3x-4x for a 90-day cycle; longer cycles or lower win rates need higher coverage.
• Watch for: stale or duplicate deals inflating the numerator without adding real coverage.

Pipeline Value

• Plain English: the total dollar value of every open, active opportunity.
• Formula: Sum of Amount across all open opportunities.
• Watch for: deals with no activity in 30+ days still counted as "open."

Weighted Pipeline

• Plain English: pipeline value adjusted for how likely each deal is to close, based on its stage.
• Formula: Σ (Deal Amount × Stage Probability %)
• Watch for: stage probabilities that were set once, years ago, and never validated against actual win rates by stage.

Aged Pipeline

• Plain English: open deals that have sat in the same stage far longer than your average.
• Formula: Flag any deal where Days in Current Stage > 2x the average Days in Stage for that stage.
• Watch for: aged deals quietly propping up coverage ratio while being functionally dead.

Pipeline Creation Rate

• Plain English: new qualified pipeline dollars generated in a given period.
• Formula: Sum of Amount for opportunities created (and qualified) in the period.
• Healthy range: should be tracked weekly, with a rolling 4-week average compared against the coverage you need to generate next quarter's number.

Conversion & Velocity

Win Rate

• Plain English: the share of qualified opportunities that actually close-won.
• Formula: Closed-Won Count ÷ (Closed-Won + Closed-Lost Count)
• Healthy range: varies widely by segment — 20-30% is common in competitive mid-market; track your own trend more than an external benchmark.
• Watch for: win rate measured against all opportunities created (including unqualified junk) rather than qualified pipeline — this quietly inflates the number.

Stage Conversion Rate

• Plain English: the percentage of deals that move from one specific stage to the next.
• Formula: Count Entering Stage N+1 ÷ Count Entering Stage N (same cohort)
• Watch for: the stage with the steepest drop-off — that's your actual coaching priority, not the overall win rate.

Days in Stage

• Plain English: how long a deal typically sits in a given stage before moving.
• Formula: Average (Date Left Stage − Date Entered Stage) per stage.
• Watch for: a stage where days-in-stage is rising quarter over quarter — an early signal of a broken step in the sales process.

Sales Cycle Length

• Plain English: average time from opportunity created to closed-won.
• Formula: Average (Close Date − Create Date) across won deals.
• Watch for: cycle length calculated only on won deals — lost deals often take just as long and should factor into ramp and coverage math.

Pipeline Velocity

• Plain English: the single number that captures how fast revenue is moving through the pipeline.
• Formula: (# of Opportunities × Win Rate × Average Deal Size) ÷ Sales Cycle Length
• Healthy range: track the trend, not the absolute value — velocity should be rising as reps ramp and process improves.

Forecast Accuracy & Categories

Forecast Accuracy %

• Plain English: how close the forecasted number was to what actually closed.
• Formula: 1 − |Forecasted Amount − Actual Closed Amount| ÷ Forecasted Amount
• Healthy range: 90%+ at the Commit level is the target for a mature forecasting process.

Slip Rate

• Plain English: the percentage of deals whose close date moved to a later period.
• Formula: Count of Deals with Pushed Close Date ÷ Total Open Deals (in period)
• Watch for: a rep with a consistently high slip rate on the exact same 2-3 deals — a sign those deals were never real Commit candidates.

Sandbagging Index

• Plain English: a rough measure of deals closing that weren't forecasted as Commit — i.e., reps under-forecasting to guarantee they beat their number.
• Formula: Count of Closed-Won Deals NOT in Commit the prior period ÷ Total Closed-Won Deals
• Watch for: a high index alongside a rep who's always "surprised" by a good quarter — it's usually not luck.

Commit / Best Case / Pipeline / Omitted (forecast categories)

• Commit: the rep is confident this closes in-period and can defend it with evidence, not hope.
• Best Case: plausible to close in-period, but a specific condition still needs to be true.
• Pipeline: real and qualified, but not expected to close this period.
• Omitted: excluded entirely — dead, on hold, or too early to count.

Rep-Level Metrics

Quota Attainment

• Formula: Actual Closed Revenue ÷ Quota Target (for the period)

Multi-thread Depth

• Plain English: how many distinct stakeholders the rep is engaged with per deal.
• Formula: Count of distinct contacts with logged activity per opportunity.
• Watch for: single-threaded late-stage deals — the single highest predictor of a stall or loss.

Self-Sourced vs Marketing-Sourced Pipeline

• Plain English: the split between pipeline the rep generated themselves versus pipeline handed to them.
• Formula: Self-Sourced Pipeline Value ÷ Total Pipeline Value
• Watch for: over-reliance on inbound masking a rep's actual prospecting skill gap.