Short answer
Win rate is the share of closed sales opportunities you win: deals won ÷ (deals won + deals lost) × 100. Count only closed deals, close out stalled and no-decision deals by a written rule, and calculate it both by count and by value, because a team that loses its biggest deals can look healthy on count alone. HubSpot's 2024 survey put the average at 21%, but your own past quarters are the better comparison.
- Win rate = won ÷ (won + lost), for opportunities closed in the period. Leave open deals out.
- Count no-decision deals as losses, closed out by a fixed inactivity rule.
- Calculate it by value as well as count; a gap between them shows where you lose.
- Published averages rarely define win rate, so compare with your own history first.
- In Ebsta's CRM data, deals whose close date moved more than three times won 77% less often.
On this page
This page is for sales leaders, RevOps analysts and reps who want a win rate they can trust and act on. It gives the formulas, a rule for every awkward kind of deal, a worked example where one quarter yields three different answers, and the levers that move the number.
What win rate means
In sales, win rate is the percentage of opportunities that end in a signed deal, out of all opportunities that reached a decision. It measures how well you convert real deals, not how many leads you generate. It's one of the four inputs to sales velocity, alongside the number of opportunities, deal value and cycle length.
The term has other meanings. In trading, win rate is winning trades ÷ total trades, and it says nothing about profit without the size of wins and losses. In games, it's wins ÷ games played. The rest of this page is about sales.
The win rate formulas
| Version | Formula | Use it for |
|---|---|---|
| By count | Deals won ÷ (deals won + deals lost) | The standard figure; rep and team comparisons |
| By value | Value of deals won ÷ value of all deals closed | Seeing whether you lose the big ones |
| Cohort | Deals won ÷ opportunities created in a period, once they've all closed | Forecasting from new pipeline |
| Competitive | Deals won ÷ deals closed where a named competitor was involved | Judging how you fare head to head |
Multiply by 100 for a percentage. Use the same window for every version, usually a trailing quarter or two quarters, and calculate each one by segment as well as overall.
Which deals to include
Most arguments about win rate are really arguments about which deals count. Settle each case once:
| Deal | Rule | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Still open | Exclude | It hasn't been decided |
| Lost to a competitor | Include as lost | The plainest loss |
| No decision (the buyer did nothing) | Include as lost | You spent the effort and didn't win |
| Stalled, no activity for 60 days | Close out as lost by rule, then include | Otherwise it sits open and flatters the rate |
| Disqualified before it became an opportunity | Exclude | It never entered the pipeline |
| Duplicate or created in error | Exclude | Data clean-up, not a sales outcome |
| Renewals and expansion | Track separately | Existing customers win far more often and blur new business |
The "no decision" rule matters most. Excluding those deals is the quickest way to report a better number without selling better.
Worked example: one quarter, three win rates
Illustrative example. The company and figures are invented to show the arithmetic.
Riverbend Water Systems (riverbend.example) sells water treatment equipment to industrial plants. In the third quarter it closed 60 opportunities: 15 won, 33 lost to competitors or budget, and 12 closed out as no decision after 60 days without activity.
- Excluding no-decision deals: 15 ÷ (15 + 33) = 31%
- By count, all closed deals: 15 ÷ 60 = 25%
- By value: won $900,000 of $5.1M closed = 18%
The split by deal size shows why value is lower:
| Deal size | Closed | Won | Win rate by count | Value won | Value closed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under $50,000 (average $35,000) | 36 | 12 | 33% | $420,000 | $1.26M |
| $50,000 and over (average $160,000) | 24 | 3 | 13% | $480,000 | $3.84M |
| All | 60 | 15 | 25% | $900,000 | $5.1M |
Riverbend wins a third of its small deals and one in eight of its large ones. The 25% headline hides that, and the 31% hides it further. The next question is what's different about the large deals: more stakeholders, a longer evaluation, a competitor that's stronger at that size, or deals that weren't really qualified.
What benchmarks really say
The most quoted figure comes from HubSpot's 2024 Sales Trends Report: "In 2023, the average sales win rate is 21%", from a survey of more than 1,400 sales professionals in August 2023. The report doesn't define win rate and mixes B2B and B2C sellers, so it's a rough reference, not a target. Win rates also vary with how early you create opportunities: a team that opens one after a first call will show a lower rate than one that waits for a confirmed budget.
Compare your win rate with your own previous quarters, by segment, using the same definitions. For more traced figures, see the sales statistics page.
How to improve your win rate
Ebsta's 2024 benchmark report, based on 4.2 million opportunities at 530 companies, found several patterns worth acting on. They're correlations from CRM data, not controlled experiments, but they point at habits you can change:
- Keep close dates honest. Deals whose close date moved more than three times saw win rates 77% lower. Treat a second slip as a signal to requalify the deal.
- Don't skip stages. Opportunities that skipped a stage were 46% less likely to close. Use exit criteria for each stage, as described in sales pipeline.
- Hold discounts until negotiation. When a discount was discussed or applied before the negotiation stage, win rates dropped by 39%. Lead with value; discuss price when the buyer has chosen you.
- Qualify out earlier. Closing poor-fit deals at discovery raises the win rate and frees time for winnable ones. Check that total wins don't fall.
- Run win and loss reviews. Ask a handful of buyers each quarter, won and lost, why they decided as they did. Their words beat your CRM's loss-reason picklist.
Fit is the lever that comes before all of these. Bebop finds companies that match a plain-language description of your best customers and explains why each one fits, so fewer poor-fit deals enter the pipeline in the first place.
Related terms and common confusions
| Term | Formula | How it differs from win rate |
|---|---|---|
| Win-loss ratio | Won ÷ lost | Riverbend's is 15 ÷ 45 = 1 to 3; its win rate is 25% |
| Close rate | Varies: often new customers ÷ leads or ÷ opportunities | Check the denominator; often used for a much earlier stage |
| Conversion rate | Moves from one stage to the next ÷ entries to that stage | Win rate is the final conversion |
| Quota attainment | Bookings ÷ quota | Outcome against a target, not a ratio of deals |
Common mistakes
- Leaving dead deals open. Stalled opportunities never count as losses, so the rate looks better every quarter they sit there.
- Mixing new business and renewals. Renewals inflate the rate and hide new-business problems.
- Comparing reps on tiny samples. A rep with eight closed deals can swing 12 points on one result. Use two quarters or more.
- Raising win rate by shrinking the pipeline. A higher rate on fewer deals can mean less revenue. Watch wins and velocity alongside it.
Next step: see how win rate combines with deal value, volume and cycle length in the sales velocity formula.
Sources
- 2024 Sales Trends Report, HubSpot, 2024
- B2B Sales Benchmark Report 2024, Ebsta, February 2024
Written by the Bebop team at Blackpearl Group. Last updated .
Questions people ask
How do you calculate win rate in sales?
Divide the number of deals won by the number of deals closed (won plus lost) in a period, then multiply by 100. For example, 15 won out of 60 closed is a 25% win rate. Leave open deals out, count no-decision deals as losses, and close out stalled deals with a fixed rule such as 60 days without activity, so they don't sit open forever.
What is a good sales win rate?
HubSpot's 2024 Sales Trends Report put the average at 21%, from a survey of more than 1,400 B2B and B2C sales professionals in August 2023, but it didn't define win rate. Rates depend heavily on when you create opportunities and on deal size, so outside benchmarks are a rough guide. Compare with your own previous quarters, by segment, using the same definition.
Should no-decision deals count as lost?
Yes. A no-decision outcome means you spent the time and didn't win. Excluding these deals makes the win rate look better without any change in selling. Set a written rule for closing them out, such as no buyer activity for 60 days, and count them as lost in the standard win rate.
What is the difference between win rate and win-loss ratio?
Win rate divides wins by all closed deals: 15 wins out of 60 closed is 25%. Win-loss ratio divides wins by losses: 15 wins and 45 losses is 1 to 3, or 0.33. Both use the same data, but win rate is easier to read and compare, and it's the version used in formulas such as sales velocity.
Should win rate be measured by count or by value?
Both. Win rate by count shows how often you win; win rate by value (value won ÷ value closed) shows whether you win the deals that matter most. If your value rate is well below your count rate, you're losing larger deals more often, which points to issues such as weak multi-threading, a stronger competitor at that size or poorly qualified big opportunities.
How can I improve my win rate?
Qualify out poor-fit deals early, keep close dates honest, use clear exit criteria for each pipeline stage and hold discounts until negotiation. In Ebsta's 2024 analysis of 4.2 million opportunities, deals whose close date moved more than three times won 77% less often, and discounts raised before negotiation went with 39% lower win rates. Interview won and lost buyers each quarter.