B2B sales statistics for 2026, each traced to its source

This page is for sales leaders writing a plan or a board update, founders deciding how to build a sales team, and reps who want to know how their numbers compare. We opened every source cited here in October 2026. Each figure comes with its publisher, date, sample and method. Vendor research is labelled as vendor research, and the numbers we couldn't trace to an original are listed at the end instead of being quoted.

B2B sales statistics at a glance

How B2B buyers buy now

Gartner has asked the same question in two survey waves, a year apart. In August to September 2024, 61% of 632 B2B buyers said they preferred an overall rep-free buying experience. In the same months of 2025, 67% of 646 buyers said so, and 45% said they had used AI during a recent purchase. These are different samples, not the same people tracked over time, but the direction is clear.

Buyers haven't stopped talking to sellers. They talk to them later and for different reasons. In the 2024 survey, buyers preferred self-service for general research, but wanted a seller's input on whether a product fits their company. And 73% said they actively avoid suppliers that send irrelevant outreach, which makes poor targeting a cost, not just a waste.

6sense's 2025 Buyer Experience Report (vendor research; just under 4,000 respondents across North America, Europe, the UK and Asia-Pacific, each of whom had spent at least $25,000 in the past two years) found:

• Buyers made first contact with sellers 61% of the way through their journey, earlier than the 69% the report found in 2024.
• Buyers initiated 79% of engagements.
• The winning vendor was already on the day-one shortlist 95% of the time.

Its sample skews toward large purchases: the median purchase was $200,000 to $300,000. Even so, the shortlist finding is the one to act on. If buyers decide who's in the running before they talk to anyone, the work that counts happens before the first call: being known to the right accounts at the right moment.

Buying groups are large. Forrester's survey of nearly 18,000 business buyers found that, on average, 13 internal stakeholders and 9 external participants influence a purchase, and that 94% of buyers used AI somewhere in the process. Forrester's definition of "using AI" is broader than Gartner's, which is why the two figures (94% and 45%) differ so much.

How sellers spend their time and hit quota

Salesforce's seventh State of Sales report (vendor research; 4,050 sales professionals in 22 countries, surveyed August to September 2025) found the average seller spends 40% of their time selling. Sellers spend nearly a full day of the workweek on prospecting, and 48% say they lack the bandwidth for adequate cold outreach.

Quota attainment is low on every measure we could trace:

The Ebsta figures come from CRM records, which makes them harder data than a survey, but they cover only the companies that use Ebsta, and each edition has a different set of companies. The Bridge Group's sample is mostly SaaS companies with engaged sales development leaders, so treat its numbers as a SaaS benchmark.

HubSpot's 2024 Sales Trends Report puts the average win rate at 21%, from a survey of more than 1,400 sales professionals in August 2023. The report doesn't define win rate, and its sample includes B2C sellers, so it's a rough reference, not a target.

US sales jobs and pay

Government data is the most reliable sales statistic you can cite, because it comes from a large employer survey with a published method. These figures are from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics for May 2025, released in May 2026.

OEWS counts wage and salary workers and leaves out the self-employed. The BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook projects little or no change (0%) in employment of wholesale and manufacturing sales representatives from 2025 to 2035, with about 123,400 openings a year as people retire or change jobs. Its job count (1,571,400 in 2025) is higher than the table's because it combines both wholesale codes and includes the self-employed. For what each role does day to day, see the guides to the account executive and sales development representative roles.

AI in sales

• Use is widespread. 87% of sales organizations use some form of AI, and 54% of sales professionals say they've used AI agents (Salesforce, 2026, vendor research).
• It correlates with quota. Sellers who effectively partner with AI tools were 3.7 times more likely to meet quota, in a Gartner survey of 1,026 B2B sellers from January to March 2024. That's a correlation: strong sellers may simply adopt tools faster.
• Accuracy is the open question. GTM-Bench (Blackpearl Group, the company behind Bebop, June 2026) tested seven AI systems on 72 prospecting tasks built from real queries. The share of returned records that met its A-grade bar ranged from 13.6% to 40.9%, and four of the seven systems returned more poor matches than good ones. Blackpearl's own purpose-built system scored highest, so read this as first-party research, and check any AI-built list before you use it.

Prospecting and outreach

The most cited buyer survey on prospecting is RAIN Group's Top Performance in Sales Prospecting (vendor research by a sales training firm; 488 buyers and 489 sellers, surveyed June to July 2017). It found that 82% of buyers accept meetings "at least sometimes" with sellers who reach out, and that about 7 in 10 buyers had accepted a phone call from a provider they hadn't worked with. The data is nine years old, and roundups usually drop the "at least sometimes". For channel-level numbers with their samples, see the cold calling statistics and cold email statistics.

What these numbers can and can't tell you

• Surveys report opinions; CRM data reports outcomes. Gartner, Salesforce, HubSpot and RAIN Group asked people. Ebsta counted opportunities. A stated preference for rep-free buying isn't the same as buying without a rep.
• Samples have a shape. The Bridge Group's is mostly SaaS. 6sense screened for purchases of $25,000 or more. HubSpot mixed B2B and B2C. A benchmark from a different market, deal size or region may not apply to you.
• Year-on-year changes compare different samples. Gartner's 61% and 67% come from two separate groups of buyers.
• Definitions vary. HubSpot doesn't define win rate. Forrester's "using AI" is broader than Gartner's. Always check what was counted before you compare.

How to measure your own sales statistics

Your own numbers beat any benchmark, because they reflect your market, your deal size and your process. Fix the definitions once and keep them for every period:

Illustrative example. The company and numbers are invented to show the arithmetic.

Ridgeline Software (ridgeline.example) has six account executives, each with a $100,000 quarterly quota. In Q3:

• 48 opportunities closed: 12 won and 36 lost. Win rate: 12 / 48 = 25%.
• Won revenue was $540,000. Average deal size: $540,000 / 12 = $45,000.
• Team attainment: $540,000 / $600,000 = 90%. Four of the six reps reached quota: 4 / 6 = 67% at quota.
• Won deals took an average of 74 days from opportunity to close.
• With 60 open opportunities, sales velocity is 60 x 0.25 x $45,000 / 74 = about $9,120 of expected revenue a day.

Ridgeline's 25% win rate looks better than HubSpot's 21%, but HubSpot's figure has no stated definition and includes B2C sellers. The useful comparison is Ridgeline against its own last four quarters, using the same definitions. For the cycle in more depth, see sales cycle length, and for the velocity formula, the sales velocity definition.

Widely quoted, but we couldn't trace the original

These appear on many statistics pages. We left them out of the figures above:

• "80% of B2B sales interactions will happen in digital channels by 2025," credited to Gartner. We couldn't open the original release, and it was a forecast for a year that has passed.
• "Buyers spend only 17% of their buying time meeting suppliers." Gartner's B2B buying journey page said this in 2022, without a sample or survey date, alongside a buying group of "six to 10 decision makers". The passage has since been removed from the page, so treat it as historical.
• Older "reps spend only a third of their time selling" figures. Earlier editions of Salesforce's report are no longer at their original addresses; the current edition says 40%.
• "80% of sales need five follow-ups." We found no original study.
• "The average B2B sales cycle is 102 days." It's two 2014 figures from one vendor added together. The sales cycle length page explains.

Next step: put your own win rate, deal size and cycle into the sales velocity formula to see which lever moves revenue most.