Deal velocity

Definition

Deal velocity is the rate at which qualified opportunities move from the first conversation to closed‑won. A practical way to think about it: how quickly your pipeline turns into cash without sacrificing deal quality.

Working formula

Deal velocity = (Number of deals × Average deal size × Win rate) ÷ Sales cycle length

Each variable represents a lever you can actually pull, often with different owners across sales, presales, marketing, RevOps, and legal.

A quick field test (use your numbers)

You need $1.2M this quarter.
Average deal size is $24k. You therefore need ~50 wins.
Current win rate is 20%; you need ~250 qualified opps.
Average cycle time is 60 days, and you have 45 days left.

Conclusion: Even with enough pipeline, you will miss unless you compress cycle time or lift win rate. Deal velocity surfaces this constraint early enough to act.

Why deal velocity matters in B2B SaaS

Forecast reliability: Velocity ties activity to revenue timing; it’s the difference between “we have coverage” and “we have a plan.”
Capital efficiency: Faster cycles reduce the cost of sale and discounting pressure, improving contribution margin.
Go‑to‑market focus: It exposes friction by stage (security review, redlines, executive sign‑off) so teams can fix what actually slows deals.

Common velocity blockers (by stage)

Early stage: Unclear qualification, diffused ICP, demo‑first motions that ignore business case.
Middle stage: Access to decision makers limited to a champion; competitive confusion; weak mutual action plans.
Late stage: Legal and procurement redlines from scratch; security questionnaires started too late; pricing approvals bottlenecked.

Deal velocity vs. pipeline coverage

These are not substitutes.

Concept	What it shows	What it hides
Pipeline coverage	Top-of-funnel volume vs. target (e.g., 3×)	Friction by stage, decision risk, timing
Deal velocity	Conversion speed to revenue	Top-of-funnel sufficiency if the pipe is thin

A team can have 4x coverage and still miss because legal cycles push revenue out of the quarter. Velocity catches that.

Five diagnostic questions when velocity slows

Which stage has the longest dwell time this quarter vs. last?
What percentage of deals have a documented mutual action plan with dated owner tasks?
How many security, legal, and pricing defaults are pre‑approved vs. created net‑new?
Do we have executive access by week two of a qualified cycle?
Which objections recur, and where is the content that resolves them?

How to improve velocity without cutting corners

30 days

Standardize qualification; require a business problem and success metric in discovery notes.
Introduce mutual action plans for all opportunities above a threshold ACV.
Publish a “last‑mile” kit: ROI one‑pager, reference path, implementation outline.

60 days

Pre‑approve contract and pricing guardrails with legal and finance.
Set up a security questionnaire library and response process.
Instrument stage‑level SLAs (e.g., redlines turned in 48 hours).

90 days

Run win/loss on stalled deals to identify systemic blockers.
Align capture planning with marketing and presales for named accounts (see Capture planning and the proposal pipeline).
Automate repetitive proposal content; measure time‑to‑first‑draft and time‑to‑sign as KPIs.

Velocity is about removing avoidable friction so champions can make a confident, timely decision. Teams that treat it as an operating system, rather than a single metric, see compound gains across forecast accuracy, margin, and win rate.

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