Win Rate

By Federico Donatone · Updated October 15, 2026

Definition

Win rate is the percentage of sales opportunities that end in a won deal, out of all opportunities that reached a final outcome. It is calculated as deals won divided by deals won plus deals lost. Win rate shows how well a team qualifies and sells, and it is a core input to pipeline and revenue forecasts.

How to calculate win rate

FormulaWin rate = Deals won ÷ (Deals won + Deals lost) × 100As an illustration, if you closed 40 opportunities last quarter and won 12 of them, your win rate is 12 ÷ 40 × 100 = 30%.

Only count deals that reached an outcome. Open deals stay out until they close. Use the same definition of an opportunity every time, ideally a qualified opportunity that sales accepted under a written rule, as our B2B Outbound Evidence Standard recommends.

From our workDecide what happens to deals that go silent. If they stay open forever, your win rate looks better than it is. Set a rule that marks them lost after a fixed period with no activity.

Group deals by the date they closed, not the date they were created, so a quarter's number does not keep changing as old deals resolve. Report the count next to the rate, too: a high win rate on a handful of deals tells you very little.

Win rate vs close rate

The two terms are often used as synonyms, and the difference matters when you compare numbers across teams or vendors.

	Win rate	Close rate
Usually measures	Won deals out of closed deals	Won deals out of all opportunities or leads
Includes open deals	No	Sometimes
Best for	Judging sales execution	Judging the whole funnel

Always ask for the denominator. A rate based on leads and a rate based on qualified opportunities can describe the same team and look very different.

Win rate examples from B2B outbound

Two Growth Cab client programs show the number on outbound pipeline, where the opportunities came from outbound campaigns on LinkedIn and email.

23%close rate on 40 qualified opportunities and $12.6M+ in pipeline for ElevateSource: Growth Cab case study: Elevate

33%close rate on 62 qualified opportunities and $1.3M+ in pipeline for JobtomeSource: Growth Cab case study: Jobtome

Both programs aimed at a narrow group of senior buyers with one core message, which is what you would expect to lift win rate: fewer opportunities, each closer to the profile of a past win. The Elevate case study and the Jobtome case study show the targeting and the message behind each.

How to improve win rate

Qualify harder at the start. Weak deals dropped before they become opportunities stop dragging the rate down.
Target better. A tight ideal customer profile produces opportunities that look like your past wins.
Multithread. Deals with several engaged stakeholders survive when one contact goes quiet.
Run loss reviews. Ask lost buyers why, and sort the reasons into price, product, timing, competitor and no decision.
Track win rate by segment, source and rep, so you fix the right thing.

Watch for the trap of raising win rate by shrinking the pipeline. If reps only open opportunities they are sure of, the rate climbs while revenue falls. Read win rate next to pipeline created and average deal size, never on its own.

From our workHave someone other than the rep run loss reviews on your largest lost deals. Buyers tell a neutral person more than they tell the seller who just lost.

Win Rate FAQ

What is a good win rate in B2B sales?

It depends on how you define an opportunity, your deal size and your market, so compare against your own history first. For reference, two Growth Cab outbound programs reached a 23% close rate (Elevate) and a 33% close rate (Jobtome) on qualified opportunities. A strict qualification rule shows a higher rate than a loose one for the same team.

What is the difference between win rate and close rate?

Win rate usually divides won deals by deals that reached an outcome, won or lost. Close rate is often calculated on all opportunities or even all leads, including open ones. Always check the denominator before comparing two numbers.

Should no-decision deals count as losses?

Yes, in most cases. A buyer who chose to do nothing is a deal you did not win, and leaving it out makes your win rate look better than it is. Track no decision as its own loss reason, so you can see how often the status quo beats you.

Related terms

Sales Qualified LeadA sales qualified lead (SQL) is a prospect that the sales team has checked and accepted as a real opportunity worth pursuing. Sales confirms it, usually on a discovery call, against written criteria such as a clear need, access to the decision maker, a budget and a timeline. In most CRMs an SQL becomes an opportunity. Sales CycleA sales cycle is the series of stages a deal goes through from the first contact with a prospect to a signed contract, and the time that journey takes. In B2B, the sales cycle usually runs through prospecting, qualification, discovery, proposal, negotiation and close, and gets longer as deal size and the number of decision makers grow. MEDDICMEDDIC is a sales qualification framework for complex B2B deals. It checks six elements: Metrics, Economic buyer, Decision criteria, Decision process, Identify pain and Champion. Sellers use MEDDIC to judge whether a deal is real, who will actually sign it and what is still missing before they put it in the forecast. MultithreadingMultithreading in sales is the practice of building relationships with several people inside a target account instead of relying on one contact. A multithreaded deal has links to the decision maker, the users, technical evaluators and others in the buying group, so it survives when one person goes quiet, changes jobs or loses influence. Ideal Customer ProfileAn ideal customer profile (ICP) is a description of the type of company that gets the most value from your product and brings you the most value in return. A B2B ideal customer profile lists testable traits such as industry, size, location and a buying trigger, so sales and marketing know which accounts to pursue and which to skip. Customer Acquisition CostCustomer acquisition cost (CAC) is the total sales and marketing spend in a period divided by the number of new customers won in that period. It includes salaries, commissions, tools, agencies and ads, not just campaign budgets. CAC tells a company whether it can afford the way it grows.