Pipeline Coverage Calculator: is there enough in the pipeline?
Put in the target, how you win and what's open. You see the coverage you need against the coverage you have, the gap in euros and in deals, and whether there's still time to close it.
- You enter
- Target, win rate, deal size, sales cycle, open pipeline
- You get
- Coverage needed against actual, the gap in euros and in deals
- Takes
- 2 minutes
- Costs
- Nothing. Email only for the three levers
Every field starts on an example. Put in your own numbers from the CRM; the answer updates as you type.
1The target
New business you have to close this quarter, half year or year.
2How you win
Deals won divided by deals that closed either way (won plus lost), counted over the last 12 months. The 20% here is an example, not a benchmark.
What one closed deal brings in, first-year value.
From the first real meeting to a signature, on a typical won deal.
3What's in the pipeline
Full value of the open deals with a close date inside this period. Not the weighted number your CRM shows: the win rate does the weighting here.
The target isn't in this pipeline.
You have 1.8x coverage. At a 20% win rate you need 5x. This pipeline should close about €36,000 of the €100,000 still to win.
- Still to wintarget minus what's won€100,000
- Pipeline needed5x the rest of the target€500,000
- Pipeline you have1.8x coverage€180,000
- Gappipeline still to create€320,000
- New opportunities neededgap ÷ €12,000 per deal27
- Deals to winto close the rest of the target9
To still close inside this period, those 27 opportunities have to exist within 1 month (months left minus your sales cycle), about 27 a month.
What I'd do about it
Clean the pipeline before you trust the gap
Remove every deal with no next step booked and no reply in a month, then run this again. The gap usually gets bigger, and that's the number to plan on.
Create 27 new opportunities in the next 1 month
Real ones: a first meeting held with someone who has the problem. Count backwards from that to the conversations and outreach it takes, and start this week, because every week you wait takes a week off the window.
Say it out loud now, not in the last week
If the honest forecast is €56,000 against a €120,000 target, the people who own that target should hear it while there's still time to change something.
Three ways to close the gap, with your numbers
Leave your email and you'll see, right here, what each lever would have to do: more opportunities, a higher win rate, or a different target. It updates as you change the fields.
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Want me to look at the pipeline itself?
Send me your website and I'll record a 10-minute video going through it, your positioning and your sales process, with the three leaks I'd fix first. Free, in your inbox within 48 hours.
Coverage is just one over your win rate.
Coverage is the open pipeline divided by what's left of the target. The coverage you need is one divided by your win rate: win one deal in four and you need four times the target in the pipeline. That's where the famous 3x comes from. It's the right number for a team that wins a third of its deals, and the wrong one for everyone else.
The sums, in order: still to win is the target minus what's already won. Pipeline needed is still to win divided by the win rate. The gap is pipeline needed minus the pipeline you have. New opportunities needed is the gap divided by your average deal size, rounded up. And what the pipeline will actually close is the pipeline times the win rate, which is the honest forecast.
The sales cycle is the part most coverage maths leave out. An opportunity you create today closes one cycle from now. If the cycle is longer than what's left of the period, new pipeline can't save this period, and the calculator says so instead of telling you to book 30 meetings by Friday.
Put in the full value of open deals with a real close date, not the weighted number. If your stages don't mean the same thing to everyone on the team, fix that first: the pipeline stage definitions I use are a good place to start.
Questions people ask
What is a good pipeline coverage ratio?
The one that matches your win rate: 1 divided by it. At a 25% win rate that's 4x, at 33% it's 3x, at 50% it's 2x. The 3x rule you hear everywhere is that same sum for a team that wins a third of its deals. If you win one deal in five, 3x coverage means you miss the target by 40%.
Should I use weighted or unweighted pipeline?
Unweighted, with your win rate. A CRM's weighted pipeline has already applied stage probabilities, so multiplying that by a win rate counts the discount twice and makes the gap look worse than it is. Use the full value of open deals with a close date inside the period.
How do I work out my win rate?
Deals won divided by every deal that closed, won plus lost, over the last 12 months, counted in deals. Leave out what's still open. Decide once what counts as an opportunity (I use: a first meeting held with someone who has the problem), because if that definition changes, your win rate changes with it.
Is anything I enter stored?
No. The calculator runs in your browser and nothing is sent while you type. The only thing that leaves the page is your email address, and only if you ask for the three levers.
Not sure the pipeline is real pipeline?
The maths is only as good as what's in the CRM. Send me your website and I'll record a 10-minute video going through it, your positioning and your sales process. Free, in your inbox within 48 hours.