The formula
Average sales cycle length = total days from first meeting to signature, across deals won in the period / number of deals won
How to calculate sales cycle length
For each deal you won in the period, count the days from the start point to the day it signed. Add them up and divide by the number of deals.
Worked example, with made-up figures: you won 6 deals last quarter, and they took 12, 18, 21, 25, 30 and 94 days. That's 200 days in all, so the average is 200 / 6 = 33.3 days. The median, the middle of the six, is 23 days, halfway between 21 and 25.
The one 94-day deal adds 10 days to the average. Take it out and the other five average 106 / 5 = 21.2 days. So work out both, and plan on the median unless your big deals are the ones you plan around.
How to measure it in your team
- Pick one start point and keep it. The first meeting held is the one a small team can record reliably. If your CRM creates an opportunity at a set stage, that works too, as long as it's the same every time.
- End it on the day the deal signs, not the day the invoice is paid.
- Count deals won only. Lost deals take a different length of time, and mixing them in blurs both. If you want the lost side, work out time to a loss separately.
- Split it when your deals differ. New customers and renewals, or small deals and large ones, usually have very different cycles.
- Count days in each stage as well as the total. The stage where deals sit longest is where the time goes.
Why cycle length changes your month
Cycle length is the delay between the work and the revenue. If a typical deal takes 23 days, the first meetings held this week are the deals you sign in about three weeks' time. A quiet week of meetings shows up as a quiet week of signatures a month later, when it's too late to fix.
It's also one of the four numbers in sales velocity: opportunities, deal size and win rate over cycle length. Cut the cycle and the same pipeline brings in more revenue a day. The sales velocity calculator shows how much.
What a good sales cycle length looks like
We don't print an industry average. Cycle length depends on your price, how many people sign off and how your buyers buy, so another company's figure says little about yours. Good is shorter than your own last two quarters, with no stage where deals sit much longer than the rest.
| Who's looking | What they check | What good looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Sales manager | Median days by deal size, each month | Steady or falling, with no stage holding deals for weeks |
| Rep | Days since the last step on each open deal | Every open deal has a next step with a date |
| Founder or owner | Cycle length against cash | Enough cash to cover the gap between the work and the revenue |
Why are your deals taking longer?
When the median creeps up, it's usually one of these:
- More people sign off on the buyer's side, and nobody met them until the end.
- Proposals go out without a date for the next conversation.
- Deals that should have been lost sit open, so they drag the count up when they finally close.
- The deals themselves got bigger, and bigger deals take longer.
And what brings it back down:
- Ask in the first meeting who else decides, and meet them early.
- End every meeting with the next step and its date, in the diary before you leave.
- Close out deals with no reply for a month, so the pipeline shows what's live.
- Look at the stage where deals wait longest and fix that one first.
Work out your sales cycle length
Median: 23 days
- Average: 33.3 days
- Longest: 94 days
- Deals counted: 6
Where it shows up in your week
A deal with no next step is a deal getting longer. Follow-ups are typed in one line, dated, and reminded, so each deal's next step turns up on its day.
Related KPIs, terms and tools
Questions managers ask
Sources
The page states no outside figure, so there's nothing to cite here.