01 What it is
Why anyone looks at this number
The share of decided opportunities that you won.
It is the cleanest read on competitiveness. A falling win rate at unchanged price means the offer, not the pricing, has slipped — and it moves before revenue does.
02 The formula
How it is worked out
Win rate = opportunities_won ÷ opportunities_closed grain : quarter × segment × product unit : percentage source : CRM
Count only closed opportunities in the denominator. Including open pipeline makes the rate rise whenever deals are slow, which is exactly backwards.
03 Worked example
The same number, with real inputs
| Opportunities won | 48 |
| Opportunities closed | 160 |
| Calculation | 48 ÷ 160 |
| Result | 30% |
Down from 36% while price held. That is a competitiveness signal roughly two quarters before it reaches the revenue line.
04 What moves it
Four things that actually change this number
Lead quality
Winning more of a worse pipeline is not an improvement.
Competitive position
Who you meet in the deal and what they now offer.
Price and terms
Where you sit against the alternative the buyer would otherwise take.
Qualification discipline
Walking away early raises the rate and saves the cost of losing late.
05 Where the number lives
The system, the record and the fields
| System of record | Key record | Fields you need |
|---|---|---|
| CRM | Opportunity | stage, close_date, amount, loss_reason, competitor, source |
Count only closed opportunities in the denominator. Including open pipeline makes the rate rise whenever deals are slow, which is exactly backwards.
06 How it goes wrong
Three ways this metric misleads people
Counting by number, not value
Winning many small deals and losing the large ones looks like a healthy rate.
Fix: Report win rate by count and by value, side by side.Dirty loss reasons
Everything gets coded "price", so the real cause is never visible.
Fix: Make loss reason mandatory with a short controlled list, and audit a sample.Ignoring no-decision
Deals that die quietly are removed rather than counted as losses.
Fix: Track no-decision separately — it usually means a qualification problem.08 Questions
Frequently asked
What is a good win rate?
It depends on how you qualify. A team that only pursues well-qualified deals will show a much higher rate than one that quotes everything. Your own trend is the useful comparison.
Should no-decision count as a loss?
Track it separately. A high no-decision rate points at qualification or at a business case that never got made, which needs a very different fix from losing to a competitor.
One definition, everywhere it is used
SCIKIQ stores this metric once and serves it to every dashboard, board pack and agent that asks.