What is sales velocity?
Sales velocity is how much revenue moves through your pipeline per day. It combines four levers into one number: how many opportunities you have, how often you win, how large the deals are, and how long the cycle takes.
Also called pipeline velocity, it turns the whole sales motion into a single rate, which makes it useful for spotting which lever to pull.
The sales velocity formula.
Sales velocity = (number of opportunities times win rate times average deal value) divided by the sales cycle length in days. The result is revenue per day.
Use consistent inputs over the same period. Win rate as a decimal, deal value in dollars, cycle in days.
A worked example.
You have 50 opportunities, a 25% win rate, a 20,000 dollar average deal, and a 60-day cycle. Velocity is 50 times 0.25 times 20,000, divided by 60, which is about 4,167 dollars a day.
What is a good sales velocity?
There is no universal benchmark, because velocity scales with the size of the business. The value is in the trend and the levers. The formula makes the trade-offs visible: a shorter cycle and a higher win rate both raise velocity, often more cheaply than chasing more opportunities.
Three of the four inputs have their own calculators: win rate, average deal size, and the opportunity count behind your pipeline coverage.
How to increase sales velocity.
Improve any of the four inputs. Shortening the sales cycle and lifting the win rate are often the fastest, since they do not require more pipeline.
Better-fit prospects move faster and win more, so acquisition quality raises velocity on two of the four levers at once. See how we bring better-fit pipeline through SEO.