Sales Pipeline Velocity
Sales pipeline velocity measures how quickly revenue moves through your sales funnel. It combines four factors: number of opportunities, average deal size, win rate, and sales cycle length. Higher velocity means more revenue generated per unit of time.
Why Sales Pipeline Velocity Matters for SaaS Companies
Pipeline velocity tells you how efficiently your sales engine converts opportunities into revenue. Improving any of the four components — more opportunities, larger deals, higher win rates, or shorter cycles — accelerates revenue. For Seed to Series B companies, understanding which component is the bottleneck determines where to invest.
Formula
Pipeline Velocity = (Number of Opportunities x Average Deal Value x Win Rate) / Sales Cycle Length (days)
Benchmark
Varies by segment. The trend matters more than the absolute number — track monthly and optimize the weakest component.
Tools for Measurement
An Operator's Take
Most founders try to increase pipeline velocity by adding more opportunities (top of funnel). That is the most expensive lever. I usually find that the highest-leverage fix is shortening the sales cycle. At one company, the average sales cycle was 62 days. When we analyzed stage-by-stage timing, 28 of those days were spent waiting for legal contract review. We standardized contracts and added pre-approved terms. Cycle dropped to 31 days. Pipeline velocity doubled without a single additional lead.
Common Mistakes
What I see go wrong at Seed to Series B companies.
Only trying to increase opportunities (top of funnel) when win rate or cycle time is the real bottleneck.
Not measuring pipeline velocity by segment. Enterprise and SMB pipelines have fundamentally different velocities.
Ignoring deals that stall. Stalled deals drag down velocity and clog the pipeline with false signal.
What to Do This Week
Concrete steps you can take right now.
Calculate pipeline velocity for the last two quarters. Which component improved or declined most?
Identify your longest sales cycle stages. Where do deals stall? That stage is your velocity bottleneck.
Use the Sales Efficiency Calculator to complement velocity with other efficiency metrics.
Related Resources
Try These Tools
Further Reading
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you increase pipeline velocity?
Four levers: generate more qualified opportunities (marketing), increase average deal size (pricing and packaging), improve win rate (sales process and messaging), and shorten sales cycle (remove bottlenecks, standardize contracts, enable self-service). The fastest improvement usually comes from the bottleneck stage — the one where deals stall longest.
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