At-risk pipeline is open value that will probably not close on the date attached to it. The label applies to deals that have gone quiet, deals that have pushed more than once, and deals that have aged past the window their peer group normally closes in. It is a subset of open pipeline, and it is the part that makes a coverage ratio lie.
What earns the flag
Three inputs carry most of the signal. Activity is the first: ORM counts a change in stage, close date, or amount as meaningful activity, and anything else leaves a deal looking alive without being alive. Close-date behavior is the second, and it is the strongest single slippage signal in ORM's data. Age against the deal group's expected close curve is the third.
Buyer-side silence sharpens all three. If a buyer has stopped returning email, declining calls without rescheduling, and going quiet on text, the deal is at risk regardless of what the stage field says.
Sizing it against coverage
Report at-risk value as a share of the pipeline dated in the period, then subtract it from coverage before anyone quotes a ratio. Standard coverage runs 3x to 5x, with most ORM customers near 3.5x, so a company reporting 3.5x with a fifth of its pipeline flagged is really operating below the floor it thinks it holds.
Amount risk deserves its own line. Most deals close for less than the value carried in the CRM. A pipeline with an average deal size of $80,000 that produces $40,000 average closed-won deals is running a systematic overstatement that no stage-based weighting will catch. See why the 3x pipeline coverage rule is wrong for the fuller argument on why pipeline coverage alone answers nothing.
Working the list
Sort at-risk deals by value, not by count, and give managers a decision to make on each one: requalify with new buyer evidence, downgrade the forecast category, or close it out. More than 10% of pipeline sits untouched for 12 months in ORM customer data, which means most teams have a large cleanup available before they need a single new lead.
The output of the review should change the forecast. If a deal review ends with every at-risk deal still in commit, the review was a status meeting.
Frequently Asked Questions
What percentage of pipeline is usually at risk?
It varies by company, but ORM sees more than 10% of pipeline sitting stale with no activity in 12 months. That share alone understates total risk, since active deals with repeated pushes carry risk too.
What is the first signal that pipeline is at risk?
The absence of a signal. No replies, no meetings, no changes to stage, close date, or amount. Silence shows up earlier than any negative event in the CRM.
Does high pipeline coverage protect against at-risk pipeline?
No. A company can hold 4x coverage and still miss if the pipeline is aged, concentrated in a few large deals, or dependent on dates the seller keeps moving.
Should at-risk deals be removed from the forecast?
Remove them from commit, not necessarily from pipeline. The forecast should reflect evidence, while the pipeline can still hold the deal if there is a live path to a decision.
Put these metrics to work
ORM builds custom revenue forecast models that turn concepts like at-risk pipeline into prescriptive action for your team.
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