What time to close measures
Time to close counts the days between a fixed start event on an opportunity and the day it is marked closed won. It is a per deal number. Average it across a cohort and you get sales cycle length, which is the planning figure. Read it deal by deal and it becomes a diagnostic that tells you which opportunities are running past the pace their peers set."Days to close" describes the same measurement. Both count elapsed calendar days rather than selling days, so weekends and holidays count against the clock. That matters when a team compares a December cycle against a March cycle and wonders why the numbers moved.
Where the clock starts
Two start events are defensible, and they answer different questions.
| Start event | What it measures | Best used for |
|---|---|---|
| Opportunity creation | The full elapsed sale including early drag | Capacity and coverage planning |
| Entry into first qualified stage | The active selling motion | Rep and process diagnostics |
Lost deals belong in the measurement
Most teams calculate time to close on wins only. Losses carry their own timing pattern and their own cost. Fast losses mean qualification is working. Slow losses mean a deal absorbed months of rep capacity before it died, and that cost stays invisible in a win-only average.
Turning the number into a threshold
Time to close earns its keep when it becomes a trigger rather than a report line. At ORM each opportunity is grouped by a machine learning model, and every group gets a predicted curve for how long it takes to close. Those curves run from 1 to 80 weeks, with most of the expectation landing before week 12. Very few groups carry expectation past 52 weeks. Once a deal passes the closing window its group predicts, the odds of a win fall and the close date on the record has stopped describing anything real.
Set your threshold from your own cohort data rather than from an outside benchmark. Deals past the threshold get one of two outcomes: a documented buyer event that justifies the extra time, or a move out of the current period. That rule protects forecast accuracy and keeps pipeline coverage from counting deals that already expired.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between time to close and sales cycle length?
Time to close describes one opportunity. Sales cycle length is the average of that measurement across a cohort of deals. You use time to close to judge whether a specific deal is running long, and sales cycle length to plan capacity and coverage for a segment.
Should the clock start at opportunity creation or at qualification?
Both are defensible and they answer different questions. Creation date captures the full elapsed sale including time the deal sat unworked, which is the right input for planning. Qualified stage entry captures the active selling motion, which is the fairer input for coaching a rep. Pick one, write it into the reporting definition, and stop switching between them.
Do lost deals count in time to close?
Measure them, but in a separate number. A win-only average flatters the result and hides the deals that consumed months of rep capacity before dying. Run the calculation twice, once for wins and once for losses, and compare the two distributions.
Does a shorter time to close always mean a better sales process?
No. Discounting compresses the number, and so does a mix shift toward smaller deals. A drop in time to close alongside a drop in average deal value means the mix changed, not that the process improved. Read the metric next to deal value and win rate before calling it a win.
Put these metrics to work
ORM builds custom revenue forecast models that turn concepts like time to close into prescriptive action for your team.
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