Estimating is expensive. Every quote takes somebody's time to read the drawing, work out the material and the hours, and price it. Your win rate is the share of that effort that comes back as orders. Watched over time, it tells you whether you are quoting the right work at the right price.
Win rate by count
The basic win rate counts quotes. Only include quotes that have been decided, won or lost.
Win rate = quotes won ÷ (quotes won + quotes lost)
Worked example. In a quarter, a manufacturer sends 120 quotes. By the end of the quarter, 30 have been won, 54 have been lost and 36 are still open.
Win rate = 30 ÷ (30 + 54) = 30 ÷ 84 = 35.7%.
Dividing by all 120 quotes gives 25%, which understates the real figure because 36 quotes have not been decided yet.
Win rate by value
Counting quotes treats a £500 bracket and a £50,000 fit-out the same. Win rate by value weights each quote by what it was worth.
Value win rate = value won ÷ (value won + value lost)
Worked example. The same business's 30 won quotes were worth £186,000 and the 54 lost quotes £410,000.
Value win rate = £186,000 ÷ (£186,000 + £410,000) = £186,000 ÷ £596,000 = 31.2%.
The value rate is lower than the count rate, which tells you the business wins its smaller jobs more often than its larger ones. That is worth knowing before the next big tender.
Track both. If the two figures move apart, the size of the work you win is changing.
What to leave out
- Open quotes. They have not been decided. Count them in the pipeline, not the win rate.
- Revisions. A quote revised three times is one job, not three quotes. If each revision is saved as a new quote, your win rate drops every time a customer asks for a change. Keep revisions on one quote and count the enquiry once.
- Budget prices. A rough price given so a customer can set a budget is not a firm quote. Track these separately, or they will drag the rate down.
- No decision. Some enquiries simply stop: the project is cancelled or the customer goes quiet. Decide once whether you count these as lost or as a separate outcome, and stick to it. Changing the rule halfway through a year makes the trend meaningless.
Average sales cycle
The sales cycle is the time from logging the enquiry to the customer's decision. It tells you how far ahead your pipeline really reaches.
Sales cycle = decision date − enquiry date, averaged across won quotes
Worked example. Five won jobs took 9, 14, 21, 30 and 41 days from enquiry to order.
Average = (9 + 14 + 21 + 30 + 41) ÷ 5 = 115 ÷ 5 = 23 days. The median, the middle value, is 21 days.
If a few large jobs take months, the median is often the more honest figure.
Weighted pipeline
Adding up every open quote assumes you will win all of them. A weighted pipeline multiplies each quote by the likelihood of winning it.
Weighted pipeline = sum of (quote value × likelihood of winning)
| Open quote | Value | Likelihood | Weighted |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quote A | £20,000 | 60% | £12,000 |
| Quote B | £8,000 | 25% | £2,000 |
| Quote C | £45,000 | 10% | £4,500 |
| Total | £73,000 | £18,500 |
The open total is £73,000, but the weighted figure of £18,500 is a far safer number to plan around. Group the weighted values by the month you expect a decision and you have a forecast.
Find out where you win
A single win rate for the whole business hides most of the useful information. Split it by:
- Customer, to see who sends you work you win and who uses you to check another supplier's price.
- Source, such as your website, repeat customers or a tender portal.
- Product or type of work, to see where your prices are competitive.
- Estimator, used carefully, to see where a second pair of eyes helps.
Small numbers swing a lot. If you send ten quotes a month, a single win moves the monthly rate by about ten points. Look at a rolling three or twelve months rather than one month at a time.
What a good win rate is
There is no single good number. It depends on your market, how selective you are about what you quote, and how many of your enquiries are price checks. A business that quotes everything will have a lower rate than one that only quotes work it is set up for.
The most useful comparison is with yourself: this quarter against the same quarter last year, by count and by value. If the rate is falling, look at which customers, sources or products are pulling it down before changing your prices across the board.
Doing this without a spreadsheet
All of the above can be done in a spreadsheet, as long as somebody keeps it up to date. In ManufactIQ, the sales report works this out for you: won value by month, win rate on decided enquiries, average deal, the sales cycle from enquiry received to won, and a weighted forecast of the open pipeline, for any period and owner.