Pipeline Coverage

Pipeline coverage is the early warning system for revenue misses. It answers a simple question: do you have enough pipeline to hit your number? If your quota is $1M and you have $3M in pipeline, that's 3x coverage. With a typical 25-33% win rate, 3x coverage means you should close your target. Should. The nuance is in the quality.

Raw coverage ratios can be misleading. $3M in pipeline where half the deals are in early stages with no confirmed budget is very different from $3M where 60% of deals have passed discovery and have an identified economic buyer. RevOps tracks coverage but also segments it by stage, age, and quality to give leadership a realistic view of whether the team is actually on track.

Coverage Analysis

• Total coverage: All open pipeline divided by remaining quota. The headline number.
• Weighted coverage: Pipeline multiplied by stage-based close probability. More realistic than raw coverage because it accounts for deal maturity.
• Coverage by segment: Enterprise, mid-market, and SMB often need different ratios because win rates and cycle lengths vary.
• Coverage trending: Is coverage building or declining week over week? A team at 3x today that was at 4x last month has a pipeline generation problem even though the ratio looks fine.
• Gap analysis: If coverage is below target, how much new pipeline needs to be created, by when, at what average deal size, to close the gap given typical conversion rates?

RevOps Playbook

RevOps builds automated coverage dashboards segmented by team, rep, segment, and time period. When coverage drops below threshold (usually 3x), it triggers a response: pipeline generation sprints, demand gen acceleration, or ABM campaigns targeting expansion opportunities. Coverage is also a key input to forecast accuracy. Teams that consistently forecast well almost always have strong coverage tracking discipline.