# Sales Stages and Stage Classes: Classifying Stages > Sales stages differ from company to company. Stage classes assign them to fixed categories: the definition, an example, and what each company sets for itself. Canonical: https://funneleconomics.ai/resources/glossary/sales-stages A stage is a measurable step in a sales process that each company defines for itself; a stage class assigns each of those stages to a fixed category that is the same everywhere, such as Lead, Opportunity or Won. The stage class says what an analysis is about: demand before the opportunity, opportunities, or closed deals. ## Why is there no universal list of sales stages? There is no universal list of sales stages: each company defines its own stages, their names and their number. Stages make sure that “a deal in progress” means the same thing to everyone in the company. Between two companies, the stage names no longer do that. ## How do stage and stage class relate? :::formel Stage (named by the company) belongs to stage class (the same everywhere) - Stage – a step in the sales process; the company decides the name and the number - Stage class – a fixed category: Lead, MQL, SQL, SAL, Opportunity, Won, Closed or Lost ::: The company decides which stage belongs to which stage class. Several stages can belong to the same stage class. The assignment is read from the company’s configuration, never assumed. The list of stage classes is not a sequence. The order of the stage classes before the opportunity is the company’s configuration as well. ## What does the stage class do? The stage classes form three areas. | Area | Stage classes | Meaning | |---|---|---| | Before the opportunity | Lead, MQL, SQL and SAL | demand that is not yet an opportunity | | Opportunity | Opportunity | opportunities | | Closing | Won, Closed and Lost | closed deals | “Open” and “opportunity” are therefore **two different questions**. A deal in a stage of the class Lead is open, but no opportunity. A total such as “all open deals” says nothing about opportunities without the stage class. :::example Constructed example with invented companies; the numbers are not a benchmark: Company A runs six stages, Company B nine. Company A assigns “First Contact” to the class Lead and “Quote” to the class Opportunity. Company B assigns “Inquiry” and “Callback Planned” to the class Lead, and “Technical Review” and “Contract Draft” to the class Opportunity. Company A counts 80 open deals, 40 of them in stages of the class Opportunity. Company B counts 120 open deals, 60 of them in stages of the class Opportunity. “How many open deals are opportunities?” is now the same question in both companies. The assignment is the example of these companies. ::: Every distribution across stages therefore needs the stage class it is calculated on. Otherwise nobody can say what a share refers to. The stage class also determines which deals a metric counts. The qualified win rate counts only deals that stood in a stage of the class Opportunity. See the entry on [win rate and its population](https://funneleconomics.ai/resources/glossary/win-rate). An amount of zero is expected before the opportunity and no data defect: a lead carries no opportunity amount. ## What depends on the stage and not on the stage class? An SLA applies per stage and [opportunity type](https://funneleconomics.ai/resources/glossary/opportunity-type), not per stage class. The company enters the SLA values itself; closing stages carry no SLA. Against these values, [SLA Health measures the total age of an opportunity](https://funneleconomics.ai/resources/glossary/sla-health). Whether opportunities stay in a single stage longer or shorter than its SLA is shown by [BPV, the deviation from the SLA per stage](https://funneleconomics.ai/resources/glossary/bpv). The stage win rate depends on the stage as well: of the deals that stood in the stage and were decided, the share that was won. [bEFV weights the amounts of open deals](https://funneleconomics.ai/resources/glossary/befv) with the stage win rate. ## How stage and stage class differ | | Stage | Stage class | |---|---|---| | Who sets it | the company | fixed, the same everywhere | | The same everywhere | no | yes | | Answers | Where does the deal stand in the company’s own process? | What kind of deal is it: demand, opportunity or closed? | | What depends on it | SLA, stage win rate | which deals a metric counts | ## FAQ ### What are the stages of a sales process? There is no universal list. Each company defines its own sales stages, with its own names and its own number of stages. Stages can be classified through stage classes: fixed categories that are the same everywhere and to which every stage is assigned. ### What is the difference between a stage and a stage class? A stage is a step in one company’s sales process; the company decides the names and the number of its stages. A stage class is a fixed category that is the same everywhere, such as Lead, Opportunity or Won. Every stage belongs to one stage class, and several stages can belong to the same stage class. ### Is every open deal an opportunity? No. “Open” and “opportunity” are two different questions. A deal in a stage of the class Lead is open, but it is not yet an opportunity. Whether a deal is an opportunity is decided by the stage class of its stage, not by the name of the stage. ### In what order do MQL, SAL and SQL come? Each company decides that for itself. The stage classes Lead, MQL, SQL and SAL are the same everywhere, but their order is the company’s configuration. A printed sequence of these classes is therefore always the example of one organisation and not a general rule. ### Which stage class do sales pipeline metrics refer to? That has to be stated with the metric. A total such as “all open deals” says nothing about opportunities unless the stage class is named, because deals before the opportunity are open as well. Every distribution across stages therefore needs the stage class it is calculated on. ### Does an SLA apply per stage or per stage class? Per stage. The company enters the SLA values for every stage and every opportunity type. The same stage can therefore carry different SLA values in two opportunity types. Closing stages, meaning stages of the classes Won, Closed and Lost, carry no SLA.