How to read the coverage ratio
- Under 2.5×: the quarter is at material risk. Either accelerate pipeline creation or revise the target.
- 2.5× – 3.5×: healthy with normal execution. Most teams target the 3.0× midpoint.
- 3.5× – 4.5×: over-covered. Often signals a velocity problem (deals stalling in stage) rather than a creation success.
- Above 4.5×: almost always a velocity or hygiene issue — pipeline is accumulating because deals aren't moving through.
The weighted forecast vs commit forecast
The weighted number is what statistics says will close. The commit number is what sales has called. The two should converge through the quarter; if they diverge sharply mid-period, one of them is wrong — usually commit (sales optimism) or win rate (the input is based on a different cohort than today's pipeline).
Pipeline coverage by stage
Total pipeline coverage hides risk. A team with 3.5× total coverage but only 0.8× from stage 4+ (proposal / negotiation) is in trouble — the pipeline that needs to close this period isn't there. Re-run this calculator using just late-stage pipeline to see the real picture.
Why your win rate input matters
The right win-rate input is the historical conversion rate of opportunities that reach the period, not all opportunities created. A 25% headline win rate often becomes 35–45% on opportunities that survive to the close-by-date because the lower-quality opportunities have already churned out earlier. Use the latter for forecasting; the former for top-of-funnel diagnostic.