How to Calculate Close Rate (Formula, Examples and What's Good for a Small Business)

Updated 2026-10-26 · AI Agent Starter Kit

Close rate is the one number that tells you whether your sales process works. Lots of leads with a low close rate means money is leaking somewhere between "I'm interested" and "here's the deposit." A small change in it can be worth more than any amount of extra marketing.

This guide shows the formula, two versions worth tracking, worked examples, what counts as good for a small service business, and six practical ways to raise it.

The close rate formula

Close rate = jobs won ÷ opportunities × 100

That's it. If you sent 10 quotes last month and 3 turned into paid jobs, your close rate is 3 ÷ 10 × 100 = 30%.

The only real decision is what you count as an "opportunity." Small businesses usually need two versions.

Two close rates worth tracking

1. Quote close rate (quotes to jobs)

Jobs won ÷ quotes or proposals sent × 100

This measures how well your quotes convert. It's the number most people mean when they say close rate, and it's the one to watch if you price custom work.

2. Lead close rate (leads to jobs)

Jobs won ÷ new leads or inquiries × 100

This measures the whole pipeline: how fast you reply, how many leads you qualify, how many get a quote, and how many say yes. It's usually much lower than your quote close rate, and the gap between the two tells you where the leak is.

Number	This month
New leads	40
Quotes sent	15
Jobs won	5
Quote close rate	5 ÷ 15 = 33%
Lead close rate	5 ÷ 40 = 12.5%
Lead-to-quote rate	15 ÷ 40 = 37.5%

In this example the quotes are converting fine. The bigger problem is that only about a third of leads ever get a quote. That points to slow replies, poor-fit leads, or leads going quiet before you get to pricing.

Worked examples

A cleaning company. 22 inquiries in a month, 12 walkthroughs booked, 8 quotes sent, 5 accepted. Quote close rate: 5 ÷ 8 = 62.5%. Lead close rate: 5 ÷ 22 = 23%. Strong closer, but 10 inquiries never got to a walkthrough. Faster first replies are the fix.

A web designer. 9 discovery calls, 9 proposals, 2 signed. Quote close rate: 2 ÷ 9 = 22%. Every lead gets a proposal, so the leak is in the proposal or the follow-up. Worth checking price, scope clarity and whether anyone followed up after Day 2.

A contractor with big jobs. 6 quotes, 1 signed this month. 17% looks bad, but on big-ticket work a single month is noise. Use a rolling 90 days instead.

Count it the same way every time

Close rate gets misleading fast if the counting changes. A few rules:

Match the time window to your sales cycle. If quotes take three weeks to decide, a quote sent on the 28th won't close until next month. Use a rolling 90 days, or count by when the quote was sent rather than when the job was won.
Decide what "won" means. Signed agreement or deposit paid, not "sounds great, let's talk next week."
Remove junk. Spam, job seekers and vendors pitching you are not leads. Count only real inquiries.
Track lost reasons. Price, timing, went with someone else, never replied. After 20 losses you'll see a pattern.
Keep it weekly, read it monthly. Write the numbers down each week so you have a trend, but don't react to a single week.

A simple lead tracking spreadsheet with a status column (new, replied, quoted, won, lost) gives you all of this with a COUNTIF. If you'd rather not keep a CRM, see how to track leads without a CRM.

Google Sheets formulas

If column E holds each lead's status:

Leads: =COUNTA(E2:E)
Quotes sent: =COUNTIF(E2:E,"Quoted")+COUNTIF(E2:E,"Won")+COUNTIF(E2:E,"Lost")
Jobs won: =COUNTIF(E2:E,"Won")
Quote close rate: =IFERROR(won/quotes,0) (format as a percentage)

This counts a lead as "quoted" once it reaches quoted, won or lost, so leads that were lost before getting a quote should get a different status such as "No fit." The KPI dashboard in Google Sheets guide has a full layout with a trend chart.

What is a good close rate?

There's no honest single number. It depends on your price, your industry and how qualified your leads are when they arrive. As rough orientation for small service businesses:

Referrals and repeat customers often close at a high rate, because trust is already there.
Inbound leads from your website close lower, and a lot depends on how fast you reply.
Cold or marketplace leads that went to several businesses at once close lowest.

The more useful benchmark is your own last quarter. If your quote close rate went from 25% to 32%, something you changed is working. If it's very high, you may be priced too low; if it's very low, look at lead quality, speed and follow-up before touching price.

6 ways to raise your close rate without discounting

Reply faster. Many buyers hire whoever answers first. Same-day replies are the cheapest close rate gain there is. Our lead response time calculator gives a rough estimate of what slow replies may cost.
Follow up after the quote. Most quotes that go quiet are undecided, not lost. A short Day 2, 5 and 10 sequence recovers a surprising number. See how to follow up on a quote, or build a dated plan with the free follow-up schedule generator.
Qualify before you quote. Two or three questions (budget range, timing, location) stop you from spending hours on quotes that were never going to close.
Make the quote easy to say yes to. Clear scope, one price or three simple options, an expiry date and a single next step ("reply yes and I'll send the deposit link").
Ask why you lost. One polite line after a no: "Mind telling me what tipped the decision? It helps me improve." People usually answer.
Review it weekly. Close rate improves when someone looks at it. Five minutes on Monday is enough.

Put it in your weekly report

Close rate is most useful next to the numbers around it: new leads, reply time, quotes sent, revenue and unpaid invoices. Type them into the free weekly business report generator and it works out your close rate and average job size, compares them with last week and lists what needs attention. For the full format, see the weekly sales report template.

Have it counted for you every Monday

Counting leads, quotes and wins by hand is the first habit to slip in a busy week. The safe way to automate it: code counts the numbers from your lead sheet and Gmail, an AI writes only the summary from those numbers, a check strips anything the AI made up, and the report lands in your Drafts. You read it with your coffee.

The Weekly CEO Report Kit for n8n does exactly that. Every Monday at 7 AM it counts your leads, stuck quotes, overdue replies and sent mail, writes a one-page report with your top 3 for the week, and saves it as a draft to you. Nothing sends without you. Get the kit

Want the leads answered and followed up too, so the close rate actually moves? The Solo Ops Command Center bundles all three kits (Inbox Chief of Staff, Speed-to-Lead and the Weekly CEO Report) with a dashboard that charts your numbers week over week.

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Weekly CEO Report Kit

Every Monday at 7 AM, one page in your Drafts: wins, pipeline numbers, stuck leads, overdue replies and your top 3 for the week.

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All three paid kits (Inbox Chief of Staff, Speed-to-Lead, Weekly CEO Report) plus a bundle-only dashboard sheet. $87 separately.

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