glossary
SQL
Sales Qualified Lead — an MQL that sales has accepted as a genuine opportunity worth active pursuit.
By The Marketinque TeamReviewed June 2026
The SQL is the handoff that matters: marketing believed (the MQL), and now sales agrees. Acceptance usually follows an explicit check — commonly BANT (budget, authority, need, timing) or a lighter variant — done by a sales developer before an account executive invests real time.
The MQL-to-SQL conversion rate is one of the most honest numbers in the funnel. When it falls, the cause is almost always upstream: a scoring model that rewards curiosity instead of intent, or a nurture program promoting leads too early. A written service-level agreement — how fast sales must touch an MQL, on what grounds it can be rejected — keeps the handoff from becoming a blame exchange.
SQL volume is the bridge between marketing activity and pipeline: multiply SQLs by opportunity rate and average deal size and you have a revenue forecast. The funnel calculator models exactly that chain and shows where it leaks.
worked example
If 1,000 leads produce 200 MQLs, sales accepts 60 as SQLs, and 20 become opportunities at a $30,000 average deal, marketing has sourced $600,000 in pipeline — the arithmetic every demand-gen target is built on.
Related terms
Sources
- Forrester (SiriusDecisions), The Demand Unit Waterfall
Compiled by The Marketinque Team to our editorial standards.