What is a Sales Pipeline?
Also known as: Open pipeline, sales pipeline value
Sales Pipeline is the total value of all open deals a sales team is working, organized by stage. "Open pipeline" is the headline number — the dollars in play that have not yet closed or been lost.
What is a Sales Pipeline?
The pipeline is every active opportunity between first qualified contact and a closed decision. Each deal carries an amount and a stage. Summed across open deals, you get "open pipeline" — the gross dollars currently in motion.
How to read it
Open Pipeline = sum of deal amounts for every deal that is still open (not yet closed-won or closed-lost).
It is usually sliced by stage, owner, and pipeline — CRMs like HubSpot let you run several named pipelines at once.
Pipeline vs Weighted Pipeline vs Forecast
Open pipeline is the gross number. Weighted pipeline discounts each deal by its win probability. A forecast is the smaller subset a rep commits to landing this period. Open pipeline always looks biggest — do not mistake it for what will actually close.
Why it matters
Pipeline is the leading indicator of future revenue. Too little and next quarter is already at risk; too much stuck in early stages signals a conversion problem. Pipeline coverage (pipeline / quota) is the standard health check.