Why do B2B deals end in "no decision", and what can you do?

The short answer

A 'no decision' is a deal that ends without the buyer choosing you, a competitor or anyone else. It usually happens for one of five reasons: the buyer sticks with the status quo, never had a real buying process, goes dormant, goes dark, or abandons the project. Tag every stalled deal with one of the five, count them, and fix the biggest group first. The one sourced estimate we found is wide (40% to 60% of deals, from a study of recorded sales calls), so measure your own rate too.

Updated

What does "no decision" mean?

It is a closed deal with no winner. The buyer didn't pick a competitor. They did nothing. Forrester's blog, which publishes work from the former SiriusDecisions sales enablement research, splits it into five types, and we use that list below with our own fixes added.

That matters because "lost" in most CRMs means one of two things: lost to a rival, or lost to nothing. They need different cures. A rival beat you on price, fit or trust. A "nothing" deal never got compelling enough to decide.

What are the five types of no decision?

Type What it looks like Our first fix
Lost to the status quo The buyer compares you with the way they work today and stays put Put a cost on the current way (hours, errors, money) before you show the product
No buying process The opportunity only existed in your head: no real need, budget, signer or date Tighten what you count as an opportunity, so these never enter pipeline
Dormant A real project that paused, often for budget timing or other priorities Agree a dated next step and a trigger to restart, then diarize it
Buyer goes dark An engaged buyer stops replying, often because they quietly chose another vendor or to stay put Reach a second person in the account early, so one silence doesn't end the deal
Decision abandoned A real process was dropped after a merger, a personnel change, a strategy shift or a budget cut You can't prevent it; keep light contact and re-qualify when things settle

The five names and what each describes come from the Forrester blog. The "first fix" column is our view, not a finding from that source.

How common is it?

Common, but nobody can give you a precise share. The one estimate we could trace to a named sample comes from Matthew Dixon and Ted McKenna, writing in Harvard Business Review in June 2022: in a study of more than 2.5 million recorded sales conversations, they found that between 40% and 60% of deals were lost to buyers who said they intended to buy and then didn't act. That's a wide range from the authors' own study, and the free part of the article doesn't explain how deals were classified. Treat it as a sign of scale, not a target, and measure your own.

Two related numbers we can also trace, and neither is a no-decision rate:

  • Forrester's press release for its State of Business Buying 2024 report says "86% of B2B purchases stall during the buying process", that on average 13 people are involved in a decision, and that 89% of purchases involve two or more departments. The release gives no sample size or fielding year. A purchase that stalls can still end with a decision later.
  • Gartner's survey of 632 B2B buyers (fielded in 2024, released May 2025) reports that 74% of buyer teams showed unhealthy conflict during the decision and that teams that reached consensus were 2.5x more likely to report a high-quality deal.

Both point the same way: when several people have to agree, agreement is the hard part. See how many people are in a B2B buying committee.

How do you measure your own no-decision rate?

  1. Pull every closed or stalled deal from the last two to four quarters. If you have fewer than 30, treat what you learn as rough.
  2. Split them three ways: won, lost to a named competitor, and ended with no decision. In many CRMs you need a custom loss reason for the third.
  3. Tag each no-decision deal with one of the five types above. Use the last email or call note, not your memory.
  4. Count. Your no-decision rate is no-decision deals ÷ all closed deals (our definition). The biggest of the five groups is where to work first.
  5. Repeat every quarter and see whether the mix moves.

An illustrative example, invented, not a benchmark: 40 closed deals, 12 won, 10 lost to a competitor and 18 no decision. No-decision rate: 18 ÷ 40 = 45%. Of the 18, 9 are status quo, 5 are dark, 3 are dormant and 1 is abandoned. The fix is to build the cost of doing nothing into the first call, and to get a second contact into every deal. It isn't to cut your price. For where your win rate stands against those numbers, see what a good B2B win rate is.

What can you do about it?

Our view, not a study. In order of how early in the deal each one works:

  1. Qualify harder at the start. Use a framework suited to your deal size (see BANT vs MEDDIC) so "no buying process" deals never get counted as pipeline.
  2. Quantify the cost of the current way. Ask what the problem costs each month and write the number in your notes. A buyer who has said a number out loud finds it harder to do nothing.
  3. Get to a second person. Ask early who else needs to agree and ask for the introduction. Our page on finding the decision maker covers how.
  4. Book the next step before you hang up. Put a date on it; a deal with no date is already dormant.
  5. Know when to stop. After several attempts through different channels, send a short close-the-loop message and move on.

Pipeline that is mostly no-decision is also a coverage problem. See how much pipeline you need. To hear why buyers did nothing in their own words, see how to run a win-loss review.

When should you skip each fix?

  • Tighter qualification: skip making it stricter on a first cold call. Many buyers haven't named the problem yet, and a hard gate throws out deals that would have grown.
  • Quantifying the cost: skip it when the buyer can't estimate it. Pushing for a number they invent gives you a number you can't defend later.
  • Going to a second person: skip it when the first contact is the signer and the purchase is small. Extra contacts only slow it down.
  • Dated next steps: skip forcing a date when the buyer says they need to wait for something specific. Agree on the event instead of a day.
  • Closing the loop: skip it on an account that's dormant for a stated reason such as a budget freeze. Diarize it.

Sources

Research and vendor pages accessed October 1, 2026.

Frequently asked questions

What is a "no decision" in sales?

A deal that ends with the buyer choosing nobody: not you, not a competitor. They stay with the status quo, or the project stalls or is dropped.

How common are no-decision outcomes?

The one traceable estimate is wide: Dixon and McKenna's 2022 Harvard Business Review article puts it at 40% to 60% of deals, from more than 2.5 million recorded sales conversations. Measure your own by tagging your closed deals. Forrester's 2024 press release reports that 86% of B2B purchases stall while they're being bought, which isn't the same as ending in no decision.

Is a no-decision deal the same as a lost deal?

It's recorded as one in most CRMs, but the cause is different. A lost deal went to a rival, while a no decision went nowhere. Track them separately so you fix the right problem.

Why do buyers do nothing?

Common reasons from the Forrester list are that the status quo felt safer, that there was no real buying process, that priorities changed, or that the project was dropped. Gartner's 2025 data on conflict inside buying teams also shows how hard agreement is.

Can you win back a no-decision deal?

Sometimes, especially dormant ones. Keep a dated reason to return, such as a budget cycle, and re-qualify when you do.

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