How long B2B deals really take.
The average new-business B2B deal takes about three months from opportunity to close, but buyers report a full buying cycle closer to ten months once their own research is counted.
Last updated: September 2026
The average B2B new-business sales cycle is 91 days, and expansion deals close in 52 days, according to Ebsta and Pavilion’s 2025 GTM Benchmarks.1 Measured from the buyer’s side, the full buying cycle averages about 10 months, according to 6sense’s 2025 Buyer Experience Report of more than 4,000 buyers.2
The gap is the time buyers spend researching before they ever talk to a seller. Your CRM only sees the last part.
Sales cycle length at a glance.
Sales cycle by motion and viewpoint.
Seller-side data starts the clock when an opportunity is created. Buyer-side surveys start it when the buyer first sees a need. Both are useful; they answer different questions.
| Length | What is measured | Source | |
|---|---|---|---|
| New business | 91 days | Opportunity created to closed, new-logo deals, CRM data | Ebsta × Pavilion 20251 |
| Expansion | 52 days | Opportunity created to closed, existing customers | Ebsta × Pavilion 20251 |
| Top performers | 42% shorter | Top performers’ average sales cycle vs. lower performers | Ebsta × Pavilion 20251 |
| Year-on-year | 9% shorter | Change in sales cycle length, 2025 vs. 2024 data | Ebsta × Pavilion 20251 |
| Buyer view, 2025 | About 10 months | Full buying cycle reported by 4,000+ buyers, including research before first contact | 6sense 20252 |
| Buyer view, 2024 | 11.3 months | Same measure in the prior year’s survey | 6sense 20243 |
Ebsta’s cycle-length figures come from pipeline data across 655,000 opportunities; 6sense’s come from buyer surveys. Expect your CRM number to sit well below the buyer-reported one.
What the numbers mean.
A 91-day average hides a lot.1 Enterprise deals with many stakeholders run longer, and small transactional deals run shorter. Benchmark against your own segment and deal size first, then against the market.
The buyer-side number matters more than it looks. 6sense found buyers are nearly 70% of the way through their process before engaging sellers, and 81% already have a preferred vendor at first contact.3 By the time an opportunity appears in your CRM, much of the decision has been shaped.
Cycles also stall. Forrester reports that 86% of B2B purchases stall during the buying process,4 and 57% of sales professionals in Salesforce’s latest survey say customers take longer to decide than they used to.5 The fastest teams do not rush buyers. They remove the reasons buyers wait: unclear value, missing stakeholders, and risk nobody has addressed.
Deals sitting in the same stage for weeks?
We find the stage where momentum drops and teach reps the specific moves that restart it.
How to shorten your sales cycle.
End every call with a dated next step
Deals slow down in the gaps between meetings. Reps who secure a specific, calendared next step on every call keep the buyer’s process moving.
Shorter sales cycles 02 · Business caseQuantify the cost of waiting
Buyers delay when doing nothing feels safe. A clear business case shows what each month of delay costs, so the status quo stops looking free.
Value selling training 03 · StakeholdersFind the whole buying group early
Late-arriving stakeholders reset the clock. Map finance, IT, procurement, and the executive sponsor in the first weeks, not the final ones.
Account mapping trainingClient-reported results.
These figures are reported by Accelerain Training clients after rollout. They are not industry benchmarks and are shown separately from the research above.
Shorten your sales cycle.
Book a strategy call. We’ll look at where your deals slow down, what your buyers are waiting for, and which skills would speed them up.
- No commitment — we scope and price it with you
- Customized concepts, in-depth training, or training plus 1:1s
- 30-minute sprint, half-day, one-day, or two-day formats
Where these numbers come from.
- Ebsta × Pavilion — 2025 GTM Benchmarks Report (2025)
- 6sense — The Timeline for Influencing B2B Buyers Is Shrinking: Insights From 6sense’s 2025 Buyer Experience Report (2025)
- 6sense — 6sense Launches 2024 Buyer Experience Report Unveiling Global B2B Buyer Trends (2024)
- Forrester — To Master B2B Buying Mayhem, Providers Must Prioritize Buyers’ Needs (The State of Business Buying, 2024) (2024)
- Salesforce — State of Sales, 7th Edition (2026)
Common questions about B2B sales cycle length.
01What is a B2B sales cycle?
A B2B sales cycle is the time from when a sales opportunity is created to when it closes, won or lost. Accelerain Training suggests tracking it separately for new business and expansion, because the two run at very different speeds.
02How long is the average B2B sales cycle?
The average new-business B2B sales cycle is 91 days, according to Ebsta and Pavilion’s 2025 GTM Benchmarks. Expansion deals with existing customers close faster, averaging 52 days in the same data set of 655,000 opportunities.
03How long is the B2B buying cycle from the buyer’s side?
About 10 months on average, according to 6sense’s 2025 Buyer Experience Report of more than 4,000 buyers, down from 11.3 months in its 2024 report. That figure includes research buyers do before contacting any seller.
04Are B2B sales cycles getting longer or shorter?
The latest data points slightly shorter. Ebsta and Pavilion report sales cycles 9% shorter in 2025 than in 2024, and 6sense’s buyer-reported cycle fell from 11.3 to about 10 months. Yet 57% of sales professionals in Salesforce’s 2026 survey say customers take longer to decide.
05Why is my CRM sales cycle shorter than buyer surveys suggest?
Because your CRM starts the clock late. 6sense found buyers are nearly 70% through their purchase process before engaging sellers, so opportunity-to-close data misses most of the buyer’s early research.
06How much faster do top sellers close deals?
Top performers’ sales cycles are 42% shorter than lower performers’, according to Ebsta and Pavilion’s 2025 GTM Benchmarks. The same data shows top performers also win more often and at higher deal values.
07How do you shorten a B2B sales cycle?
Remove the reasons buyers wait. Forrester reports 86% of B2B purchases stall, usually on unclear value, missing stakeholders, or unaddressed risk. Dated next steps, an early business case, and full stakeholder mapping address each one.
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Book a strategy call to see how we turn the framework into repeatable behavior for your reps.