Score 0–3 on each criterion. Get a live deal health score and a clear picture of what needs work before you forecast this deal.
Have you quantified the business impact? Does the buyer agree on the numbers?
Have you identified and gained access to the person who controls the budget?
Do you know exactly what technical and business criteria will be used to decide?
Do you know every step, person, and timeline between now and a signed contract?
Is there a confirmed, urgent business pain that the economic buyer personally feels?
Do you have someone inside the account who is actively selling on your behalf?
Currently scored 0/3. Next step: reach score 1 — Explored but unconfirmed.
Currently scored 0/3. Next step: reach score 1 — Identified, no access.
Currently scored 0/3. Next step: reach score 1 — General sense only.
Currently scored 0/3. Next step: reach score 1 — High-level steps only.
Currently scored 0/3. Next step: reach score 1 — Pain exists but not urgent.
Currently scored 0/3. Next step: reach score 1 — Friendly contact, not selling.
MEDDIC is a sales qualification framework created at PTC in the 1990s that became the gold standard for complex B2B sales. The methodology was developed by Jack Napoli and Dick Dunkel as a systematic way to ensure reps had validated every critical dimension of a deal before committing it to forecast — and before investing significant time and resources pursuing it. In the three decades since, MEDDIC has been adopted by some of the highest-performing enterprise sales organizations in the world, including Salesforce, Workday, and hundreds of high-growth SaaS companies.
The six criteria map directly to the six questions a deal must answer before it belongs in your pipeline. Metrics: have you quantified the business impact in terms the buyer agrees with? Economic Buyer: have you identified and gained access to the person who controls the budget? Decision Criteria: do you know the formal technical and business requirements that will determine the winner? Decision Process: do you understand every step, stakeholder, and timeline between now and a signed contract? Identify Pain: is there a compelling business problem that the economic buyer personally feels and is motivated to solve? Champion: do you have an internal advocate who is actively selling on your behalf inside the account?
The data behind MEDDIC is compelling: deals that score high across all six criteria close at two to three times the rate of under-qualified deals. More importantly, the framework forces the critical conversations to happen early rather than late. Most deals that fall apart in the final stages do so because a rep learned too late that the Economic Buyer was inaccessible, the decision criteria had shifted, or there was no real Champion — just a friendly contact who never had any actual authority or motivation to push the deal across the line.
In practice, most reps score 3–4 out of 6 MEDDIC criteria on any given deal. The gaps are almost always the same two: Economic Buyer access and a true Champion. A coach is someone who answers your questions. A Champion is someone who puts their professional reputation on the line to get your deal done internally. That distinction is the difference between deals that close and deals that stall in legal for six months before going dark.
For enterprise deals, many teams extend MEDDIC to MEDDPICC by adding Paper Process (the legal and procurement steps needed to reach a signed contract) and Competition (who you're competing against and where your differentiation is strongest). MEDDPICC is more complete for complex deals with long procurement cycles. Use this scorer on every deal in your pipeline before forecast calls. Any deal scoring below 9 out of 18 should be requalified or removed — it doesn't belong in your number.
MEDDIC stands for Metrics, Economic Buyer, Decision Criteria, Decision Process, Identify Pain, Champion. It's a qualification checklist that forces reps to validate every critical element of a complex B2B deal before committing it to forecast. Each letter represents a question the rep must be able to answer with evidence, not assumption.
MEDDPICC adds Paper Process and Competition to the original MEDDIC framework. Paper Process tracks the legal and procurement steps required to reach a signed contract — knowing these steps upfront prevents last-minute surprises from legal or InfoSec. Competition maps who you're competing against and where your differentiation is strongest. For enterprise deals with long procurement cycles, MEDDPICC is more complete.
A Champion is an internal advocate at the prospect who actively sells on your behalf inside their organization. They're different from a coach, who gives you information. A Champion uses their own political capital to get your deal done — scheduling meetings with the Economic Buyer, handling internal objections, and driving urgency when the deal stalls. No Champion almost always means no deal, regardless of how strong the other MEDDIC criteria appear.
As a general benchmark, a score of 14 or higher out of 18 (roughly 78%) indicates a well-qualified, forecastable deal. A score of 9–13 requires active work to close the identified gaps before the deal belongs in forecast — the scorer's 'What Needs Work' panel shows exactly where to focus. Below 9 should be requalified or removed from the current period's number.
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