Little Glossary · Go-to-market

MQL and SQL

An MQL (marketing qualified lead) is a contact that marketing considers ready for sales, based on their profile and activity. An SQL (sales qualified lead) is a lead that sales has reviewed and confirmed as a real sales opportunity.

Updated October 5, 2026

How they differ

  • Lead: any contact who has left their details.
  • MQL: a lead that meets the agreed fit and interest criteria. For example, someone from an ICP company who has visited the pricing page and downloaded a guide.
  • SAL (sales accepted lead): an MQL that sales agrees to review. Not every company uses this stage.
  • SQL: sales has spoken with the lead and confirmed there's a need, buying capacity and a reasonable timeline.

The framework was popularized by the Demand Waterfall from the consultancy SiriusDecisions, now part of Forrester.

Lead scoring

To decide what counts as an MQL, teams usually use a score combining:

  • Fit: industry, size, job title, country. How closely it resembles the ICP.
  • Engagement: pages visited, content downloaded, emails opened, webinar attendance.

A very active person from a company outside the ICP shouldn't be an MQL. A director at a perfect-fit company who has only read one article shouldn't be one yet either.

Other variants

  • PQL (product qualified lead): in free trial or freemium models, product usage signals buying intent.
  • Direct request: someone who asks for a demo usually skips stages and goes straight to sales.

How to avoid conflict

  1. Have marketing and sales write the definition of each stage together.
  2. Agree on an SLA: how quickly sales contacts an MQL and what happens to those it rejects.
  3. Review MQL-to-SQL conversion and rejection reasons every quarter.
  4. Measure marketing on opportunities, not just MQL volume.

Criticism of the model

Forrester revised its own model in 2021 to focus on buying groups and opportunities, because in B2B it isn't a single contact who buys but several people. That's why more and more teams combine individual MQLs with account-level metrics.

Related terms

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