Glossary

MQL vs SQL: what is the difference?

MQL vs SQL explained: what marketing qualified and sales qualified leads are, how a lead moves from one to the other, and how to define each for your team.

By the GTM Plays teamUpdated 1 min read

Definition

An MQL, or marketing qualified lead, is a lead that fits your target market and has engaged with marketing enough to deserve attention. An SQL, or sales qualified lead, is one that sales has reviewed and accepted as a real opportunity with a need, fit and willingness to talk.

An MQL, or marketing qualified lead, fits your target market and has engaged with marketing, for example by downloading a guide. An SQL, or sales qualified lead, has been reviewed by sales and accepted as a real opportunity. The move from MQL to SQL is where marketing hands over to sales.

MQL vs SQL at a glance

MQL SQL
Who qualifies it Marketing, often by lead scoring Sales, after a review or conversation
What it shows Fit plus engagement Fit, need and willingness to talk
Next step Nurture or hand to sales Discovery call or proposal

How to define each for your team

  1. Start from your ICP. Neither label means anything if the lead does not fit your ideal customer profile.
  2. Agree the MQL threshold with sales: which actions, and what score.
  3. Agree the SQL criteria, such as confirmed need, role and timing.
  4. Write it down and review conversion between stages every quarter.

Why the line matters

If the MQL bar is too low, sales stops trusting marketing's leads. If it is too high, good leads wait in nurture. Track how many MQLs become SQLs and how many SQLs become customers, and adjust.

MQLs, SQLs and outbound

In outbound sales, there is often no MQL stage. You reach out, and a prospect who replies with interest is already in a sales conversation. That is how GTM Plays works on LinkedIn: the agent finds intent signals, scores fit against your ICP and sends a message from your own account, and replies come into one inbox for you to qualify. Start a 7-day free trial.

Frequently asked questions

What is an MQL?

A marketing qualified lead: someone who fits your target market and has engaged enough with marketing to be worth a closer look, but has not yet been confirmed as ready to talk to sales.

What is an SQL?

A sales qualified lead: someone sales has reviewed and accepted as a real opportunity, usually because they fit, have a need and are open to a conversation.

What comes between an MQL and an SQL?

Many teams use a sales accepted lead stage, where sales agrees to work the lead before qualifying it further.

Do outbound leads become MQLs?

Often not. Outbound prospects who reply with interest usually go straight to the SQL stage, because sales has already spoken to them.

Keep reading

GlossaryWhat is lead scoring?Lead scoring explained: what it is, fit vs intent scoring, how to build a simple B2B lead scoring model, and the mistakes that make scores meaningless.Read GlossaryWhat is an ideal customer profile (ICP)?What an ideal customer profile (ICP) is, how it differs from a buyer persona, what to include, and a simple B2B ICP template you can fill in today.Read GlossaryWhat is outbound sales?Outbound sales explained: what it is, how it differs from inbound, the channels and roles involved, and how signal-led outbound improves reply rates.Read

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