Each sales pipeline is made up of stages that represent the steps in your sales process. Stage settings decide what happens to a deal in that stage: whether it counts as open, won, or lost, and whether your team can track time, log expenses, or book people on it.
You'll find all stage settings in Settings > Sales settings, on the Pipeline and Deal stage card. When you create a stage, give it a clear, short name that describes where the deal is at that point, like Proposal sent or Contract review.
👉 New to pipelines? Start with Setting Up Your Sales Pipelines.
Stage Status
Every stage has a status: Open, Won, or Lost.
Open stages are for deals that are still in progress.
Won and Lost stages close the deal.
When you move a deal into a Won stage, the Mark deal as won window opens first, so you can decide what to create from the deal. When you move it into a Lost stage, the Mark deal as lost window opens, where you pick a lost reason. Then the deal is closed.
👉 Learn more in Winning a Deal and Losing a Deal.
Stage Options
For each stage, you can choose what your team is allowed to do with deals in it. Check the boxes you need:
Time tracking: lets your team track time on deals in this stage. Useful when presales work like workshops or estimates takes real hours.
Expense tracking: lets your team log expenses on deals in this stage, like travel to a client pitch.
Resourcing: lets you add bookings for deals in this stage in the Resource Planner. For example, you can tentatively book a designer on a deal in Negotiation before it's won.
Probability: sets a fixed chance of winning that's applied automatically when a deal enters this stage. It feeds into your sales forecast.
Setting Probability
You can set a probability only on Open stages. Won stages are set to 100% and Lost stages to 0% by default.
To set it, check Probability, then pick a percentage from the dropdown next to it (from 0% to 100%, in steps of 5%).
Base the numbers on your past deals. For example, if about half of the deals that reach Proposal sent end up won, set that stage to 50%.
📌 Probability per stage is available on the Ultimate plan. On other plans, the Probability checkbox is greyed out.
Making a Lost Reason Mandatory
Lost stages have a Lost reason checkbox. Check it to make choosing a lost reason mandatory whenever a deal is moved to that stage. This way, you always know why deals were lost.
Go to Settings > Sales settings.
On the Pipeline and Deal stage card, find a stage with the Lost status.
Open the three-dot menu next to it and click Edit.
Check Lost reason, then click Update stage.
👉 To manage the list of lost reasons, see General Sales Settings.
Colors, Icons, and Stage Order
Give each stage its own color and each pipeline an icon, so they're easy to tell apart. The pipeline icon shows up in the pipeline picker in CRM > Deals, and the stage colors show on your deals.
To change the order of stages or pipelines, drag and drop them. The order of stages is also the order of the columns on your deals board.
Managing Stages
Renaming a Stage
You can rename the default stages to match the terms your team uses. Click the stage name, type the new one, and press Enter or click anywhere else to save.
Editing a Stage
To change a stage after you've saved it, open the three-dot menu next to the stage and click Edit. Make your changes, then click Update stage.
📌 You can change the status of a stage only while it's empty. You can't change it if the stage has deals in it, or if it's the only stage with that status across all your pipelines. This keeps your existing open, won, and lost deals accurate.
Moving a Stage to Another Pipeline
Open the three-dot menu next to the stage and click Move.
In the Move stage to another pipeline window, choose the pipeline.
Click Move stage to pipeline to confirm.
Deleting a Stage
Open the three-dot menu next to the stage and click Delete.
If the stage has deals in it, a window opens. Choose another stage with the same status to move them to, then click Delete pipeline stage.
📌 An empty stage is deleted right away, without a confirmation window.
📌 You can't delete the only stage with a given status across all your pipelines. For example, if your organization has only one Lost stage, it can't be deleted.
👉 To work with stages in your deals, see Using Sales Pipelines.
