A guide for founders · The one-page agreement
The sales and marketing SLA, for a startup.
A sales and marketing SLA is a one-page agreement between whoever runs sales and whoever runs marketing. It says what a qualified lead is, how many marketing will produce, how fast sales will act on each one, what happens to the ones that are not ready, and when the two sides look at the numbers together. Both sign it. At a software startup of ten to forty people it is the single document that prevents the most expensive argument the company will have about pipeline.
This page explains the five clauses, what each one prevents, the numbers that go in them, and how to get the thing signed in a week. I have sat on both sides of the table it is written at, including a stretch running sales and marketing at once, which is the fastest way to learn why the page has to exist.
By Neely Thomson·Published
Why
Why does a startup this small need a sales and marketing SLA?
Because the argument it prevents arrives early and costs a quarter. The first month marketing produces anything, a salesperson calls one of the leads, finds it is a student with a free email address, and from then on “marketing leads” is said with a tone. Marketing, meanwhile, watches the leads it paid for sit in a queue for two days. Neither side is wrong, and nothing is written down, so the dispute runs until someone senior settles it, usually at the board meeting, usually against marketing.
At ten to forty people the agreement is a paragraph and five numbers, and the two people who need to sign it sit twenty feet apart. That is the moment to write it. At a hundred people it is a project.
The five clauses
What goes in a sales and marketing SLA?
Five clauses, in this order. Each one is a few sentences, and each one exists to stop a specific thing from happening.
01
The lead definition
What it says
What a qualified lead is: the firmographics (size, segment, geography), the signal (what they did), and the deal-value floor below which sales will not work it. One paragraph. Examples of what qualifies and what does not.
What it prevents
Two pipeline numbers reported to the same board. Marketing counts a download; sales counts a meeting; the board believes sales. Every marketing number is arguable until this paragraph exists.
02
Marketing's volume commitment
What it says
How many qualified leads marketing will deliver per month, by segment if the segments differ, derived from the pipeline target and the win rate. A number, not a direction.
What it prevents
A marketing function judged on activity. With a number agreed, a quiet month is a conversation about channels; without one, it is a conversation about whether marketing is working at all.
03
Sales response time and attempts
What it says
How fast sales makes the first attempt on a qualified lead, how many attempts over how many days, and through which channels, before the lead is returned. Measured in the CRM, not remembered.
What it prevents
Leads going cold in a queue. The research puts the average response at 42 hours and nearly a quarter of inquiries never answered. Marketing's budget bought those leads; the clause says what happens to them inside the first hour.
04
Feedback and recycling
What it says
What sales does with a lead that is not ready: a reason code from a short list, and a return to marketing for nurture rather than a silent drop. What marketing does with it next, and when it may come back.
What it prevents
The black hole. Without reason codes, marketing cannot tell which channel produces leads sales rejects, and cannot fix it. Without recycling, the budget that produced the lead is spent once and lost.
05
The review cadence
What it says
A fixed meeting, weekly at a startup, with four numbers on the table: leads delivered against commitment, response time against the clause, conversion to opportunity, and the top rejection reasons. Owners named. Fifteen minutes.
What it prevents
The annual argument. Reviewed weekly, a missed number is a small correction. Reviewed never, it is a quarter of blame arriving at the board meeting.
The numbers
What numbers go in it?
Five, and four of them come from the CRM. The deal-value floor in the lead definition is the smallest deal sales will work, which the last year of closed deals shows. The volume commitment is next year's pipeline target, divided by the win rate, multiplied by marketing's share. The response time is a decision rather than a measurement, and the research makes it an easy one: the first hour is worth seven times the second. The attempt count is whatever the sales lead will commit to and the CRM can log. The review is weekly.
Every number is wrong at first. That is fine; the point of the weekly review is to change them with evidence. A clause nobody can measure is the one to cut.
The numbers behind this page
- 7 times
more likely to have a qualifying conversation with a decision maker: that was the edge for firms that contacted a lead within an hour of the inquiry, against firms that waited one hour more. Against a day's wait, more than 60 times.
Harvard Business Review, The Short Life of Online Sales Leads, Oldroyd, McElheran and Elkington, 2011; about 1.25 million leads
- 42 hours
was the average response time among the 2,241 US companies audited with a test lead; 37% responded within an hour and 23% never responded at all. The response clause exists because the default is this.
Harvard Business Review, The Short Life of Online Sales Leads, 2011
- 15% and 8%
of ARR is what private B2B SaaS companies spend on selling and on marketing respectively, at the median. The SLA is the document that says what those two budgets owe each other.
SaaS Capital, Spending Benchmarks for Private B2B SaaS Companies 2026
- 2.6 years
is the average marketing leader's tenure at VC-backed companies. The lead-definition argument is the most common way the first year of that gets spent.
CMO Huddles and Findem CMO tenure study, reported by MediaPost, 2026
- 4.1 years
is the average CMO tenure at S&P 500 companies, against 5.0 years for the C-suite. Marketing is judged on a number that sales partly controls; the SLA is how that becomes fair.
Spencer Stuart CMO Tenure Study 2026, summary at the 4A's
Getting it signed
How do you get a sales lead to sign it?
Write it yourself, short, and lead with the clause that is in their interest. Sales wants fewer bad leads; the lead definition gives them a veto over what counts. Sales wants a forecastable number; the volume commitment is one. The response clause is the one they will push on, so make it the one they name: ask what they can commit to, write that down, and agree to review it in a month. A founder who hands over a draft and asks for one signature usually has it in a week. A founder who asks sales to co-write it from a blank page has a project.
If it takes longer than a week, you have found the first thing a new marketing hire would have spent a quarter on, and you have found it while you still have the standing to settle it.
On one page
The whole agreement, as a skeleton.
A qualified lead is
A [role] at a [segment] company of [size] in [geography] who has [signal], where the likely deal is at least [floor]. Not: [two examples].
Marketing will deliver
[N] qualified leads a month, [by segment], reviewed quarterly against the pipeline target.
Sales will
Make a first attempt within [one business hour], [N] attempts over [N] days by [channels], logged in the CRM, before returning the lead.
A lead that is not ready
Gets a reason code from [list of five] and returns to marketing for nurture. It may re-qualify after [period].
We review
Every [weekday] for fifteen minutes: delivered vs committed, response time, conversion to opportunity, top rejection reasons. Owners: [names].
Signed
[Sales lead], [Marketing owner], [date]. Revised with evidence, not by argument.
Where it sits
The SLA is one of six things a first marketer should inherit.
It is deliverable five of The First Hire Plan, signed by sales before the hire's first day, and it is part of the operating system in The Marketing Engine for a company that already has a marketer. The rest of the day-one list is here, and the full guide to the first hire is here.
Questions
Questions people ask first.
What is a sales and marketing SLA?
A one-page agreement between whoever runs marketing and whoever runs sales that says what a qualified lead is, how many marketing will produce, how fast sales will act on each one, what happens to the ones that are not ready, and when the two sides review the numbers. It is signed by both, and it is the reference every pipeline argument goes back to.
Does a startup with one salesperson need a sales and marketing SLA?
Yes, and it is easier to write with one salesperson than with ten. The document is a paragraph and five numbers. Its value is that it exists before the first disagreement about whether a lead was any good, which at a startup arrives in the first month marketing produces anything. Written early, it is a page. Written late, it is a quarter of negotiation.
What response time should a sales and marketing SLA require?
The research is clear that the first hour matters more than anything after it: contacting a lead within an hour made firms about seven times more likely to reach a decision maker than waiting one more hour. For a startup, a first attempt within one business hour and a defined number of attempts over the following days is realistic and worth writing down. The number matters less than the fact that it is agreed and measured.