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When a deal does not close, recording why is one of the most valuable things your team can do. Lost reasons give you a standardized vocabulary for capturing that information, turning individual deal outcomes into aggregate data you can analyze and act on. Without lost reasons, every closed-lost deal is just a number. With them, you can answer questions like: Are we losing to price? Are prospects ghosting after the proposal stage? Is a specific competitor winning in a particular segment? That data drives real improvements to your sales process.

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How lost reasons work

When a team member marks an opportunity as Lost — either by dragging it to the Lost column on the kanban board, changing the status dropdown, or updating the stage to a lost stage — the platform prompts them to select a lost reason before the change is saved.
Lost reason selection prompt on status change

The lost reason prompt appearing when marking a deal as Lost

The lost reason selected is then:
  • Stored on the opportunity record
  • Visible on the opportunity card and detail panel
  • Available as a filter in the Opportunities view
  • Included in CSV exports
  • Usable as a trigger or filter condition in workflow automations

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Setting up lost reasons

Lost reasons are managed in Opportunities > Opportunity Settings > Lost Reasons.
1

Navigate to Lost Reasons

Go to Opportunities, then click Opportunity Settings (the gear icon). Select the Lost Reasons tab.
2

Add a lost reason

Click + Add Lost Reason and enter a name for the reason. Keep names concise and specific enough to be distinct from one another.Examples of well-defined lost reasons:
  • Price too high
  • Chose a competitor
  • No budget at this time
  • No response after follow-up
  • Timing not right
  • Feature not available
  • Decided not to proceed
3

Save

Click Save. The reason is now available in the lost reason prompt and in filters throughout the platform.
List of configured lost reasons in Opportunity Settings

The Lost Reasons settings page showing configured reasons

Repeat to add as many reasons as you need. Most teams find 6 to 10 well-defined reasons is the right range — enough to be meaningful without being so granular that selecting one becomes a decision in itself.

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Editing lost reasons

To rename an existing lost reason:
  1. Go to Opportunities > Opportunity Settings > Lost Reasons
  2. Click the reason you want to edit
  3. Update the name and save
Editing a lost reason name updates it everywhere — on existing opportunity records, in filters, and in exports. If you need to track both the old and new names separately, create a new reason instead of renaming.
If you need to bulk-update lost reason values across many existing opportunities, go to Settings > Custom Fields, find the Lost Reason field, and use Bulk Actions > Edit to update the values.

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Deleting lost reasons

To delete a lost reason:
  1. Go to Opportunities > Opportunity Settings > Lost Reasons
  2. Click the delete icon next to the reason
  3. Confirm the deletion
Deleting a lost reason does not remove it from opportunity records where it has already been selected. Historical data is preserved. The reason will simply no longer appear as an option for new lost opportunities.

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Requiring a lost reason

By default, the lost reason prompt appears when a deal is marked Lost, but team members can dismiss it without selecting one. If you want to enforce consistent data entry, you can make the lost reason field required:
  1. Go to Settings > Custom Fields
  2. Find the Lost Reason field under Opportunity fields
  3. Enable the Required toggle
  4. Save
With this setting on, team members must select a lost reason before they can save a Lost status change.
Opportunity status field displaying Lost status

Opportunity status showing the Lost status with a recorded reason

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Using lost reasons in filters

Once opportunities have lost reasons recorded, you can filter by them across the platform:
  • Opportunities view — add a Lost Reason filter to see all deals lost for a specific reason
  • List view — add Lost Reason as a column and sort or filter by it
  • Dashboard widgets — build opportunity widgets that show counts or values broken down by lost reason
For example: filter to Status = Lost + Lost Reason = “Price too high” to see all price-objection losses, then look at their values and stages to identify whether this is happening early (qualifying problem) or late (negotiation problem).

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Using lost reasons in automations

Lost reasons can trigger or filter workflows, making it possible to respond automatically based on why a deal was lost. Examples:
  • When Lost Reason = “Timing not right” → wait 90 days → send a re-engagement email to the contact
  • When Lost Reason = “Chose a competitor” → add a “Competitor Loss” tag to the contact → enroll in a competitor-comparison nurture sequence
  • When Lost Reason = “No response after follow-up” → create a task for the manager to review after 30 days
To set this up, use the Opportunity Status Changed or Pipeline Stage Changed trigger in Workflows, then add a condition filter for the Lost Reason field.

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Analyzing lost reason data

Review your lost reasons regularly to identify patterns:
Export your opportunities filtered to Lost status and sort by lost reason. Group the data in a spreadsheet to count occurrences and total deal value lost per reason. The highest-value lost reason category is usually worth addressing first.
Key questions to ask during review:
  • Which lost reason appears most often? Is it controllable (like pricing or feature gaps) or external (like timing)?
  • Are deals being lost at a particular stage? That might indicate a problem with the sales conversation or materials at that step.
  • Has the distribution of lost reasons changed over time? A sudden spike in “Chose a competitor” losses might signal a competitive shift worth investigating.
  • Are high-value deals being lost for different reasons than lower-value ones?

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FAQs

By default, the prompt appears but can be skipped. To enforce it, make the Lost Reason field required in Settings > Custom Fields.
Yes. Lost reason is available as a filter in the Opportunities view, as a column in list view, and as a filter in dashboard widgets and CSV exports.
The new name updates everywhere, including on existing opportunity records. If you need to distinguish between the old name and the new name historically, create a new reason rather than renaming.
Yes. Use the Opportunity Status Changed or Pipeline Stage Changed workflow trigger with a Lost Reason filter condition to trigger automations for specific reasons.
There is no hard limit. Most teams use between 6 and 10 to keep selection fast and data meaningful.
Yes. Lost reasons are global — the same list is available when marking deals lost in any pipeline.
Last modified on March 6, 2026