MEDDIC: The Six-Part Qualification Framework
MEDDIC stands for Metrics, Economic Buyer, Decision Criteria, Decision Process, Identify Pain, and Champion. It is a deep sales qualification and deal-management framework built for complex, multi-stakeholder enterprise sales, created at PTC in the early 1990s and credited to Jack Napoli and Dario Priolo.
Why MEDDIC exists.
MEDDIC was built for a harder problem than BANT was designed to solve: enterprise software deals with several stakeholders, a budget that often does not exist until late in the process, and a decision process that can span procurement, legal, and security review. Rather than a quick early filter, MEDDIC is meant to be tracked and updated throughout the entire sales cycle.
Its core value is forcing specificity. Instead of "the prospect likes our product," MEDDIC asks a rep to name an actual person with budget authority, cite a measurable metric the prospect cares about, and identify someone inside the account who will advocate for the deal when the rep is not in the room.
What each letter checks for.
| Letter | What it checks |
|---|---|
| Metrics | The specific, measurable business outcome the prospect is trying to achieve or improve |
| Economic Buyer | The individual with actual authority and budget to approve the purchase, identified by name |
| Decision Criteria | The formal and informal standards the prospect will use to evaluate and choose a vendor |
| Decision Process | The concrete steps, people, and timeline the deal must pass through to reach a signed contract |
| Identify Pain | The specific, acknowledged business problem driving the prospect to consider a solution at all |
| Champion | A person inside the account with the credibility and motivation to advocate for you internally |
A common extended variant, MEDDPICC, adds two more elements: Paper Process (the legal, procurement, and security steps required to sign) and Competition (who else is being evaluated, and why you win or lose against them).
Common questions about MEDDIC.
What does MEDDIC stand for?
MEDDIC stands for Metrics, Economic Buyer, Decision Criteria, Decision Process, Identify Pain, and Champion. It is a six-part sales qualification and deal-management framework built for complex, multi-stakeholder B2B sales, most often enterprise software.
Who created MEDDIC?
MEDDIC is credited to Jack Napoli and Dario Priolo, developed in the early 1990s at PTC (then Parametric Technology Corporation), where it was reportedly associated with a sharp jump in sales performance and later spread across the enterprise software industry.
What is the difference between MEDDIC and MEDDPICC?
MEDDPICC is an extended version of MEDDIC that adds two more letters: Paper Process (the legal, procurement, and security steps required to actually sign a contract) and Competition (who else the prospect is evaluating, and why you win or lose against them). Some versions also separate Identify Pain into two distinct steps. Both variants share the same core logic; MEDDPICC is simply more explicit about deal mechanics that MEDDIC leaves implicit.
What is an Economic Buyer in MEDDIC?
The Economic Buyer is the specific individual with the actual authority and budget to approve the purchase, not just an enthusiastic user or an internal champion. In enterprise deals this person often never appears on early sales calls, which is why MEDDIC treats identifying and eventually reaching them as a distinct, trackable step rather than assuming the main point of contact is that person.
What is a Champion in MEDDIC?
A Champion is someone inside the prospect's organization who has enough internal credibility and personal motivation to actively sell your solution when you are not in the room, in internal meetings, budget discussions, and procurement reviews you are not invited to. A Champion is not simply a friendly contact; MEDDIC treats the distinction between the two as one of the most common reasons deals stall.
How is MEDDIC different from BANT?
BANT is a shorter, earlier-stage checklist (Budget, Authority, Need, Timeline) suited to simpler, single-buyer deals. MEDDIC is a deeper framework built for long, multi-stakeholder enterprise sales cycles, and it is used throughout a deal, not just to qualify it at the start, tracking Metrics and a Champion, for example, matters as much in the final weeks of a deal as in the first call.
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More sales & interview glossary terms.
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