Loss Reason tracking lets you capture why an opportunity was lost the moment it moves into a Lost stage and what its last stage was before being marked as lost. Over time, this shows you the patterns behind lost deals - budget, timing, competitors, or whatever reasons matter to your process - so you can address what's actually costing you business.
How to Turn On Loss Reason Tracking for a Stage
Loss Reason is a per-stage setting, available only on stages with Stage Type set to Lost.
Locate your Lost stage (or create one by editing a stage and changing its Stage Type to "Lost") and click Edit stage. Scroll to the Loss Reason field, which controls whether moving an opportunity into this stage asks for a reason:
Off - don't ask for a reason. Opportunities can move into this stage with no prompt.
Optional - ask, but allow skipping. The prompt appears, but users can save the move without selecting a reason.
Required - a reason must be chosen. Users cannot save the move until they select a reason.
Click Save to apply the change.
How to Manage Reasons for a Stage
Once Loss Reason is set to Optional or Required, a Reasons for this stage list appears below it in the same Edit Stage panel. This list belongs to the stage you're editing - other Lost stages in the pipeline keep their own separate lists.
Turning Loss Reason on for the first time with an empty list adds a default set of reasons automatically. From there, you can:
Add reason - adds a new blank reason for you to name.
Delete icon - removes a reason from the list. Removing a reason keeps it on historical reports; it only stops being selectable going forward.
Click Save once you're done editing the list.
What Users See When Moving an Opportunity to a Lost Stage
When Loss Reason is turned on for a stage, moving or dragging an opportunity into that stage opens a "Why was this opportunity lost?" prompt with a dropdown of the reasons configured for that stage.
If Loss Reason is set to Optional, users can select a reason or close the prompt without choosing one.
If Loss Reason is set to Required, users must select a reason before the move is saved.
Opportunities that skip the prompt, or that move into the stage through an automation, are recorded with a reason of Unspecified.
How to View the Loss by Stage Report
Click Reports in the left navigation bar.
Click Sales & Pipeline.
Click Loss by Stage.
This opens the Loss by Stage report. Use the filters at the top to control what it shows:
Pipeline selector - switches the report between your pipelines. Defaults to the account's Default pipeline.
Edit Pipeline icon - opens the Edit Pipeline settings for whichever pipeline is currently selected in the report.
Timeline - sets the date range, based on when each opportunity entered its lost stage. Choose Last 30 Days, Last 90 Days, Last 180 Days, Last 365 Days, or a custom range.
All Users / My Opportunities - scopes the report to every user's lost opportunities or just your own.
Export CSV - downloads the report data as a CSV file.
If no opportunities were lost in the selected pipeline and range, the report shows a message that none were lost, and the summary stats below display as 0 or a dash.
Below the filters, the report includes:
Summary stats - Total Lost, Loss Rate (of closed), Top Reason, and Avg Days Before Loss for the selected pipeline and range.
Loss Reasons chart - a bar chart showing how many losses are tied to each reason.
Stage at Loss table - the stages where opportunities were marked lost, with a lost count and average days in stage before the loss for each.
Reasons by Lost Stage - a breakdown of loss reasons for each lost stage individually, with a count and percentage of that stage's losses for each reason.
Key Notes
Loss Reason is only available on stages with Stage Type set to Lost.
Skipped or automated moves into a Lost stage record the loss reason as Unspecified.
The Loss by Stage report is dated by when an opportunity entered its lost stage, not by when the opportunity was created.