BANT
BANT is a lead qualification framework that evaluates prospects across four dimensions: Budget, does the prospect have funds allocated for this purchase? Authority, is your contact the decision-maker, or do others hold approval power? Need, does the prospect have a genuine problem your product solves? Timeline, when are they planning to make a decision? Developed by IBM, BANT helps sales teams avoid investing significant effort in opportunities that lack the fundamental conditions for a deal to close. In a CRM, BANT criteria are often mapped to qualification fields on the lead or opportunity record, providing a structured basis for pipeline health reviews and forecasting accuracy.
BANT works as a quick gate at the top of qualification. A rep checks whether the prospect has budget, whether the contact has buying authority, whether there is a real need the product solves, and whether there is a timeline to decide. If several are missing, the deal is unlikely to close soon and gets deprioritized. Many teams now treat BANT as a flexible checklist rather than a hard pass/fail, since modern buying groups rarely line up neatly on all four.
Frequently Asked Questions
Budget, Authority, Need, and Timeline. A rep checks each to judge whether a prospect is worth pursuing now: can they fund it, can the contact decide, is there a real need, and is there a timeframe.