Every B2B team wants to know if its funnel is leaking more than it should. Public benchmarks help, but only if you know how they were built. The most detailed stage-by-channel dataset I found comes from First Page Sage. Here is what it shows, where its own numbers seem to conflict, and how I use them.
Conversion by stage and channel (First Page Sage, 2025)
First Page Sage's B2B SaaS funnel benchmarks, last updated June 2025, draw on more than 50 B2B SaaS clients over a decade, mostly companies with $10M to $100M in revenue. By channel: Visitor to lead: SEO 2.1%, PPC 0.7%, LinkedIn 2.2%, email 1.3%, webinar 0.9%. Lead to MQL: SEO 41%, PPC 36%, LinkedIn 38%, email 43%, webinar 44%. MQL to SQL: SEO 51%, PPC 26%, LinkedIn 30%, email 46%, webinar 39%. SQL to opportunity: SEO 49%, PPC 38%, LinkedIn 41%, email 48%, webinar 42%. Opportunity to close: SEO 36%, PPC 35%, LinkedIn 39%, email 32%, webinar 40%. The report assumes competent execution in every channel, so these are closer to 'well-run' than to 'average'.
The MQL-to-SQL puzzle: 13% or 26% to 51%?
Understory Agency's 2026 summary of First Page Sage data reports an overall B2B SaaS MQL-to-SQL average of about 13%, from client data covering 2019 to 2025, alongside the channel range of 26% to 51% above. By industry, it lists business insurance at 26%, manufacturing 16%, cybersecurity 15%, software development 14%, fintech 11% and legal services 10%. These figures come from the same firm but different cuts of data, and the gap is large. The likely explanation is definitions and mix. The channel table assumes competent execution and includes only those five channels, while the broader average covers more companies, more lead sources and looser MQL definitions. When an MQL is defined loosely, more leads qualify and the share that reaches SQL falls. I would not average 13% with the channel figures. Instead, check which definition matches yours. If your MQL means 'downloaded anything', compare with the lower figure. If it means 'fits the ICP and showed buying intent', the channel figures are the fairer comparison.
What the channel pattern tells you
Read across the table and a pattern appears. PPC has the lowest visitor-to-lead rate and the lowest MQL-to-SQL rate in this dataset, while SEO and email convert MQLs at roughly twice the PPC rate. By the opportunity-to-close stage, the channels are much closer together, between 32% and 40%. In other words, channel quality differences show up early in the funnel and mostly wash out once a deal is real. That matters for budget decisions. A channel with a high CPL can still produce cheaper customers if its leads qualify at a higher rate, and a cheap channel can be expensive once you count how few leads make it to SQL. This is US-weighted SaaS data. I could not find a public India B2B funnel benchmark by stage with a disclosed sample, so if you sell in India, treat these as directional and build your own baseline.
How to compare your funnel fairly
Before comparing, align three things. First, stage definitions: write down what counts as a lead, MQL, SQL and opportunity in your CRM, because benchmarks are meaningless if your SQL is someone else's MQL. Second, time window: measure conversion on cohorts that have had time to move, not on last month's leads, or longer sales cycles will look like leaks. Third, channel attribution: split by original source, otherwise blended rates hide a weak channel behind a strong one. Then find the stage where you sit furthest below the benchmark. That is usually a better place to start than the stage with the lowest absolute rate. The conversion funnel calculator shows where volume drops in your own numbers, and the MQL calculator works back from a revenue target to the MQLs you need at your actual rates.
Sources
First Page Sage, B2B SaaS Funnel Conversion Benchmarks (updated June 2025): https://firstpagesage.com/seo-blog/b2b-saas-funnel-conversion-benchmarks-fc/ Understory Agency, MQL to SQL Conversion Rate Benchmarks: B2B SaaS (2026, summarising First Page Sage client data 2019 to 2025): https://www.understoryagency.com/blog/mql-to-sql-conversion-rate-benchmarks
FAQ
First Page Sage's 2025 channel data ranges from 26% for PPC to 51% for SEO, while its broader B2B SaaS average is about 13%. Which applies depends on how strictly you define an MQL.
In First Page Sage data, SEO and email convert MQLs to SQLs at the highest rates. Close rates from opportunity are similar across channels, between 32% and 40%.
I could not find a public India stage-by-stage benchmark with a disclosed sample. Use global data as a direction and build your own baseline from CRM cohorts.