What is cost per win?
Total pursuit cost in a period, divided by wins in that period. Not fee won. Not pipeline. The amount you spent to obtain each yes, including the nos. If you spent $170,000 pursuing twenty tenders and won four, cost per win is $42,500. If you spent $68,000 pursuing eight and won four, it is $17,000. Same wins. Different firm.
Win rate on those two firms is 20 percent and 50 percent. The second number looks like a better sales team. It is often a better gate. Qualification is how you move from the first toward the second without pretending the market got easier.
Why does win rate lie?
It rewards volume. A thin submission still counts. A zombie that should have died in week one still counts. The scoreboard gets healthier as the gate gets weaker. Cost per win punishes the extras. That is the point.
Published Australian win-rate benchmarks will sit in this guide when we have survey data, not before. Until then, use your last twelve months. Invented averages help no one and get cited anyway.
What has to go in the numerator?
Everyone who touches the response, at the rate they would otherwise bill or cost, plus external. The cost-of-pursuit calculator is the per-bid version. Sum it. Do not leave the principals out because they do not fill a timesheet. The utilisation trap is that sentence for consultancies.
If you cannot reconstruct last quarter, you will not reconstruct next quarter. Last five pursuits, honest hours, your rates, wins. The metric falls out.
What the number cannot do
It cannot tell you to bid. A cheap pursuit that fails risk is still a no. An expensive pursuit that passes all three axes can still be a yes. Cost per win is why the gate is worth running, not a substitute for it.
It cannot invent wins. Cutting poor-fit work does not raise win rate by magic. It raises cost per win by not paying for the nos you already knew. Wins still have to be won on the work that fits.