BANT

4 min read•Sales Methodologies

Budget, Authority, Need, Timeline — a fast qualification checklist.

What BANT stands for

Budget — do they have money to spend?
Authority — can this person say yes?
Need — is there a real problem?
Timeline — when do they need to solve it?

Invented at IBM in the 1960s, BANT was designed for a much simpler B2B world where one buyer signed one check. It's still useful today — but with major caveats.

Why it's still around

BANT is fast. In a 15-minute inbound qualification call, an SDR can hit all four boxes and hand off a clean lead. For high-velocity, low-ACV sales it works.

Why it fails at complexity

Modern SaaS deals rarely have a pre-existing budget line — the buyer creates one when the pain is quantified.
"Authority" is almost never one person — buying committees average 6–10 people.
Timeline is often a fiction until you help the buyer build a business case.

Common BANT mistake

Disqualifying a strong opportunity because "there's no budget" — when the real answer is that no one has done the math yet. Your job is often to help build that budget.

How SDRs actually use BANT

Use it as a mental checklist to confirm meetings are worth an AE's time. Ask indirectly: instead of "do you have budget?" ask "how does your team typically fund projects like this?" Instead of "are you the decision maker?" ask "who else would weigh in?"

For anything deal-shaped and above ~$25k ARR, upgrade to MEDDIC.

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