SAL vs SQL: What's the Difference?

A SAL (Sales Accepted Lead) is the handoff checkpoint between marketing and sales - a lead marketing has already qualified, usually as an MQL, that a rep or SDR has reviewed and agreed is worth working. It's an acceptance step, not a qualification of its own; nobody has spoken to the lead yet.

An SQL (Sales Qualified Lead) goes further - sales has actually engaged the lead directly, through a call or discovery conversation, and independently confirmed real budget, authority, need, and timeline before moving it into the pipeline as an opportunity.

The reason SAL is worth tracking as its own stage: without it, an "MQL to SQL" rate hides which half of the process is actually breaking. If leads consistently become SALs but rarely convert to SQLs, the problem sits with sales discovery once they've actually engaged. If leads never even reach SAL because reps keep rejecting the handoff, the problem is upstream - marketing's scoring or targeting isn't producing what sales considers worth their time at all.