MEDDIC and MEDDPICC are the same qualification framework at two lengths. MEDDIC has six letters. MEDDPICC keeps all six and adds two: Paper Process and Competition. Which one a team should run depends on where its deals die.
Below: both defined, the letters side by side, the two added letters with the evidence each needs, a decision rule, the coach's questions per letter and one deal scored both ways.
MEDDIC, defined
MEDDIC is a sales qualification framework with six elements: Metrics, Economic Buyer, Decision Criteria, Decision Process, Identify Pain and Champion. A deal is qualified when the rep has buyer-confirmed evidence on all six.
It began as an internal qualification checklist at PTC, a Boston software company, in the 1990s. MEDDICC.com credits Dick Dunkel, with Jack Napoli, and dates it to 1996; meddpicc.net describes it as the result of teamwork across PTC's sales leadership and names several people. Both agree on the company and the decade. The full six elements are on our MEDDIC page.
MEDDPICC, defined
MEDDPICC is the same framework with eight elements: Metrics, Economic Buyer, Decision Criteria, Decision Process, Paper Process, Implicate the Pain, Champion and Competition.
The letters arrived in two steps. MEDDICC added Competition, for teams selling into competitive markets. MEDDPICC added Paper Process, and many trainers who teach it, MEDDICC among them, also changed the I from "identify" to "implicate". The eight elements, with questions for each, are on our MEDDPICC page.
Side by side: the letters
| Element | MEDDIC | MEDDICC | MEDDPICC | Evidence that counts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Metrics | Yes | Yes | Yes | The buyer's number, with a baseline and a target, in their words |
| Economic Buyer | Yes | Yes | Yes | A conversation with the person who approves the spend, or their priorities confirmed by the champion |
| Decision Criteria | Yes | Yes | Yes | The criteria the buyer will compare on, agreed with the buyer |
| Decision Process | Yes | Yes | Yes | Each step to a decision with an owner and a date |
| Paper Process | No | No | Yes | Which reviews apply after the decision (legal, security, procurement), who runs each, how long they take, who signs |
| Pain | Identify | Identify or implicate | Implicate | The problem stated by the buyer, with its cost and a date it has to be fixed by |
| Champion | Yes | Yes | Yes | Something the champion has already done for the deal that cost them time or standing |
| Competition | No | Yes | Yes | Every alternative the buyer is weighing, including doing nothing and building it themselves, and why each appeals |
The right-hand column is the same whichever framework a team runs. The letters are the index; the evidence is the qualification.
The two letters MEDDPICC adds
Paper Process
Paper Process is the set of steps between the buyer's decision and a signed contract: legal review, security review or questionnaire, procurement, vendor onboarding, signature. Mapping it means knowing each step, who runs it and how long it took the last time.
MEDDIC teams still have a paper process. They track it inside Decision Process, if at all, and it is the step most often discovered after the verbal yes. The questions that map it belong in the first two conversations: "Once you choose, what has to happen before anything is signed?", "How long did that take the last time you bought software?", "Who signs a contract of this size, and does anyone else approve it?"
Competition
Competition is every alternative the buyer could choose over you. That includes other vendors, doing nothing, building it in-house and spending the budget on a different project. In many deals the status quo is the competitor to beat, and the one the rep never names.
The questions: "What else are you considering?", "How did you arrive at that list?", "What happens if you keep the current process for another year?" The evidence that counts is each alternative in the buyer's words, with the reason it appeals, and that list changes after every pricing conversation.
Identify pain or implicate the pain
The I stands for Identify Pain in the original MEDDIC and Implicate the Pain in much MEDDPICC teaching. Identified pain is a problem the buyer admits exists. Implicated pain is a problem the buyer has connected to a cost and a deadline.
"Our ramp is slow" is identified. "Slow ramp is costing us two quota-carrying quarters per hire and we cannot hit next year's number without fixing it" is implicated. The change in wording raises the bar on the evidence, and it is the reason a MEDDPICC deal review asks "what did the buyer say it costs?" where a MEDDIC review might stop at "what is the pain?"
Why teams qualify with either one
Both frameworks exist to answer one question early: is this deal worth the team's time, and what is it missing? Teams adopt them for four practical reasons.
A forecast built on evidence. When every committed deal has to show its letters, the forecast stops depending on how each rep feels about their deals. A deal with no Economic Buyer on record is hard to defend in a forecast call.
Earlier disqualification. A deal that cannot find a Champion or a Metric in the first conversations is a deal to slow down on. Walking away in week two costs less than losing in month five.
A shared language for coaching. "Your Decision Process is inferred" is a sentence a manager and a rep can both act on. Without the letters, deal coaching drifts into opinions about whether the buyer seemed keen.
Faster onboarding. A new rep who learns the letters learns what the team means by a qualified deal, and every deal review they sit in uses the same words.
None of the four depends on which version you pick. They depend on whether the letters are filled in from what the buyer said.
Which one to run
Pick by where your late-stage deals die.
| Where deals die | Run | Why |
|---|---|---|
| In procurement, legal or security review, after a verbal yes | MEDDPICC | Paper Process puts those steps into qualification in the first conversations |
| To another vendor, to "we'll wait", or to an internal build | MEDDICC at least | Competition forces the alternatives into the open before the shortlist is set |
| Close in weeks, one decision maker, standard contract | MEDDIC | The two extra letters add work the deal does not need |
| In the forecast call, after the rep said it was committed | Any, with evidence states | The framework was filled in after the fact and never used on calls; see the letters as evidence on a live deal, below |
Two cautions. A framework with more letters does not qualify a deal better if the letters are filled in from the rep's assumptions. And a team that moves from MEDDIC to MEDDPICC gets nothing from the two new letters until reps ask the new questions on calls, which is a coaching change before it is a CRM change.
Choosing by your team as well as your deals
The table above picks by where deals die. Two facts about your own team can change the answer.
How much time reps have per deal. Eight letters take longer to work than six. A rep carrying a large book of open deals will fill the extra two from memory, which adds fields without adding evidence. A rep with a short book of large deals has time to work all eight on calls.
What the team already knows. A team trained on MEDDIC can add Competition and Paper Process as two new questions in the first conversations. A team new to qualification is better off learning six letters well and adding the rest a quarter later, once the first six are buyer-confirmed on most deals.
If both point to MEDDIC and your deals point to MEDDPICC, start with MEDDIC plus Paper Process. The procurement surprise is usually the costliest one to miss.
MEDDIC, MEDDPICC and BANT
BANT asks four questions: budget, authority, need and timeline. It is quicker than either MEDDIC or MEDDPICC and works for short, transactional sales or for an SDR's first call. Its weakness is that each letter can be answered with a yes. "Is there budget?" gets a yes far more often than "What does this problem cost you?" gets a number. Teams usually move from BANT to MEDDIC when deals involve several people and a cost case. The full comparison is in MEDDPICC vs BANT.
Which letters matter at which stage
No deal has all eight letters confirmed on the first call, and a review that asks for all eight every week turns into a form. Each stage of the deal has two or three letters that decide whether it should move on.
| Stage | Letters to confirm before it moves on | Why these |
|---|---|---|
| First discovery | Implicate the Pain, Metrics | Without a cost and a number there is nothing to build a case on |
| Qualification | Champion, Economic Buyer, Competition | Someone inside has to carry it, someone has to approve it, and the alternatives have to be named |
| Evaluation | Decision Criteria, Decision Process | The buyer agrees what they will compare on and the steps to a decision |
| Proposal | Paper Process, Economic Buyer engaged | The steps after a yes are mapped, and the person who signs has heard the case |
| Commit | All eight, buyer-confirmed | Anything still inferred here is the risk in the forecast |
MEDDIC teams can use the same table and drop the Paper Process and Competition rows. The point is the same: each stage gate asks for evidence on a few letters, and the rest can stay unknown for now without anyone pretending otherwise.
How to move a team from MEDDIC to MEDDPICC
Switching frameworks is mostly a change in what reps ask on calls. The CRM fields are the easy part.
- Check where deals died last year. Pull the late-stage losses and slips. If most went quiet in procurement or legal, Paper Process will earn its place. If most went to a rival or to doing nothing, Competition will. If neither, the switch may not be worth the extra work.
- Write the evidence standard for the two new letters. One sentence each on what counts as buyer-confirmed, with an example from a real deal. Do the same for the change from identify to implicate.
- Add the questions to the call plan. The Paper Process and Competition questions above belong in the first two conversations, so reps need them in the template they prepare from.
- Train managers before reps. Managers run the deal reviews where the new letters get asked about. If they keep asking the MEDDIC questions, reps will keep answering them.
- Add the fields with three states (set out in the CRM section below). A free-text box for each letter fills up with optimism.
- Review the first month of deals letter by letter. Look for letters marked confirmed with no buyer words behind them, and coach those.
- Re-check the losses after two quarters. If deals still die in procurement, the questions are not being asked early enough.
Setting it up in the CRM
The CRM should show the state of each letter, the buyer's words behind it and when it last changed. A workable layout per opportunity:
- One field per letter with three values: buyer-confirmed, rep-inferred, unknown.
- One short text field per letter for the buyer's words or the source ("CFO on the call of the 12th").
- A date stamp on each change, so a letter that has sat at rep-inferred for weeks is visible.
- A stage rule that blocks moving to the next stage while that stage's letters are unknown.
Keep the fields short. Reps fill in long qualification forms on Friday afternoons from memory, which is where most of the evidence gets lost.
Mistakes teams make with either framework
- Treating a contact as a champion. Someone friendly who takes every meeting is a contact. A champion has done something for the deal that cost them time or standing.
- Naming the economic buyer from the org chart. A title on a slide is a guess until someone has confirmed who approves the spend.
- Leaving out doing nothing. Competition that lists only other vendors misses the alternative most deals lose to.
What neither framework tells you
MEDDIC and MEDDPICC are qualification frameworks. They tell a rep what has to be true about a deal. They do not tell a rep how to run the conversation that makes it true. That is the job of a selling methodology, and most teams pair the two.
Gap Selling runs the discovery that produces Implicate the Pain and Metrics: current state, root cause, impact, future state. The ValueSelling Framework® runs the whole deal through the ValuePrompter® and the Qualified Prospect Formula®, which map closely onto the MEDDPICC letters with their own vocabulary. A team that only has the letters gets reps who know what is missing and do not know what to say to get it.
The letters as evidence on a live deal
A MEDDPICC scorecard filled in after the call is a measurement. Coaching is what happens around it: the conversation before the call where the rep works out which letter this call is for, and the conversation after it where the evidence gets tested. Both are calls between the rep and a manager or a coach.
- 1UnknownLeast evidence: the next call's job
- 2Rep-inferredFilled in from the rep's assumptions
- 3Buyer-confirmedThe buyer said it, on a call or in writing
| Letter | What the coach asks the rep | Counts as buyer-confirmed when |
|---|---|---|
| Metrics | What number did the buyer give you, and where did it come from? | The buyer stated it, with a baseline, on a call or in writing |
| Economic Buyer | Who approves this, and when did you last speak to them? | The rep has spoken to them, or the champion has relayed their priorities in specifics |
| Decision Criteria | What will they compare on, in their words, and which matters most? | The buyer listed the criteria and ranked them |
| Decision Process | What are the steps from here to a decision, with dates, and who told you? | Each step has an owner and a date the buyer gave |
| Paper Process | What happens between a yes and a signature, and how long did it take last time? | The buyer named the reviews, the owners and a past duration |
| Implicate the Pain | What did the buyer say this is costing them, and by when does it have to be fixed? | The buyer put a cost and a date on it |
| Champion | What has your contact done for this deal that cost them something? | The contact has arranged a meeting, shared internal material, argued the case without the rep present, or put their own standing behind the purchase |
| Competition | What else are they weighing, including nothing, and why does each appeal? | The buyer named the alternatives and the appeal of each |
With the three evidence states, the brief before a call picks the letters with the least evidence as that call's job. The debrief after it moves letters between states, on the buyer's words. A letter that has been rep-inferred for three weeks is the question the next conversation is for.
MEDDPICC questions to ask the buyer
MEDDPICC questions are the questions a rep asks the buyer to move each letter from rep-inferred to buyer-confirmed. One opener per letter is enough for a call plan, and the follow-up does most of the work.
- Metrics: "What does this problem cost you today, and how do you measure it?"
- Economic Buyer: "Who signs off on a project like this, and what are they focused on this year?"
- Decision Criteria: "When you compare options, what matters most, and what would rule one out?"
- Decision Process: "What are the steps from here to a decision, and when does each one happen?"
- Paper Process: "Once you choose, which reviews does a contract go through?"
- Implicate the Pain: "What happens if this is still unfixed in six months?"
- Champion: "Who else needs to hear this, and would you set up that conversation?"
- Competition: "What else are you looking at, including leaving things as they are?"
After each answer, ask what the buyer means by it. A letter moves only when the buyer has said it in their own words.
One deal, scored both ways
A rep is selling an onboarding platform to a 200-seat software company. The contact is the VP of sales enablement. This example is illustrative.
| Element | Evidence | MEDDIC | MEDDPICC |
|---|---|---|---|
| Metrics | VP wants ramp from six months to four; baseline from their CRM | Confirmed | Confirmed |
| Economic Buyer | CRO approves; rep has not met her | Inferred | Inferred |
| Decision Criteria | Integration, rep-level analytics, security review; in a shared doc the VP agreed | Confirmed | Confirmed |
| Decision Process | Pilot in November, decision in December; steps after the pilot undated | Inferred | Inferred |
| Paper Process | Not discussed | (not tracked) | Unknown |
| Pain | VP estimates what a month of ramp costs; finance has not confirmed | Identified: confirmed | Implicated: inferred |
| Champion | VP set up a call with RevOps; has not offered the CRO | Inferred | Inferred |
| Competition | One other vendor, plus an internal plan to write playbooks | (not tracked) | Confirmed |
Under MEDDIC the deal has three confirmed letters and three inferred, and the pain reads as done. Under MEDDPICC the same deal has three confirmed, four inferred and one unknown, and the pain reads as half done. The MEDDPICC view produces two concrete asks for this week: get the VP to set up the CRO meeting (which tests the champion and covers the economic buyer at once), and ask procurement for their standard timeline before the pilot. The MEDDIC view produces the first ask and misses the second, which is the one that moves a December decision into February.
Running it on every deal
The table of coach questions above assumes someone asks them, on every deal, before and after every buyer conversation. A manager with ten reps and eighty open deals cannot. So the letters get filled in from memory on Friday, the forecast inherits the rep's confidence, and the paper process is discovered in January.
Replicate Labs coaches in the team's own qualification framework and selling methodology, on live deals. The rep brings the deal to Caty, our deal expert, on a call by voice, or by typing when they cannot talk. She holds it to the team's qualification standard, names which letters the buyer has not yet confirmed, and briefs the next conversation around the letter with the least evidence, in the team's own vocabulary, whether that is MEDDPICC, MEDDIC or the team's own playbook. After the call the rep comes back and Caty checks what the buyer said against each letter. She remembers every deal the rep has brought.
Teams that pair the letters with Gap Selling work with Keenan, and teams on the ValueSelling Framework® with Val. Bryce, who coaches the managers, shows which letters stay inferred across the team and whose deals they sit on. Typing works when the rep cannot talk.
Whichever acronym your team uses, talk to us and hear one of your deals staged letter by letter on the buyer's evidence.
FAQ
What is the difference between MEDDIC and MEDDPICC?
MEDDIC has six elements: Metrics, Economic Buyer, Decision Criteria, Decision Process, Identify Pain and Champion. MEDDPICC keeps all six and adds Paper Process (the legal, security and procurement steps after the decision) and Competition (every alternative the buyer could choose, including doing nothing). Much MEDDPICC teaching also changes Identify Pain to Implicate the Pain, which asks for the cost and the deadline as well as the problem.
What does MEDDPICC stand for?
MEDDPICC stands for Metrics, Economic Buyer, Decision Criteria, Decision Process, Paper Process, Implicate the Pain, Champion and Competition. It is a B2B sales qualification framework that grew out of MEDDIC, which began as an internal checklist at PTC in the 1990s.
What is MEDDICC, with two Cs?
MEDDICC is MEDDIC plus Competition. It sits between MEDDIC (six elements) and MEDDPICC (eight), and it is the version for teams that lose deals to other vendors, to a decision to wait or to an internal build, but whose contracts do not go through a long legal or procurement process.
Should my team use MEDDIC or MEDDPICC?
Pick by where your late-stage deals die. If they slip in procurement, legal or security review after a verbal yes, run MEDDPICC. If they go to another vendor or to doing nothing, run at least MEDDICC. If they close in weeks with one decision maker and a standard contract, MEDDIC is enough. Whichever you pick, track each letter as buyer-confirmed, rep-inferred or unknown.
What is Paper Process in MEDDPICC?
Paper Process is the set of steps between the buyer's decision and a signed contract: legal review, security questionnaire, procurement, vendor onboarding and signature. It is qualified when the rep knows which steps apply, who runs each, how long it took the last time and who signs. MEDDIC teams usually fold it into Decision Process, which is why it gets discovered late.
Is it identify pain or implicate the pain?
Both are used for the same letter. The original MEDDIC said Identify Pain: the buyer admits the problem exists. Much MEDDPICC teaching says Implicate the Pain: the buyer has connected the problem to a cost and a deadline. The second is a higher bar for the same evidence, and it is the version a coach should hold a rep to on a deal review.
How does MEDDPICC help the forecast?
It gives each forecast category a test the buyer has to have passed. A deal in commit should have all eight letters buyer-confirmed; one with the economic buyer or the paper process still inferred belongs a category lower until the conversation that confirms it happens. The forecast call then asks which letter is missing and which conversation gets it, in place of asking how the rep feels about the deal.
Is MEDDPICC worth it for a small team?
MEDDPICC is worth it for a small team whose deals run through procurement, legal or security review, because the deals matter more than the team size. A small team selling into enterprises with security reviews and procurement will feel the Paper Process letter in its first quarter. A small team closing standard contracts in weeks can run MEDDIC, or even a few of its letters, and add the rest when deals get longer.
Can SDRs use MEDDPICC?
SDRs rarely need all eight letters. A common split is for SDRs to surface early evidence on one or two, usually the pain and a first sense of who owns it, and hand the rest to the account executive. The SDR's notes should mark each letter they touched as buyer-confirmed or inferred, so discovery starts from what the buyer said.
How long does it take to switch from MEDDIC to MEDDPICC?
The fields take a day. The questions take as long as it takes managers to ask about the new letters in every deal review, and reps to ask the buyer about them in the first two conversations. Judge the switch by whether Paper Process and Competition appear as buyer-confirmed on new deals, and whether late-stage slips in procurement fall over the following quarters.
Does MEDDPICC tell you how to run a sales call?
MEDDPICC does not tell a rep how to run a sales call; it tells them what has to be true about a deal, and leaves what to say to make it true. Teams pair it with a selling methodology such as Gap Selling or the ValueSelling Framework® for the conversation itself, and use the letters as evidence gates in the brief before a call and the debrief after it.