BANT and MEDIC are sales qualification frameworks. BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, Timeline) is a 1960s IBM checklist optimized for transactional, single-buyer deals. MEDIC (Metrics, Economic buyer, Decision criteria, Decision process, Identify pain, Champion) is a modern, complex-deal framework built for committee buying. Use BANT for SMB and short cycles. Use MEDIC (or MEDDDPICC) for mid-market and enterprise.
Side by side
| Dimension | BANT | MEDIC |
|---|---|---|
| Origin | IBM, 1960s | PTC / Jack Napoli, 1990s |
| Buyer model | Single decision-maker | Buying committee |
| Deal size | Under $25K | $50K and up |
| Cycle length | Days to weeks | Months to quarters |
| Output | Pass / fail score | Deal map and gap list |
BANT asks “should we keep selling?” MEDIC asks “what do we still not know, and who do we need to know it from?”
When BANT is enough
BANT works when one person can sign and the deal closes in a few calls. SMB SaaS, transactional self-serve overlay, ecommerce tools under $20K ACV. The four checks are:
- Budget. Do they have funds in this fiscal year?
- Authority. Is the person on the call the signer?
- Need. Is the pain measurable?
- Timeline. Is there a forcing event?
If three of four are weak, disqualify or downgrade.
When you need MEDIC
Once a deal involves two or more departments, security review, or procurement, BANT collapses. “Authority” is no longer one person; it is a chain. MEDIC adds the missing structure:
- Metrics. Quantified business impact (“save 12 hours per AE per week”).
- Economic buyer. The single person who can spend without asking.
- Decision criteria. The written list of what they will compare on.
- Decision process. The ordered steps from now to signed contract.
- Identify pain. Diagnosed and acknowledged by the buyer in their words.
- Champion. Internal advocate who sells when you are not in the room.
MEDDDPICC adds Documents (paper process), Decision criteria as a separate field, and Competition. For most enterprise teams MEDDDPICC is the de facto standard.
A practical recommendation
Pick one framework per segment and enforce it in your CRM stage definitions. Do not try to track both. Mid-market teams that copy enterprise MEDDDPICC fields onto SMB deals get sparse, low-quality data and reps stop filling the fields out.
Common pitfalls
- Treating BANT as a literal checklist on enterprise deals. Authority is plural. Pretending otherwise produces ghost forecasts.
- Filling in MEDIC fields with guesses. “Champion: probably Sarah” is worse than blank. Empty signals a gap; guess signals false confidence.
- No update cadence. MEDIC is a living document. Update after every call, not at the end of the quarter.
Related
- Discovery call — where you collect the qualification data
- MEDDDPICC — the enterprise extension of MEDIC
- Champion builder — the C in MEDIC
- Salesforce — where to enforce the framework as required fields