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An SDR compensation plan that pays the SDR a bonus on qualified opportunities as well as a commission on closed/won deals that originated from their leads.

Sales Development Rep

Qualified Opportunity Bonus & Closed Won Commission

Use SDR comp plans like this one when you want to reward your team for the opportunities they create and those that finalize in a sale. Under this sales compensation model, the SDR first earns a base rate bonus for every qualified opportunity they pass to sales. See Qualified Opportunity Bonus. The second sales incentive compensation occurs when the AE who inherited that lead closes the deal. At that point, the SDR would earn a Single Rate Commission from the sale. This plan has no cap. Note: This is a great SDR comp plan to promote qualified leads from your SDR team and prepare them to be future AEs. We recommend setting a commission rate much less than the AE plans. For example, an SDR might earn 3% on the deal, while the AE collects 10%.

$75K

On-Target Earnings

$150K

Quarterly Quota

$51K:$24K

Base:Variable

8x

Quota:OTE

Model your plan
Forecast Earnings

Split

68:32

Quarterly Quota Bonus
Quarterly Quota Commission
Revenue:OTE

8.0x

We recommend a ratio of 4 to 10x

$1-$30 million

ARR

Build a funnel

Quarterly

Paths

Path 1: Quarterly Quota Bonus

Path Description

Quota

30 Qualified Opportunities quarterly

Type

Single Rate

Earnings Rule

$100 per deal

This plan includes two paths, a Qualified Opportunity Bonus and a Single Rate Closed Won Commission applicable to every closed/won deal that originated from an SDR lead.

Path 2: Quarterly Quota Commission

Path Description

Quota

$150,000 ARR quarterly

Type

Single Rate

Earnings Rule

2%

This plan includes two paths, a Qualified Opportunity Bonus and a Single Rate Closed Won Commission applicable to every closed/won deal that originated from an SDR lead.

Plan Examples

Sample Sales Development Rep
Sales Development Rep

Monthly quota (ARR):

$50,000 ARR

Monthly quota (# of opportunities):

15

Base commission rate:

3%

Bonus per qualified opp:

$100
Sample Market Development Rep
Market Development Rep

Monthly quota (ARR):

$40,000 ARR

Monthly quota (# of opportunities):

20

Base commission rate:

3.75%

Bonus per qualified opp:

$75

How to customize this plan

As with most compensation plans, the two major components that will vary across sales teams are:

Quota

First, you’ll need to decide on the quota period. We recommend both quotas have the same period. Your quota period is the frequency at which a rep is held to that sales quota.

In our experience, about 45% of the plans on QuotaPath fall under a quarterly quota frequency. Annual plans make up 25%, as do monthly quotas, and 5% consist of other frequencies, such as weekly, bi-weekly, or semi-annually.

We recommend aligning your quota to your sales cycle. Then, once you decide that, you’re ready to determine a quota that is low enough to be attainable and high enough to be valuable for your business.

Commission Rate

Secondly, set your commission rate for the Closed/Won Commissions. This plan features a Single Rate Commission plan which is very simple to calculate.

Take the portion of the SDR’s total variable compensation assigned to revenue if they hit their revenue target (for example, $10k/year) and divide that number by their annualized revenue quota from above (for example, $500k/year). Given those two examples, that would be $10,000/$500,000 = .02 or 2% commission.

Bonus Rate

The best way to start is by thinking about how many opportunities you want your SDRs to open each month or quarter. You can guess (we don’t recommend that!) or solve by figuring out how many qualified opportunities your SDRs should create to hit a financial target. (Hint: Use our Sales Funnel!).

When you have that determined, you’ll have the applicable bonus for your quota period. For monthly quotas, you’ll divide the annual bonus by 12.

For instance, say you have a target of 10 opportunities per month and an annual bonus of $12k. Divide $12k by 12 to reach the monthly bonus of $1k, which you would then divide by the 10 qualified opportunities, giving you a $100 bonus per qualified opportunity generated.

Frequently Asked Questions

This is one of our favorite compensation plans for SDRs because it accomplishes two tasks. First, it rewards SDRs for creating good opportunities, something they can control. And secondly, it rewards SDRs if those deals are good enough to become customers, which is good for the business.

Typically, SDR commission percentages fall between .5% to 4%.

Sales commissions and bonuses both classify as variable compensation. Commissions differ from bonuses in that bonuses reward a pre-determined dollar amount that doesn’t vary. Commissions, on the other hand, consist of a percentage of the total revenue from a deal that changes most oftenly based on the annual recurring revenue (ARR) or total contract value. For example, If an SDR earns 4% of every deal that eventually closes, that’s commission. Meanwhile, if a rep earns $200 on every qualified opportunity they create, that’s a Single Rate Bonus! To see commissions and bonuses tracked automatically in QuotaPath, book a time with our team here.

In addition to commissions and bonuses from deals won and opp creation, we’ve also seen SDRs earn commissions from number of meetings booked. This type of plan is the most common for early organizations that want to fill their sales reps’ calendars with meetings. For every meeting the SDR books, they earn a bonus, which will vary based on the company’s ASP (average sales price) and demo-to-close rate. Generally, the bonus falls anywhere between $20 and $300. Other SDR comp plans include the Qualified Opportunity Bonus, which pays a rep a fixed rate bonus for every qualified opportunity they pass on to sales. Or, you can offer just the Closed Won Commissionto reward the rep a set percentage on every deal that closes from their leads. In any case, QuotaPath can track and payout these plans to make it a bit easier on your finance and revenue teams.

Like the meetings-booked sales compensation model in the question above, some companies will pay SDRs a bonus for hitting a specified amount of activities over the course of a week, month, or quarter. 'Activities' can mean anything from the number of deals made in a month to the number of meetings set or held. If you go that route, be sure to clearly define what constitutes as an activity and align your plan appropriately. In our opinion, incentivizing SDRs through qualified opportunities and/or deals won is better in the long run for your business and rep when compared to activity-based plans.

A sales funnel models and tracks the customer journey from the beginning stages of the lead generation through the transition to customer. All sales funnels includes a series of stages as defined by the organization with the goal to bump the customer through the stages until the purchase. Most commonly, you’ll see TOFU, MOFU, and BOFU associated to indicate top of funnel, middle of funnel, and bottom of funnel. TOFU represents the least likely to close leads that may have downloaded a company whitepaper. MOFU leads are deep in their research but are not quite ready yet to sign. And, BOFU leads are ready to make a decision.

Our free Sales Funnel calculator can be used by SDR and sales teams to calculate scenarios like how many meetings they need to book in order to reach quota. Use it to experiment with different close rates, average contract values, and activities to see what’s right for your business, team, and individual goals. Great for 1:1 meetings and comp planning.

In sales, an SDR is an acronym for sales development representative. This role typically sits within the sales function but may also fall under marketing. Their main responsibilities involve prospecting, setting appointments, and generating qualified leads to pass along to sales. To learn more about sales compensation for SDR teams, read our blog.

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Manage compensation & track commissions with QuotaPath

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Compensation Hub provides RevOps, Finance, and Sales teams with a free sales compensation plan modeling tool to design meaningful comp plans in a few steps. Built by QuotaPath, a sales compensation and commission software, Compensation Hub includes sales compensation plan examples (including AE and SDR comp plans), a library of commission structure templates, and variable compensation recommendations and use cases for each plan. Each commission plan or bonus structure features adjustable variables so that leaders can create plans aligned with their business goals and historical numbers. These variables include on-target earnings (OTE), annualized quota, average contract value (ACV), annual recurring revenue (ARR), quota frequency, and more. Once a plan is ready, leaders can easily share it within their organizations and save it to see it automated in QuotaPath's free commission tracking software. For additional comp management support, and to learn how QuotaPath is helping teams everywhere bring visibility and accuracy to sales comp, book time with their team for a custom demo.

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