What share of revenue is going to commissions?
№ 147 · Commission as % of revenue generated
Definition
MetricCommission expense as a share of bookings generated
Unit% of booked ACV paid out as commission
Bar chart of commission rate by rep. Mature org should be tight; wide variance means comp plan broken. Build by dividing commission paid by bookings per rep. Top reps hitting accelerators is fine; everyone over-earning is a plan design issue. Example: Top reps 8%; bottom 6%.
Benchmarks
| Bottom 30% | Median | Top 30% |
|---|---|---|
| 14% to 18% of bookings | 10% to 11.5% of bookings | 7% to 9% of bookings |
B2B SaaS AE role, commission only at 100% attainment, expressed as a share of booked ACV. North America weighted, 2024 to 2026 data. Excludes base salary, employer burden and SDR or management cost. · Direction is deliberately marked shape rather than lower_better. A very low commission share usually means the plan is under-motivating or the base is carrying too much risk, not that the company is efficient. Bridge Group's 2024 study puts the median commission rate at 11.5% of ACV at full attainment with typical rates between 11% and 14%. The 2026 edition does not restate the rate directly but its quota-to-OTE ratio rose to 4.6x from 4.2x, which mechanically compresses the implied commission rate toward 10%, since a 53:47 split on a $200K OTE against a $960K quota gives roughly 9.8%. That mechanical compression, rather than any plan redesign, explains most of the movement between the two editions. Note also that commission is a fraction of total sales cost: at 4.6x quota to OTE, full OTE including base is roughly 22% of quota.
Category split omitted: Segment-level commission rates can only be derived by pairing RepVue OTE medians with ICONIQ top-quartile quotas, which mixes percentile bases and would produce misleadingly low rates.
When it looks bad
Commission rises as a share of bookings while total bookings stay flat, which means accelerators are paying out on a shrinking base and the plan is transferring margin without buying growth.
Commission at 17% of bookings with 30% of reps above quota collecting accelerators while 45% of reps sit below 50% attainment.
What to do about it
- Reset quota-to-OTE toward the 4.5x to 5.0x band before touching commission rates. Bridge Group 2026 puts the median at 4.6x, up from 4.2x in 2024, and the ratio is the lever that actually sets commission as a share of revenue.
- Pay on gross profit rather than bookings wherever services attach or AI infrastructure cost is material. Benchmarkit puts professional services gross margin at 30% against 81% for subscription, and ICONIQ expects AI company gross margins near 52% in 2026, so bookings-based commission quietly overpays on the worst-margin mix.
- Add a clawback window on early churn, sized to the point where the deal has covered its own commission. Without it, commission percentage of revenue is measured against bookings that partly do not survive the year.
- Check the accelerator threshold against the actual attainment distribution rather than the designed one. If only a third of the team ever reaches the accelerator, it is a retention tool for top performers rather than a growth incentive, which is a legitimate choice but should be a deliberate one.
Sources
- The Bridge Group Median OTE $190K at 53:47 base to variable, up from $167K in 2022. Median commission rate 11.5% of ACV at full attainment. Quota-to-OTE 3.2x at 25th percentile and 4.8x at 75th. Quotas grew about 2% annually while OTE grew above 5% CAGR. blog.bridgegroupinc.com ↗
- The Bridge Group 48% of reps at quota, down from 51% in 2024. Median AE OTE $200K. Median AE quota $960K at 4.6x quota-to-OTE. Average ramp 6.2 months, highest in study history. Required experience at hire 3.7 years, up from 2.7 in 2022. SaaS median quota $875K. bridgegroupinc.com ↗
- RepVue Median AE OTE $200,000. Top performers earn $502,796 or more. About 42% of AEs reach or exceed annual quota. repvue.com ↗
- RepVue Median Enterprise AE base $140,000 and OTE $280,000, a 50:50 design. Top performers $673,749 or more. About 41% of Enterprise AEs reach or exceed annual quota. repvue.com ↗
- Optymyze Reports median commission at 11.5% of bookings at full attainment with typical rates between 11% and 14%. Most B2B plans cluster near 50:50 base to variable, SDRs near 70:30, customer success and sales engineering near 80:20. optymyze.com ↗
- Benchmarkit (with Pavilion) New CAC Ratio median $2.00 of S&M per $1 of new customer ARR, up 14%, with the fourth quartile at $2.82. Blended CAC Ratio $1.40, down 12%. Expansion CAC Ratio $1.00. CAC payback 18 months median. Gross margin 77% total, 81% subscription, 30% professional services. S&M 37% of revenue median, 45% for VC-backed versus 33% for PE-backed. ARR per FTE $240,000 at $50M-$100M ARR and $283,379 above $100M. GRR 88%, NRR 101%. benchmarkit.ai ↗
- The Bridge Group 60% of SDRs at quota, lowest on record. Median SDR OTE $80K at 68:32 base to variable. Pipeline per SDR $3.78M, with 50% of respondents between $1.9M and $6.4M. Monthly held-meeting quota median 10 at Stage 0 and 6 converted at Stage 1. Ramp 3.0 months. Attrition 40% median, 21% to 57% interquartile. 4.1 quality conversations per day on 112 total daily activities. bridgegroupinc.com ↗
- Jiminny (summary of The Bridge Group AE research) Sales leaders manage a median of seven AEs, consistent since 2015, rising from 4.6 AEs below $5M revenue to 7.2 at $100M or more. Quotas grew about 2% CAGR over the prior decade while OTE grew above 5%. jiminny.com ↗