How long until new reps hit full productivity?

MetricMonths from start date to full quota productivity, distributed across hires

Unitmonths to full productivity

Histogram of months from hire to first quota-met month per rep. Right-skewed. Pull hire date and first quota-attainment month per rep. Long tail = hires that should have been cut earlier. Example: median 5 months; 25% of reps never ramp (cut them earlier).

B2B AE role across 158 companies, 2026 data. SDR role runs materially faster at 3.0 months and should not be benchmarked against this distribution. · Bridge Group's 2026 average of 6.2 months is the highest across ten biennial editions, up from 5.7 months in 2024, and the report attributes the rise to deal complexity and larger buying committees, with the effect concentrated at higher ASP. The SDR trend runs the opposite way, falling to 3.0 months in the 2025 SDR study, the lowest since 2010 and down from a peak of 3.8 in 2014, so a blended ramp figure across both roles is meaningless. The published figures are averages rather than distributions, so the top30 and bottom30 columns here are constructed around that average using the operator convention of a 3 to 6 month band at $20K to $80K ACV. Ramp definition is the main comparability risk: time to first deal, time to full quota and time to sustained quota can differ by a full quarter on the same hire.

Category split omitted: The AE and SDR ramp figures come from the same publisher's paired biennial studies, so they are not independent sources for that split, and no second sampled dataset covers it.

A long right tail where roughly a third of hires have not reached full productivity by the point average tenure ends, so a meaningful share of the hiring budget never produces a ramped rep at all.

Median ramp 7 months, upper third at 11 months or more, against average AE tenure of 2.2 years.

• Hand over live pipeline in the first 90 days instead of requiring self-sourcing from zero. This is the difference between a curve that starts at month one and one that starts at month four, and it costs nothing except a decision about account allocation.
• Pay for experience where ASP is high. Bridge Group 2026 shows required experience at hire rising to 3.7 years from 2.7 in 2022 while ramp lengthened, and concludes that at higher ASPs the junior AE hire is largely finished as a model.
• Budget the ramp carry explicitly rather than discovering it. InterviewCost puts ramp carry at $50,000 to $120,000 per AE hire against $4,000 to $10,000 for the interview loop, so the expensive part of hiring is the part most teams do not budget.
• Track ramp by cohort and by hiring manager. Ramp variance between managers is usually larger than variance between hires, and the individual distribution hides that completely.

1. The Bridge GroupAE Models, Motions & Metrics: 2026 Research Report (10th ed.) · 2026 · n=158 B2B companies, survey Q1-Q2 2026, respondents VP Sales, CRO, RevOps, CFO 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 ↗
2. The Bridge GroupSDR Models, Motions & Metrics: 2025 Research Report (10th ed.) · 2025 · n=351 B2B companies, 78% North America, 83% B2B SaaS, $47M median revenue, $50K median ASP 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 ↗
3. The Bridge Group2024 SaaS AE Metrics & Compensation Benchmark Report (9th ed.) · 2024 · n=172 B2B SaaS companies 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 ↗
4. SaaStrDear SaaStr: What Are Good Benchmarks for Sales Productivity in SaaS? · 2025 · Operator guidance, not a sampled dataset Suggests $500K to $1M ARR per sales rep at scale, ramp of 3-6 months at $20K-$80K ACV and about 60 days below $10K, 70-80% of reps hitting quota as healthy, pipeline coverage of 3x to 4x, and win rates of 20-30%. saastr.com ↗
5. InterviewCost.comCost to Hire a Sales Rep 2026 · 2026 · Derived from public 2026 benchmark data including SHRM and BLS OEWS, published as ranges Interview loop for a typical AE runs $4,000 to $10,000 in direct spend, while the ramp period adds $50,000 to $120,000 per hire, giving a total cost of hire of $55,000 to $130,000 all in. interviewcost.com ↗
6. ICONIQ GrowthState of Go-to-Market 2026 · 2026 · Survey of GTM executives at 150+ B2B and AI software companies, January 2026 Free trials and POCs convert near 50%, the highest of any motion. Self-serve revenue projected at about 20% for high-growth companies in 2026 versus roughly 10% for peers. High-growth companies draw 60-80% of pipeline from sales and channel versus 15-20% from marketing. 48% report hybrid as primary pricing model. Higher AI adopters show stronger AE quota attainment across SMB, mid-market, enterprise and strategic. iconiq.com ↗
7. RepVueSales Salary Guide: What Sales Reps are Earning in 2026 · 2026 · Crowdsourced compensation across thousands of companies, updated continuously Individual contributor quota attainment clusters between roughly 40% and 58%, rising with seniority. Moving from SMB to mid-market to enterprise roughly doubles OTE while the share of reps hitting quota falls at every step. Federal and SLED AEs carry the highest attainment across all AE types at 46% and 45%. repvue.com ↗