Sales commission glossary.

A $150K OTE role at a 60/40 pay mix breaks down to $90K base + $60K variable.

On a $150K OTE at 60/40, base is $90K — paid every cycle, quota or not.

The $60K variable half of a $150K OTE is what's actually "at risk" — it isn't paid unless the rep sells.

SDRs commonly sit around 70/30; closing AEs skew closer to 50/50 as more of the outcome is in their control.

A new AE gets a $3,000/mo recoverable draw for their first 90 days; each month's draw is subtracted from commission once deals start closing.

If a rep can't explain their own plan back to you in two sentences, the plan is too complicated.

A full-cycle AE might carry a $600K annual quota, split into $50K monthly or $150K quarterly targets.

A rep who closes $85K against a $100K monthly quota is at 85% attainment.

Most B2B SaaS orgs see 3–4 month ramps for AEs; every month of ramp is below-quota output baked into the plan on purpose.

Month 1 at 50% of full quota, month 2 at 75%, month 3 at 100% is a typical three-month ramp schedule.

A rep out on 6 weeks of leave gets that portion of the year's quota pro-rated down, not held against them at review time.

A rep covering mid-market West carries a different quota than one covering enterprise national accounts, even at the same OTE.

A plan might pay a flat rate below 70% attainment, standard rate 70–100%, and an accelerated rate above 100%.

A 10% commission rate on a $40K deal pays the rep $4,000.

10% up to 100% of quota, then 15% on every dollar past it — the accelerator is what makes a 130%-attainment quarter worth chasing.

Some plans drop the rate to 5% for attainment under 50%, discouraging reps from coasting on a bad quarter.

0–70% quota at 6%, 70–100% at 10%, 100%+ at 14% is a three-tier structure.

A plan with a 50% cliff pays nothing on the first 50% of quota — commission only starts accruing past that line.

An extra $500 kicker per deal that includes the new product line, running for one quarter only.

A customer cancels within the 90-day clawback window; the commission already paid on that deal is deducted from the rep's next cycle.

Deal credit is what a commission tool actually has to get right — get it wrong and reps stop trusting the numbers.

A 70/30 split between the closing AE and the BDR who sourced the meeting.

The BDR who sourced the opportunity gets 10–20% of the commission; the closing AE gets the rest.

Self-sourced deals might pay an extra 2 points of commission over an inbound lead that landed in the rep's queue.

20% of commission at contract-sent, the remaining 80% at closed-won.

Common at smaller teams that can't yet afford a dedicated BDR function.

Most SaaS orgs run a monthly commission cycle even if quota is set annually.

Commission earned in January, paid on the February 15 payroll run — a one-cycle lag is standard.

A rep paid on an estimated deal value gets a true-up the following cycle once the final contract terms are confirmed.

If a rep has to ask "why is this number what it is," the statement failed at its one job.

Typically the highest-OTE, most commission-heavy role on a sales team.

Comped mostly on meetings booked and qualified, with a smaller commission slice once their sourced deals close.

Usually the one stuck rebuilding the comp spreadsheet every month before a tool like Gordon existed.

On a five-to-twenty-rep team, there usually isn't one yet — the sales leader does this job themselves.

AEs and BDRs are quota-carrying; a sales engineer on the same team usually isn't.

A magic number above 0.75 generally signals it's safe to keep investing in more sales headcount.

A rep who churns at 14 months barely recoups their own ramp cost before they're gone.

A 25% win rate means a rep needs roughly 4 qualified opportunities in flight for every deal they expect to close.

A team with $25K ACV deals needs a very different quota structure than one closing $250K enterprise contracts.

A 45-day cycle supports monthly quota; a 6-month enterprise cycle usually needs to be measured quarterly instead.