The Golden Age of Sales: Hyperscale or die
The 2025 Revenue Recap by Bravado is the definitive guide for venture-backed companies to scale GTM. It leverages proprietary data from across the Bravado Network to showcase the strategies, compensation, and metrics of top sales teams.
This year, we went deeper than ever to bring you cutting-edge insights and metrics on the state of sales:
In Revenue Recap 2024, we predicted that last year would be a massive year of growth. Despite swirling layoffs and lack of venture funding, Bravado Members were increasingly hitting quota and sales teams were growing again. Turns out having your finger on the pulse of the sales industry is a great harbinger for what is to come.
This year, all signs point to an ever increasing rate of growth and prosperity for the tech industry:
NASDAQ is at an all time high (even higher than the golden era of 2021-22).
VC funding is back, injecting energy into the market that amplifies hiring, revenue, and valuations.
AI startups are raising the bar for velocity - breaking records unimaginable just a year ago.
These companies are accomplishing this growth with high powered Sales teams. Deel alone has 1000 sales reps in seat right now - just 5 years after their Series A. And all of these companies are actively hiring for sales.
Straight line growth doesn’t happen by spinning up a product and announcing it to the world. Only Sales can penetrate a market this quickly.
As startups build AI accountants, AI doctors, and AI copywriters, they’re stacking their org with Human salespeople because the last job that will ever get automated will be Sales.
Ready to scale your revenue faster than ever?
Learn why the fastest growing companies in the world (OpenAI, Chainguard, Vanta, Vercel, and 1000+ more) trust Bravado to help them hire for sales.
There’s never been a better time to be in Sales. Let’s dive into the numbers.
The Golden Age of Sales by the numbers
Quota attainment hit All Time High in 2024
More reps are hitting quota than ever before, which means salespeople are making more commission than ever before.
Remote sellers are 22% more likely to hit quota
The conventional wisdom flowing throughout the Silicon Valley is wrong. While leaders force RTO, the top performing sales reps are much more likely to be remote vs. in office. 82% of sales reps who worked remotely hit quota in 2024. Only 67% of those who worked in office did. This is in part because top performers have a choice of whether to work in office or remotely - and they are choosing remote.
Should you build your sales team in office or remote?
So if you are looking to scale your sales team with in-person only talent, know that you are going to exclude many top performers from your candidate pool. This doesn’t mean you can’t be successful with an in-person team, just that the odds are against you. The best reps insist on staying remote, because if you are overachieving quota from your home - why would you waste time commuting to an office? On the other hand, if you are either junior or not hitting quota, you are more likely to seek a change of scenery to try and jumpstart performance.
2025 is a Candidate’s Market
Every company has ambitious revenue targets to hit in 2025, and the fight for top sales talent is on. We are seeing skyrocketing sales compensation, shortened interview cycles, and top reps only being in market for a couple weeks before they sign. So running an airtight interview process in 10 days in the best way to hire top talent.
Sales compensation skyrockets across all major metros
Top sales talent costs more, everywhere
Remote work has made one lasting effect that can’t be reversed by RTO policies: you can’t get a discount by hiring outside of SF or NYC.
Since candidates have had the opportunity to join companies outside of their commutable area, compensation demands have risen to align with historically high paying tech hubs.
Top tier cities are still in the lead, but not by a significant margin, which means the war for talent is a more level playing field - and top talent is equally expensive everywhere.
These are not FauxTE™ numbers
Unlike all other sales compensation reports, Bravado has actual w2 information to verify that the numbers above are accurate. Many companies have what we call FauxTE™, which is an inflated but unrealistic OTE. We have excluded all of these from our calculations to bring you the most accurate sales compensation data in the world.
Want to get paid? Join a growth-stage startup over a PublicCo
Further turning up the competition in the talent market - VC money is allowing startups to raise their comp in line with Big Tech, and Growth stage companies are pulling ahead in the race for the first time.
Gone are the days Publicly traded companies winning battles for top talent by default.
Sellers can choose the best fit based on myriad personal preferences and risk factors instead of deciding solely on earning potential - another indicator pointing to a candidate-favored job market in 2025. This is the time to either join a startup and get a lot more equity, or join a growth stage company and get paid. Public Co’s are losing out on top sales talent because they can’t offer either.
In The Golden Age of Sales, Career ICs may rule the payday
Sales is one of the most lucrative careers for someone outside of management. Career ICs who are dedicated and highly skilled can make as much money as leadership while doing what they love to do: sell.
If AI is increasing demand for sales talent by 80%, it’s increasing the demand for Enterprise sales talent 800%.
B2B AI tools, beneficial as they are, are harder to sell than past enterprise products because an important player in the sales process is often eliminated - The Champion. The closer a person is to being the end user of an AI tool, the more they could potentially be threatened by it.
Today, Enterprise AEs have to sell through CFOs and CEOs more than department heads. This requires greater org navigation and alignment than ever before. Many companies have a mandate to adopt AI into their processes, but are being hamstrung by ICs who see it as a threat.
Enterprise reps have always been highly valued because their skills are the sharpest in the business. Now, there’s a growing demand for them, and we expect to see their comp continue to rise.
But can AI replace SDRs?
No. And by the way SDR pay is increasing, nobody else has either.
Top performing SDRs are making as much as the average AE.
This is the dream for a Sales Leader building an incubator for top talent. When SDRs make as much as they would with a title promotion, they’re more likely to stay in the role long enough to hone their skills and hit the AE seat with a greater chance of success.
Account Manager comp = Account Executive comp
Account Manager pay is starting to look a lot like Sales pay - because Account Managers are acting as Sellers.
With product-led growth, agentic models, and usage based pricing on the rise, a bigger portion of CLV is being deferred well after the initial deal is closed. In many cases, Account Managers are contributing as much revenue as AEs, or more.
Revenue leaders should be screening Account Manager candidates with much of the same criteria used for selecting AEs. The smartest revenue leaders are moving AEs into that seat without clipping their earning potential. Post-sales revenue will continue to increase in importance.
There are still corrections yet to be addressed in the market.
Loyalty tax: a flaw in the system
We compared comp between AEs who had moved to a new job in the past 6 months to AEs who have been at the same company for the past 2 years to calculate the reality of “loyalty tax.”
Sales reps really are getting penalized for loyalty - at a rate of $50,000 a year. They’re literally incentivized to job hop.
This is an inefficiency in the system that needs to be rectified.
Companies need to overindex on paying more to their top performers to keep them from leaving for more money. Once they walk out, the whole process of sourcing, ramping, training, and seasoning starts all over again.
Our parting advice: Start yesterday
Bravado helps the fastest growing companies in the world hire the best Sales people in the world.
AI isn’t replacing Sales people - it’s only driving up demand for them.
If you have incredible product-market fit
The Golden Age of Sales: Hyperscale or die
The 2025 Revenue Recap by Bravado is the definitive guide for venture-backed companies to scale GTM. It leverages proprietary data from across the Bravado Network to showcase the strategies, compensation, and metrics of top sales teams.
This year, we went deeper than ever to bring you cutting-edge insights and metrics on the state of sales:
In Revenue Recap 2024, we predicted that last year would be a massive year of growth. Despite swirling layoffs and lack of venture funding, Bravado Members were increasingly hitting quota and sales teams were growing again. Turns out having your finger on the pulse of the sales industry is a great harbinger for what is to come.
This year, all signs point to an ever increasing rate of growth and prosperity for the tech industry:
NASDAQ is at an all time high (even higher than the golden era of 2021-22).
VC funding is back, injecting energy into the market that amplifies hiring, revenue, and valuations.
AI startups are raising the bar for velocity - breaking records unimaginable just a year ago.
These companies are accomplishing this growth with high powered Sales teams. Deel alone has 1000 sales reps in seat right now - just 5 years after their Series A. And all of these companies are actively hiring for sales.
Straight line growth doesn’t happen by spinning up a product and announcing it to the world. Only Sales can penetrate a market this quickly.
As startups build AI accountants, AI doctors, and AI copywriters, they’re stacking their org with Human salespeople because the last job that will ever get automated will be Sales.
Ready to scale your revenue faster than ever?
Learn why the fastest growing companies in the world (OpenAI, Chainguard, Vanta, Vercel, and 1000+ more) trust Bravado to help them hire for sales.
There’s never been a better time to be in Sales. Let’s dive into the numbers.
The Golden Age of Sales by the numbers
Quota attainment hit All Time High in 2024
More reps are hitting quota than ever before, which means salespeople are making more commission than ever before.
Remote sellers are 22% more likely to hit quota
The conventional wisdom flowing throughout the Silicon Valley is wrong. While leaders force RTO, the top performing sales reps are much more likely to be remote vs. in office. 82% of sales reps who worked remotely hit quota in 2024. Only 67% of those who worked in office did. This is in part because top performers have a choice of whether to work in office or remotely - and they are choosing remote.
Should you build your sales team in office or remote?
So if you are looking to scale your sales team with in-person only talent, know that you are going to exclude many top performers from your candidate pool. This doesn’t mean you can’t be successful with an in-person team, just that the odds are against you. The best reps insist on staying remote, because if you are overachieving quota from your home - why would you waste time commuting to an office? On the other hand, if you are either junior or not hitting quota, you are more likely to seek a change of scenery to try and jumpstart performance.
2025 is a Candidate’s Market
Every company has ambitious revenue targets to hit in 2025, and the fight for top sales talent is on. We are seeing skyrocketing sales compensation, shortened interview cycles, and top reps only being in market for a couple weeks before they sign. So running an airtight interview process in 10 days in the best way to hire top talent.
Sales compensation skyrockets across all major metros
Top sales talent costs more, everywhere
Remote work has made one lasting effect that can’t be reversed by RTO policies: you can’t get a discount by hiring outside of SF or NYC.
Since candidates have had the opportunity to join companies outside of their commutable area, compensation demands have risen to align with historically high paying tech hubs.
Top tier cities are still in the lead, but not by a significant margin, which means the war for talent is a more level playing field - and top talent is equally expensive everywhere.
These are not FauxTE™ numbers
Unlike all other sales compensation reports, Bravado has actual w2 information to verify that the numbers above are accurate. Many companies have what we call FauxTE™, which is an inflated but unrealistic OTE. We have excluded all of these from our calculations to bring you the most accurate sales compensation data in the world.
Want to get paid? Join a growth-stage startup over a PublicCo
Further turning up the competition in the talent market - VC money is allowing startups to raise their comp in line with Big Tech, and Growth stage companies are pulling ahead in the race for the first time.
Gone are the days Publicly traded companies winning battles for top talent by default.
Sellers can choose the best fit based on myriad personal preferences and risk factors instead of deciding solely on earning potential - another indicator pointing to a candidate-favored job market in 2025. This is the time to either join a startup and get a lot more equity, or join a growth stage company and get paid. Public Co’s are losing out on top sales talent because they can’t offer either.
In The Golden Age of Sales, Career ICs may rule the payday
Sales is one of the most lucrative careers for someone outside of management. Career ICs who are dedicated and highly skilled can make as much money as leadership while doing what they love to do: sell.
If AI is increasing demand for sales talent by 80%, it’s increasing the demand for Enterprise sales talent 800%.
B2B AI tools, beneficial as they are, are harder to sell than past enterprise products because an important player in the sales process is often eliminated - The Champion. The closer a person is to being the end user of an AI tool, the more they could potentially be threatened by it.
Today, Enterprise AEs have to sell through CFOs and CEOs more than department heads. This requires greater org navigation and alignment than ever before. Many companies have a mandate to adopt AI into their processes, but are being hamstrung by ICs who see it as a threat.
Enterprise reps have always been highly valued because their skills are the sharpest in the business. Now, there’s a growing demand for them, and we expect to see their comp continue to rise.
But can AI replace SDRs?
No. And by the way SDR pay is increasing, nobody else has either.
Top performing SDRs are making as much as the average AE.
This is the dream for a Sales Leader building an incubator for top talent. When SDRs make as much as they would with a title promotion, they’re more likely to stay in the role long enough to hone their skills and hit the AE seat with a greater chance of success.
Account Manager comp = Account Executive comp
Account Manager pay is starting to look a lot like Sales pay - because Account Managers are acting as Sellers.
With product-led growth, agentic models, and usage based pricing on the rise, a bigger portion of CLV is being deferred well after the initial deal is closed. In many cases, Account Managers are contributing as much revenue as AEs, or more.
Revenue leaders should be screening Account Manager candidates with much of the same criteria used for selecting AEs. The smartest revenue leaders are moving AEs into that seat without clipping their earning potential. Post-sales revenue will continue to increase in importance.
There are still corrections yet to be addressed in the market.
Loyalty tax: a flaw in the system
We compared comp between AEs who had moved to a new job in the past 6 months to AEs who have been at the same company for the past 2 years to calculate the reality of “loyalty tax.”
Sales reps really are getting penalized for loyalty - at a rate of $50,000 a year. They’re literally incentivized to job hop.
This is an inefficiency in the system that needs to be rectified.
Companies need to overindex on paying more to their top performers to keep them from leaving for more money. Once they walk out, the whole process of sourcing, ramping, training, and seasoning starts all over again.
Our parting advice: Start yesterday
Bravado helps the fastest growing companies in the world hire the best Sales people in the world.
AI isn’t replacing Sales people - it’s only driving up demand for them.
If you have incredible product-market fit and a need for top Sales talent to deliver it to market for you, get in touch today.
