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lurkin

Need advice on how to negotiate my first AE role salary

received an offer to be an AE in a 5 year old marketing tech startup (saas+services) and I'm not sure what to look out for to determine if I received a reasonable and realistic package. any advice? much appreciated!

current work experience: 2 years in sales ops/support role

AE offer

base 6,500 / month (would be a 500/month base bump)

Commission: 20,000 (variable, based off individual target and paid quarterly)

target: 400k in 6 months (June-Dec)

average deal size 15-30k

seems like an aggressive quota and being new to the AE role, I would need time to ramp up on selling techniques and product understanding and building my book of business.

how does a ramp up quota plan usually look like for you guys?

🧠 Advice

💰 Compensation

12 comments

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poweredbycaffeine

WR Lieutenant

☕️

78k base, 20k variable @ 5% commission rate.

Low ACV

What’s the deal cycle length (velocity)?

If this company has an established comp plan then you mag not have a ton of wiggle room. I’d push for a bump in base and anchor at $85k. Gets you over the $100k mark for 2025 and sets you up nicely for 2026.

lurkin

Thanks mate.

Not sure about deal velocity but it would be selling to SMB. Best guess is 1 month to close. I was expecting higher OTE, been reading that it’s 50-50 / 60-40 splits. Given that it’s a startup, their budget for the headcount is is max 7k /month. Currently no ramp up plan in place. Any creative suggestions?

poweredbycaffeine

WR Lieutenant

☕️

Ask for what you want and be prepared to accept the offer as-is.

jefe

Arsonist

🍁

This is the most realistic and reasonable thing I think I've ever seen in the War Room...

Kosta_Konfucius

Politicker

ERP Sales

Anything on repvue or Glassdoor?

I would say due to a lack of ramp time and knowing they have more budget I would negotiate both base and commish

Gasty

Notable Contributor

War Room Community Manager

Negotiate more bud.

The quota is aggressive for a new joiner.

Congratulations on the offer though.

Gasty

Notable Contributor

War Room Community Manager

Then again, you’ll always find something better/worse. The point is if you’re comfortable with the offer or not? If not then keep looking.

If it looks fine and you really need a job, then it doesn’t matter, right? Negotiate then accept.

lurkin

Thanks for the input mate! What would be considered less aggressive for a new joiner in this case? I’m new to the tech sales world so I don’t have much data as reference points to back my suggestions up as well. Any resources I can reference?

DollHairs

Opinionated

Owner

How would you handle the negotiation if you lack experience

oldcloser

Arsonist

💀

All of this seems to add up to the category’s ability to pay and your experience level. SaaS + services to SMB in MarTech sounds like selling websites and ads management. $100k is about what there is to get.

QWhiz

Tycoon

Founding AE / ex-SDR

are you inheriting any pipeline? also - are you a full-cycle AE or have an SDR to support you? also - do you think it's a good product+Service to sell? (most martech is a good to have and not must have)

lurkin

This will be end to end selling so no SDR to support — Would have to generate my own pipeline. Probably only given marketing inbound. True! What martech tools would you consider a must have?