CRAG112

Account Executive

What base pay should one be getting for closing 500K+ a year?

My question is in the title.

What do you feel is the average base salary someone selling 500K+ of something should be?

Saw a post of one person doing this and getting 45K, that's crazy.

Seeing AE roles at 80K and above for something similar.

What do you think?

📈 Closing

💰 Compensation

34 comments

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Kosta_Konfucius

Politicker

Sales Rep

Very much depends on the cost/profitability of your product, but OTE Benchmarks are typically 4.0-5.0x, meaning AEs should carry quotas that are four to five times what they earn if they achieve their quotas.

TennisandSales

Politicker

Head Of Sales

this is spot on from what I see. you cant just look at a Avg deal size and say your base should be X.
There is more that goes into it.

Well there is more that goes into it for companies that care about being profitable 😂

thedue2.0

Good Citizen

VP of Sales

Agree as well @Kosta_Konfucius

Question though:

1- Is the 500k net new creative ACV, with a current customer?
2- Is the 500k net new creative ACV, with a non-customer?

For me, that 500k may be hyper-critical as well for the business, and stage they are in.

It is really a question about if this is a hunter, full cycle role, and farmer-type role.

We are a 50/50 company on commission and have an average rate of 8-10% on

SoccerandSales

Big Shot

Account Executive

This. A lot of other factors, but this typically will be good at least as a rough outline.

moonraker

AE (Account Executive)

I should be making $1.1M a year then…

JustGonnaSendIt

Politicker

Burn Towns, Get Money

Depends on many factors.

Where are you located? What industry? How mature is the product space you're in?

And what do you mean by 500K+ a year? Is that dollars of revenue? What kind of revenue (Subscription, Perpetual, Services, etc...)?

Also, how mature is the company you work for? And what is your role in it?

Sorry to hand you a discovery worksheet, but compensation is based on value, and there is far more to value than just the number of dollars moving around.

Sunbunny31

Politicker

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

I had some of the same questions. So many factors go into the base salary/OTE.

NotCreativeEnough

Big Shot

Professional Day Ruiner

is 500k one deal or 50? is there 499k in profit in that 500k or 50k of profit in it? The dollar value sold doesn't matter as much as what it actually generates in profit.

Corpslovechild

Politicker

Inbound Sales Manager

is 500K hard to do? Whats your average deal size for the company?

aiko

Politicker

Sr. Account Executive

Usually your pay is based on 10% of your quota

salesguy13

Contributor

Director of Sales Development

usually in SaaS (assumption here), your OTE is 20% of your quota. So if you're closing $500k, your OTE should be about $100k.

And, traditionally, it's a 50/50 split. So in that case, you'd have $50k base, $50k commission.

Now then, those are gross assumptions.

CRAG112

Valued Contributor

Account Executive

These are all fantastic questions. Sounds like an important interview question would be what ACV looks like, cost of customer acquisition, growth plans, and current funding (bootstrap v investor)

Sunbunny31

Politicker

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

Are you interviewing for a role where they've told you the quota is 500K? Just interested in the context.

CRAG112

Valued Contributor

Account Executive

No, I have 525K as a current yearly goal. Crushed that around July/August timeframe this year.

33% goal attainment isn't uncommon from what I have seen.

Sunbunny31

Politicker

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

So I've seen $100K-$150K base for $1.25 M in quota, in California, software sales. Based on that, anywhere from $50K-$75K base makes sense in the same industry - though there may be other factors I'm not privy to.

antiASKHOLE

Tycoon

Bravado's Resident Asshole

depends on the profit margin.

FranchiseSalesQB

Politicker

Franchise Sales QB

Zero base and get a higher % of revenue.

CRAG112

Valued Contributor

Account Executive

Why would anyone work for free? Especially when getting 80k to 6 figures as a base can be done with even 2 years of experience?

I know guys who do that. I make more than them selling because of the base salary, expenses, etc.

Commission only helps the company. That's it.

CuriousFox

WR Officer

🦊

Depends on various factors like where you live and what you sell.

Justatitle

Big Shot

Account Executive

Few factors to consider

- lead gen, is it inbound mostly, outbound, mix what do those numbers look like?
- sales cycle, is it highly transactional or is it consulatative
- is that all software or is there a hardware component involved?
- most companies will pay their reps 20-30% of quota attainment. So if quota is 800k then OTE will fall in the 160-200k realm on average. What is the quota?

salesboi22

Politicker

Head of Growth

Quotapath has a pretty cool calculator for this, helps you find those benchmarks Kosta is talking about. Also helpful to show your leadership if it shows your comp isn't in line with the norm. https://www.quotapath.com/

upupaway

Fire Starter

Branch Manager

Depends how much commission you get from the actual dollar amount of the deal you sell. I am a Mortgage Originator and I can sell one loan for $500,000, so it matters on the context.

Gasty

Notable Contributor

War Room Community Manager

curious, what's the average loan size in Maryland, @upupaway?

timothy

Good Citizen

sales manager

I used to sell over 1.5M, but I got only about 40K. I work for a Chinese company selling things to companies overseas.

Gasty

Notable Contributor

War Room Community Manager

@timothy: TikTok?

timothy

Good Citizen

sales manager

No. manufacturing company

revenuegenerator

Praised Answer

Sales Management

It's not that simple. It depends where that revenue is coming from (existing, new, partners, etc). And what you're selling (services, hw, saas, etc)

500k, new business ARR in SaaS. Base could be between 70k and 140k

Pachacuti

Politicker

They call me Daddy, Sales Daddy

*sigh*
Bigger base = smaller commission %
Bigger commission % = smaller base
There's always exceptions, but this is basically the rule.

And $500k isn't that much in some industries (like mine)

MCP

Valued Contributor

Sales Director

So basic rule is OTE is 25% of goal, so at $500K that’s $125K. 50/50 split of that is $62.5K.

Rosie

Catalyst

Sales Director

I know someone whose quota is 500k. Their base is around 50k while their commission is ranging between 10-25k but the deals are easier to make and they have a lots of other benefits.

I would go for a higher base and higher pay though, at least 80k base and a commission of at least 8pk but that´s me

npm55434

Catalyst

Business Development Representative

500k in TCV or ARR? Big difference.

JFW

Member

Fractional VP of Sales

Not uncommon for base comp to be 1/10th of quota with 2X commission OTE @ quota = 50K base and $100K at quota achievement of $500K.

activity

Politicker

VP, Business Development

75-85k

WhoDey

Opinionated

VP of Sales

You can't correlate base pay with bookings. Too many other factors involved, as many others here have already mentioned.

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