Design Sales Commission Plans

Sales Commission Plan is a prompt template that designs a compensation structure from a role, target on-target-earnings (OTE), base/variable split, quota type, sales cycle length, ACV range, and the specific business goals and behaviors to encourage. It generates five outputs: a compensation structure overview, commission rate tiers, a bonus/accelerator structure, clawback provisions, and example scenarios at different performance levels. It draws on named compensation components - base salary (typically 50-70% of OTE, tied to market rate and experience) and variable compensation (typically 30-50% of OTE, tied to performance) - and four commission structure types: linear (same rate for all sales), tiered (increasing rates at thresholds), accelerator (higher rates above quota), and decelerator (lower rates below a threshold). A worked Account Executive example shows a $150,000 OTE split 50/50 against a $1,000,000 quota, with rates from 5% below 80% attainment up to 12% above 120%, plus accelerators like a 1% bonus on multi-year deals and a $500 spiff per new logo; a parallel SDR example shows a $75,000 OTE weighted 67% base, paid per qualified meeting against a monthly quota with tier and stretch bonuses.

Use this prompt when you're designing or revising a commission plan for a specific sales role and need the tiers, accelerators, and payout scenarios modeled out consistently rather than assembled ad hoc - it's built to make the plan's incentive design explicit so you can check whether it actually rewards the behaviors you listed as goals. It is not a compensation-benchmarking tool: the base/variable split and OTE figures still have to come from real market data for the role, not from the prompt itself.

Inputs are the role, OTE target, base/variable split, quota type, sales cycle, ACV range, and business goals:

Design a sales commission plan for:

**Role:** [SDR/AE/AM/Sales Manager]
**Target OTE:** [On-target earnings]
**Base/Variable Split:** [60/40, 50/50, etc.]
**Quota Type:** [Revenue/Meetings/Pipeline]
**Sales Cycle:** [Average deal time]
**ACV Range:** [Deal sizes]

**Business Goals:**
- Primary metric: [What to optimize]
- Secondary metrics: [Other important factors]
- Behaviors to encourage: [Specific actions]

Outputs are a compensation structure overview, commission rate tiers, a bonus/accelerator structure, clawback provisions, and example payout scenarios at different performance levels.

Sales leaders and RevOps teams designing or revising a commission plan for a specific role who need the rate tiers, accelerators, and payout math modeled consistently against real quota and OTE figures, rather than built from scratch each time.