SDR compensation plan template

What you get

• Plan basics for a monthly SDR plan: OTE, pay mix, measures, and payout timing
• Written acceptance criteria that decide whether a meeting counts
• A rate table derived from target incentive and quota, with an accelerator above 100%
• A worked monthly payout from meetings held to dollars paid
• A three-month ramp with guarantees and a pre-launch checklist

Who it's for

• •VPs of Sales and SDR managers designing or fixing an SDR plan
• •Comp admins who need the plan math to reconcile to payroll
• •RevOps leads defining what counts as an accepted opportunity

What's inside

1. 1

   Plan basics

   7 fields to complete

2. 2

   Quality gates: when an opportunity counts

   8-point checklist

3. 3

   Rates and accelerator

   6 columns, 3 worked example rows

4. 4

   Worked monthly payout

   5 columns, 6 worked example rows

5. 5

   Ramp schedule

   5 columns, 3 worked example rows

6. 6

   Checking the math and the design

   Guidance notes

7. 7

   Before the plan goes out

   8-point checklist

The preview shows part of section 1. The full template has all 7 sections (6 not previewed here), with blank rows ready to fill in. Download the full template

How to use it

1. 1

   Write the acceptance criteria before the rates

   Agree with AE leadership on what makes an opportunity acceptable: ICP fit, a confirmed problem, the right persona, and a held meeting. If the criteria are vague, every rate you set afterwards pays for arguments.

2. 2

   Pay monthly, measure monthly

   SDRs work short cycles and turn over quickly. A quarterly plan asks a 22-year-old to wait three months to find out whether their work counted. Monthly quotas and monthly payouts keep the feedback loop as short as the job.

3. 3

   Give the AE a deadline to accept or reject

   Set a window, such as 5 business days after the meeting, after which the opportunity is accepted by default. Without it, AEs sit on meetings and SDR pay depends on how organized someone else is.

4. 4

   Cap the pipeline measure, not the opportunity measure

   Pipeline dollars are easy to inflate at stage 2. Cap that measure (the example uses 150%) and let the opportunity measure accelerate, because an extra accepted opportunity is harder to fake than an extra zero on an amount field.

5. 5

   Run last quarter's data through the plan

   Before launch, pay last quarter's SDRs on paper under the new plan. If your best SDR would have earned less than an average one, the weights or the gates are wrong.

Frequently asked questions