Compass pricing, features and alternatives
Compass is worth shortlisting when your sales floor already runs contests and leaderboards and you want commission data and motivation from one vendor. Two facts set the terms of the purchase. Xoxoday publishes no price for it, and as of September 2026 the old Compass site redirects to Empuls, so you will be quoted under the Empuls name on a per-employee, per-month model. Get the scope of "per employee" settled before anything else.
The short answer
Buy Compass if your sales culture already lives on leaderboards and SPIFFs, you want reps to see how activity turns into pay in the same place the commission is calculated, and you pay incentives to reps or channel partners across several countries. Xoxoday handles multi-country payouts from its own rewards catalog, which is the part a standalone commission engine does not do.
Skip it if your plans are complex and finance wants audit-grade controls, because that is what a dedicated incentive compensation platform is for: CaptivateIQ and Xactly Incent are the comparisons. Skip it too if you have no use for an employee engagement platform, since the commission features now ship inside one.
Where Compass fits
Compass is Xoxoday's sales commission and incentive product, and the distinguishing feature is that it pairs commission calculation with gamification: leaderboards, badges and challenges sit next to the payout math rather than in a separate tool. Xoxoday is part of Giift. That makes it a different kind of purchase from a finance-led commission engine, and the difference is cultural before it is technical: the product assumes somebody wants reps looking at a leaderboard, not only at a statement.
The first thing to establish is which product you are buying. As of September 2026 the old Compass site redirects to Empuls, and Xoxoday now sells sales commission and incentive automation as part of Empuls. Older reviews and directory listings under the Compass name may describe a previous version, so confirm the current feature set, the roadmap and the support model directly, and ask for references at your team size and in your industry. If a demo screen says Empuls and your shortlist says Compass, you are looking at the same thing under its current name.
It fits gamified sales cultures. Where a floor already runs monthly contests, a SPIFF on a slow product line, and a leaderboard somebody reads, Compass puts the commission number and the contest in one surface. Where the comp plan is three lines and nobody wants a badge, the gamification half is overhead and you are better off pricing a plain commission tool. Our SPIFF program template is a fair test of whether you have the first culture: if you cannot fill it in from last quarter, you probably do not.
The second genuine fit is geographic. Companies paying reps or channel partners in several countries get payouts handled by the same vendor that calculates them, drawn from Xoxoday's own rewards catalog. That is a real operational saving over wiring incentive payments through payroll in five jurisdictions, and it is the reason Compass shows up on shortlists that otherwise contain only incentive compensation specialists. Ask how incentive payouts and rewards connect to payroll, because the handoff is where reconciliation problems live.
The plan-building side is designed for sales ops rather than for a developer. Plans are built in a no-code builder with tiered structures and accelerators, and commissions calculate automatically from connected CRM, ERP and HR data. The test that matters is not whether the builder looks friendly: bring a real plan with splits to the demo, have it calculate last quarter's payouts, and compare line by line against the spreadsheet you paid from. Any discrepancy you cannot explain is a reason to keep looking.
Where it does not fit is worth stating as plainly as the vendor would not. Highly complex plans with finance-grade audit controls belong with a dedicated incentive compensation management platform. Teams that already have a gamification tool reps like, and need only the calculation, are buying half a product twice. And teams with no interest in recognition, surveys or a social intranet are buying an employee engagement platform to get a commission engine, which is a legitimate choice only once you have priced the alternative. The full set sits in our sales compensation software directory.
Compass pricing
Xoxoday does not publish a price for its sales commission product, so there is no rate to compare and no table to read. Our September 2026 check found the Empuls pricing page describing the model rather than the number: a per-employee, per-month charge based on the number of employees in scope and the modules you activate, with buyers routed to a demo for a figure. The old Compass pricing URL no longer resolves, and the commission features now sit on an Empuls sales commission page.
Six things drive the number that comes back, and the first one is the one buyers forget to pin down.
- The definition of "employee" in a per-employee price. This is the whole ballgame. For a ten-rep team inside a 200-person company, a rate applied to every employee is a completely different bill from the same rate applied to ten payees. Ask which population the quote counts, and get the answer in the order form rather than in an email.
- The minimum employee count. The Empuls pricing page lists a minimum as an FAQ topic without stating the number, so you have to ask. A minimum above your payee count turns a per-employee model into a flat fee you cannot shrink.
- Which modules are switched on. Empuls covers recognition, surveys and a social intranet alongside commissions and gamification. Each module you activate moves the per-employee rate, so ask for the rate with commissions and gamification alone, then with anything else you are tempted by.
- Implementation. Connecting CRM, ERP and HR data and rebuilding your plans in the no-code builder is project work. Ask whether Xoxoday or a partner does it, what it costs, and what the deliverable is.
- Payout and rewards mechanics, if you are paying across countries. Ask how payouts are funded, what fees apply per country, and how the rewards catalog reconciles against payroll. This is the part that has no equivalent line on a commission-only quote.
- The contract term and the renewal cap. A per-employee price moves with headcount, so establish what happens when headcount falls as well as when it rises, and get the renewal uplift capped in writing.
There is no benchmark figure for Compass in our material and we are not going to invent one, so the preparation is the price. Ask for the per-payee rate, the minimum employee count, the module list, the implementation fee and the renewal cap in writing, then price a dedicated commission tool against the same plan: QuotaPath publishes $35 per user per month on Growth plus a $525 monthly platform fee, and SalesCookie publishes $40 per user per month on Business, so a ten-rep team has a published floor of roughly $400 a month, or $4,800 a year, to compare any quote against. Our commission software RFP template puts both quotes in the same format, and how we review software explains why a quote-only vendor gets no price table here.
What Compass gives up
You give up knowing the price before you talk to a salesperson, and you give up the usual workaround too. There is no published rate, no listed minimum and no third-party benchmark in our material, which means you cannot even budget from somebody else's contract. Hold two competing quotes at the same time rather than in sequence, and treat the first Empuls proposal as an opening position.
You give up a product with its own name. Compass has been folded into Empuls, so the brand on your shortlist is not the brand on the contract, the website or the support portal. The practical risks are mundane and real: reviews you read describe a previous version, a feature you saw in a G2 screenshot may have moved, and a roadmap commitment made for Compass belongs to a platform with other priorities. Ask what has changed since the merge and what is planned, and get the answer from a person rather than from a listing.
You give up finance-grade audit depth, or at least you have to prove you have not. Our own material flags complex plans and strict finance controls as the case where dedicated incentive compensation platforms fit better, and this is where the evaluation should be hardest. Ask how disputes and approvals are handled and what audit trail finance gets, then run a real dispute through it. Our commission dispute log is the format to test against, because a dispute process that lives in email is the thing you were trying to replace.
You give up buying only what you need. The commission features now ship inside an employee engagement platform, so the thing you are licensing covers recognition, surveys and an intranet whether or not anyone will use them. If your HR team is already buying engagement software, that overlap is a budget conversation with another department rather than a feature. If it is not, you are paying for a platform to get a module.
You give up a self-serve trial. No free trial is advertised, so evaluation means a sales-led demo and, if you ask for it, a pilot. Ask for the pilot explicitly and scope it to a full commission cycle rather than a fortnight, because the only test that counts is whether the payouts it calculates match the ones you paid. Our ICM software requirements checklist is where to write down the controls you need before the demo makes them feel optional.
How Compass compares
Most of this category quotes rather than publishes, so the comparison is about what you are buying rather than what it lists at. Compass is the only option here that pairs commission calculation with gamification and multi-country reward payouts from one vendor, and the only one where the commission engine arrives inside an employee engagement platform. CaptivateIQ and Everstage are the commission-first platforms most teams put against it, both quote-only. Xactly Incent is the incumbent for large payee populations and complex plans. QuotaPath and SalesCookie are the two that publish rates, which makes them useful as a floor: if a quote for Compass comes back well above a published alternative that covers your plan, the gamification and payout features have to justify the gap on their own. Spiff is the other name buyers raise, and our CaptivateIQ against Spiff comparison covers that ground.
| Tool | Best for | Price | Where it breaks |
|---|---|---|---|
| Compass | Gamified sales floors wanting commissions, contests and multi-country payouts from one vendor | Custom quote; per employee per month by module, now quoted as Empuls | Rebranded into an engagement platform, no published rate or minimum, and light on finance-grade audit depth |
| CaptivateIQ | Commission-first teams that want flexible plan modelling | Custom quote; no published rate | Quote-only, and there is no gamification or reward payout layer |
| Everstage | Commission automation with rep-facing visibility | Custom quote; no published rate | Quote-only, so it cannot be price-compared until you hold a proposal |
| QuotaPath | Published pricing on a straightforward commission plan | $35/user/mo plus a $525/mo platform fee on Growth; $50 plus $800 on Premium | The platform fee does not scale down, so small teams pay most per seat |
| Xactly Incent | Large payee populations and complex plans with strict controls | Custom quote across Core, Plus and Ultimate | Quote-only, and the implementation is an enterprise project rather than a configuration |
What to test in a Compass pilot
No self-serve trial is advertised, so you have to ask for a pilot and set its length yourself. Make it a full commission cycle, because a two-week look at a leaderboard tells you nothing about whether the payouts are right. Every step below produces evidence somebody in finance will accept.
- Bring one real comp plan, including splits and accelerators, and have Compass calculate last quarter's payouts from your actual data. Reconcile line by line against what you paid. Any gap you cannot explain is the finding.
- Establish in writing which population the per-employee price counts: total headcount or commission payees. Then get the minimum employee count, which the Empuls pricing page raises as a topic without stating.
- Ask for the quote with commissions and gamification only, then again with every module you might want. The delta tells you what the engagement platform costs you as a commission buyer.
- Run one real dispute end to end. Watch who approves what, what the rep sees, and what audit trail finance can export afterwards.
- Connect the CRM, ERP and payroll systems you run, not the two easiest ones, and confirm each is native rather than a project. Then break a field deliberately and see what the calculation does.
- If you pay across countries, run one real multi-country payout through the rewards catalog and reconcile it against payroll. Record the per-country fees and the settlement time.
- Put a leaderboard and one challenge in front of a real sales team for the full cycle, and ask managers afterwards whether they could launch a SPIFF without admin help. That answer decides whether the gamification half earns its price.
- Price a published alternative against the same plan in parallel, using our sales compensation plan template so both vendors are quoting the same thing.
Compass questions buyers ask
What is Compass sales compensation software?
Compass is Xoxoday's sales commission and incentive product, combining commission calculation with leaderboards, badges, and challenges. As of September 2026 it is sold as part of Xoxoday's Empuls platform.
How much does Compass cost?
Xoxoday does not publish a price. Empuls, which now carries the sales commission features, is priced per employee per month based on the modules you turn on. Ask whether the quote covers all employees or only payees.
Who owns Compass?
Compass is a Xoxoday product, and Xoxoday is part of Giift. The Compass site now redirects to Xoxoday's Empuls platform.
What are the alternatives to Compass?
CaptivateIQ, Spiff, and QuotaPath are common commission alternatives. Teams focused on motivation may pair a commission tool with a separate gamification product instead.
Is there a free trial of Compass?
No self-serve trial is advertised. Ask for a pilot that covers a full commission cycle.
What is Compass software used for?
Teams use it to calculate sales commissions from connected CRM, ERP and HR data, to show reps real-time earnings and quota progress, and to run leaderboards, badges and challenges against those numbers. Xoxoday also uses it to deliver incentive payouts across several countries from its own rewards catalog.