OTE is base plus variable if you hit exactly 100 percent of quota, nothing more. Pay mix is how that splits: closing roles are usually around 50:50, SDRs more like 70:30 base heavy, customer success around 75:25, because you pay more variable where the person controls the outcome. An accelerator is a higher commission rate above 100 percent, which is how top reps get paid properly. A draw is a guaranteed advance during ramp, and the word to check is recoverable, because a recoverable draw is a loan you pay back out of later commission. A clawback takes commission back if the deal dies early.
3 hand-picked resources, 1 India-specific, 3 link-checked. Pick how you want to dig in.
Why we picked it From the Chennai-built comp platform that actually runs these plans for hundreds of companies. It gives the pay mix by role (50/50 for AEs, 70/30 for support roles) and the 4x to 6x OTE quota benchmark you can sanity check yourself against.
From Everstage 18 min read
Open everstage.com →Why we picked it The clearest arithmetic anywhere on rep economics: the rule of 10 for quota against base, four months to productivity, draws during ramp, and why teams attain about 70 percent of quota capacity so you must plan over capacity.
From Craft Ventures by David Sacks 12 min read
Open sacks.substack.com →Why we picked it Worked examples with real numbers for an SDR at 70:30, a CS role at 75:25 and a presales engineer at 80:20, each with quota, metric and payout. Copy the shape, change the currency.
From Everstage 15 min read
Open everstage.com →How comp, quotas and territory reads from a different seat.
The same ground, over in Co-founders, team & legal, our Starting Up track.
