Article · 13 min read

The Ultimate Guide to Structuring a Compensation Plan for Quota-Carrying CS Teams

Angeline Gavino · CS RevSpeak Free Advanced

Concrete splits (70/30 or 80/20 base to variable) and the key design warning: pay on gross retention as well as NRR, or CSMs will chase expansion while the base leaks.

  • CS pay usually splits 70/30 or 80/20 base to variable, against 50 to 60 percent variable on sales teams.
  • A worked 80/20 plan: 80,000 base, 8 percent on upsell and cross-sell, plus 5,000 for hitting 90 percent gross retention.
  • One recommended metric weighting for the variable portion: NRR 50 percent, gross retention 30 percent, CSAT 20 percent.
Open on csrevspeak.com ↗

It answers 3 questions

  1. What is the difference between gross retention and net retention, and which one should I watch?
  2. Should my CSMs carry a quota?
  3. Who should own expansion: sales, customer success, or a dedicated team?

Read with it

  1. Kellogg's argument that churn has too many definitions to be trustworthy, and that private companies should measure NDR the way... Kellblog Essay · 10 min read plus slides Churn is Dead, Long Live Net Dollar Retention Dave Kellogg
  2. The Gainsight CEO on why CS should own an NDR number rather than just a churn number, including the idea of giving every CSM... Gainsight Article · 8 min read 8 Things I Learned from Dave Kellogg About Net Dollar Retention Nick Mehta
  3. Lays out the three real ways to organise a CS team (by segment, by lifecycle stage, by engagement model) and what each one... Gainsight Article · 16 min read Customer Success Team Structure: The Ultimate Guide Gainsight
  4. The good, better, best NRR bands (100, 110, 120 plus) that boards actually benchmark against, sitting alongside the efficiency... Bessemer Venture Partners Report · report State of the Cloud 2023 Kent Bennett, Talia Goldberg, Mike Droesch and others
  5. The formula written out term by term, with the three performance bands. The right first read if you have been nodding along in... Stripe Article · 9 min read Net revenue retention (NRR): What is NRR and why does it matter for SaaS businesses? Stripe
  6. Podcast · 8 min Should CSMs have CSQL quotas? CS Community India Podcast Series #1 As Far As I Know
eChai Partner Brands The partnership →