How much is your variable pay worth?
Your base, your target variable, your plan and your attainment: what you earn for the period, the curve by attainment, and what the plan costs from the manager’s seat. All gross, every assumption editable.
Read the plan before you sign it
Your assumptions
Results update with every change
The package
Base and target variable, gross per year.
Base salary over twelve months, excluding variable.
What the plan pays over a year if target is hit every period.
Package (OTE) $47,000, of which 26% variable. All amounts are gross, before employee deductions and tax.
Target and attainment
The period, the unit, the target and where you stand.
In the chosen unit, for one period.
Where you stand, or the scenario you want to test.
Attainment: 75%
Plan shape
Linear, threshold, tiers or accelerator, and an optional cap: what your commission plan says.
Below it, nothing is paid. At the threshold, variable is proportional. 0 for no threshold.
Applied to the share of attainment above target.
Plan preview
50% → 0%60% → 60%80% → 80%100% → 100%120% → 130%150% → 175%
Translate into activity
Optional: how many calls separate your attainment from target, at your rates.
Meetings booked, over conversations.
Meetings held, over meetings booked.
The team
For the manager tab: headcount and attainment spread.
Results updated: $750 of variable for the period.
Your variable pay
For the period (monthly), gross, with your assumptions
Variable for the period
$750
Attainment: 75% · 9 / 12 meetings held
Gross total for the period
$3,667
$2,917 + $750
Annual projection
$44,000
If this attainment holds all year.
Package (OTE)
$47,000
of which 26% variable
All amounts are gross, before employee deductions and tax.
What your numbers say
- Below 60% attainment you earn nothing: 7 meetings held and $0 of variable.
- Up to target, each held meeting is worth $83.33 of variable.
- Above target, each held meeting is worth $125.
- You are 3 meetings held short of 100%, about 17 dials per working day at your rates, by hand: 0.8 h a day.
What I earn by attainment
Variable and gross total for the period, from 0% to the plan’s range. The dot marks your current attainment.
VariablePeriod total
| Attainment | Variable | Period total | Annual total |
|---|---|---|---|
| 60% | $600 | $3,517 | $42,200 |
| 80% | $800 | $3,717 | $44,600 |
| 100% | $1,000 | $3,917 | $47,000 |
| 120% | $1,300 | $4,217 | $50,600 |
| 150% | $1,750 | $4,667 | $56,000 |
The levers, one at a time
What each extra step pays, under your plan.
+1 held meeting
10 meetings held · attainment 83%
$833
+$83 more variable+10% achieved
9.9 meetings held · attainment 83%
$825
+$75 more variableTarget reached (100%)
12 meetings held · attainment 100%
$1,000
+$250 more variable
What the plan costs the team
With your headcount and the attainment spread entered, each band represented by its midpoint (45%, 80%, 110%, 135%).
Variable paid for the period (monthly)
$5,145
$858 per rep · 6 people
if the whole team were at 100%
$6,000
$72,000 / year
Spread entered
- Below 60%15% · 0.9 people · $0
- 60 to 100%45% · 2.7 people · $800
- 100 to 120%30% · 1.8 people · $1,150
- Above 120%10% · 0.6 people · $1,525
All amounts are gross, before employee deductions and tax.
Plan cost by average attainment
Variable for the whole team over the period, if everyone were at the same attainment.
Cliff effects
- A rep at 59% earns $0; at 60% they earn $600: the threshold creates a step.
Share this calculation
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Summary preview
Variable pay (accelerator, monthly period, gross) • Attainment: 75% (9 meetings held out of 12) • Variable for the period: $750 · gross total: $3,667 • Annual projection: $44,000 (target package $47,000) • Assumptions entered by the user, not market data. Details and assumptions: …
Reaching 100% takes 67 dials a day. Skipcall dials up to four numbers at once and chains calls without dead time: the same target, in fewer dialing hours.
Create an accountYour salary figures never leave your browser. The tool sends nothing and stores nothing. How to check
How to read a variable pay plan
A variable pay plan fits in five words: OTE, target, threshold, accelerator, cap. OTE (on-target earnings) is the full package if target is hit: base plus target variable. Target variable is what the plan pays at 100% attainment; it is usually stated as a gross annual figure, then split by period, monthly or quarterly. Attainment is what you achieved divided by the period target: 9 meetings held out of 12 is 75%.
The threshold is the attainment level below which nothing is paid. A 60% threshold means that at 59% variable is zero, and at 60% it restarts at 60% of target: that is a step, and it matters. The accelerator is a multiplier applied to the share of attainment above 100%: at ×1.5, 120% attainment pays 100% plus 20 × 1.5, that is 130% of target. The cap bounds the attainment taken into account: beyond it, variable stops growing.
This simulator reproduces those mechanics and draws the full variable curve by attainment, from 0% to the cap or 150%. Everything is gross: the move to net depends on your country, your status and your situation, and the tool does not attempt it. The starting values, base, target, quota, rates, are working assumptions to be replaced with those of your plan.
The most common plan shapes for an SDR, and what they do to motivation
The linear plan pays the same amount for every attainment point, from the first. It is the easiest to read and rewards every meeting, even in a bad month; in return, it pays variable at attainment levels the company may find too low. The linear plan with a threshold fixes that by paying nothing below a level: it protects the budget but creates a step, and a rep who knows they are far from the threshold mid-period may stop trying.
The tiered plan cuts attainment into bands, each with its own rule: nothing, a flat amount, or a proportional payout with its multiplier. It can draw almost any schedule, for instance nothing below 60%, proportional from 60 to 100%, ×1.5 beyond, which is also an accelerator. Its readability depends on the number of tiers: past four, the rep no longer knows what the next meeting is worth.
The accelerator and the cap act on the end of the period. The accelerator, linear up to target then multiplied beyond, rewards overachievement and keeps people going past 100%; the cap protects the budget against an exceptional month but stops the effort dead once reached, and pushes deals into the next period. The tool’s manager tab flags these cliff effects from your own numbers.
Finding your benchmarks without a magic number
You will not find an average SDR salary or a “usual” variable share here: those figures change with the country, the city, the industry, seniority and sales cycle, whether you sell in London, New York, Berlin or Paris, and a single number would do more harm than good. The starting values, a base of 35,000, a target variable of 12,000, a quota of 12 meetings held a month, are working assumptions so the tool shows something on opening, not a benchmark.
The right benchmarks are the ones you observe yourself. Published job ads for your city and industry increasingly state base, variable and OTE: collect a dozen and you have a real range. Your company’s internal bands, where they exist, tell you where you sit. Peers, in SDR communities or among former colleagues, complete the picture, provided you compare whole plans, not just base salaries.
Once the range is observed, the tool is there to compare plans with each other: two offers with the same OTE but a different threshold, or a higher but capped variable, are not worth the same at equal attainment. Enter each plan, read the curve and the table, then compare at the attainment you think you can sustain, not at 100%.
Reviewing or negotiating your plan: the questions to ask
Before signing, or before accepting a new quota, here is what deserves a written answer.
- 1
What is the plan period, and is variable missed in one period lost or recoverable?
- 2
Is there a threshold? At what level, and does payout restart at actual attainment or from zero?
- 3
Which unit is the target set on, and who controls its measurement: meetings booked or held, opportunities accepted by whom, revenue closed by whom?
- 4
Can the target change mid-period, and under what rule?
- 5
Is there an accelerator above 100%, and a cap? Does the cap apply per period or per year?
- 6
How is variable paid during probation or ramp-up: guaranteed, pro-rated, or not at all?
- 7
What happens to meetings booked at the end of a period but held at the start of the next?
For managers: what a plan costs and the classic mistakes
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A threshold set too high
An 80% threshold leaves a rep at 75% with nothing, although they produced three quarters of the target. As soon as they know they are below it, effort stops until the next period. A low threshold, or none with an adjusted target variable, often costs less in lost meetings.
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A cap that kills the end of the quarter
A rep at the cap mid-period has no reason to close before the next one: meetings slip, revenue becomes erratic. If the budget requires a cap, set it high and work out what it really costs with the tool’s curve.
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A target on a unit the SDR does not control
Indexing an SDR’s variable on closed revenue makes it depend on the account executives’ closing and on customer timelines. Meetings held or accepted opportunities are closer to what they produce; closed revenue can remain a complement.
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Forgetting what the plan costs when it works
A variable pay budget is often worked out at 100% attainment for everyone. With an accelerator and a good period, variable cost exceeds that target: the manager tab shows cost by average attainment so you see it before signing.
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Changing the rule mid-period
Raising the target or adding a threshold along the way destroys more trust than any amount buys back. Freeze the rule for the period, and announce changes at least one period ahead.
Going further
The pages behind this simulator’s assumptions.
- Cost per Meeting Calculator The same plan, seen from the company’s side: what a held meeting costs in salaries, tools and data.
- How many calls does your target take? Start from a meetings target and get the calls and hours needed, mode by mode.
- Parallel dialer Dial up to four numbers at once and only hand over when someone answers.
- Power dialer Chain calls without dead time, one number after another.
- All free tools Phone number validator, calling windows, VoIP test and more.
How to check that your salary figures never leave your browser
The calculation is done by code running in your browser: your base, your variable and your attainment are sent neither to Skipcall nor to anyone else. The tool stores nothing, not even in the browser’s local storage. The page address stays clean while you type: the share link, which carries your assumptions, is only built when you click “copy”, and you decide who to send it to.
The simplest test: once the page has loaded, cut your connection (airplane mode or Wi-Fi off) and change a value. The results keep updating, since they need no server.
In your browser’s Network tab you will see the site’s audience measurement tools, as on all our pages. None of them receives the content of your fields: the tool area is excluded from session recording, the address they send does not contain your assumptions, and only clicks on “copy” and tab changes are counted, without their content.
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