What the Sales Commission Plan Calculator does
This calculator models a sales commission plan - tiers, quota attainment, accelerators and decelerators, a minimum threshold, credit and payout caps, and draws - and works out what each rep or scenario is paid, with a numbered trace showing which rule applied in which order. It is meant for designing or checking a plan before it goes into a contract, not for running payroll.
Most arguments about commission come from rules that were never written down precisely: whether a tier rate applies to every sale or only to sales above the tier, whether the cap applies before or after the draw, whether a draw is ever paid back. Here each of those is an explicit setting, and the trace shows its effect.
How to use it
- Enter the quota for the period and choose how rates apply: tiered marginal, tiered retroactive, or a single flat rate.
- For a tiered plan, add tiers by the attainment % where each one starts and its rate. A tier from 100% with a higher rate is an accelerator; a later tier with a lower rate is a decelerator.
- Open threshold, caps and draw to set a minimum attainment, a cap on credited bookings, a cap on the payout, and a recoverable or non-recoverable draw.
- Add one row per rep or scenario with its bookings. Tick consecutive periods if the rows are one rep's months, so a recoverable draw balance carries forward.
- Compare payouts in the table - including what the same bookings would pay under the other tier method - and pick a row to read its rule trace. Download the plan as JSON to reuse it.
Reading the results
Attainment is bookings divided by quota. Earned is commission after the rate and caps; Paid is what the rep receives in the period after any draw. The two differ only when a draw applies.
The If retroactive (or If marginal) column is there to make the design choice concrete. Retroactive plans pay much more just above a boundary and create cliffs - a deal that slips from one period to the next can change pay by thousands. Marginal plans are smooth.
A recoverable draw balance owed at the end is money the rep has been advanced but not yet earned. Whether it is ever collected if they leave is a contract question the calculator cannot answer.
Worked example: four reps on a tiered plan with an accelerator and decelerator
Quota is 100,000. The plan pays 5% up to 50% of quota, 8% from 50% to 100%, 12% from 100% to 150% and 6% above 150%, with nothing below 40% attainment and a 20,000 payout cap.
Rep A books 35,000 (35%), below the threshold, and earns nothing. Rep B books 85,000: 50,000 x 5% + 35,000 x 8% = 2,500 + 2,800 = 5,300. Rep C books 120,000: 2,500 + 4,000 + 20,000 x 12% = 8,900. Rep D books 180,000: 2,500 + 4,000 + 6,000 + 30,000 x 6% = 14,300, under the cap.
Under retroactive rules the same bookings pay 6,800, 14,400 and 10,800: Rep D, who sold the most, is paid less than Rep C, because crossing 150% moves all 180,000 onto the 6% decelerator rate. That is the kind of surprise the comparison column is there to catch.
Formulas and scoring rules
- Attainment
attainment = bookings / quota- Credited bookings
credited = min(bookings, credit cap% x quota)- Marginal tiers
commission = sum over tiers of rate_t x max(0, min(credited, end_t) - start_t)start_t and end_t are the tier's attainment bounds x quota. Bookings below the first tier earn nothing.- Retroactive tiers
commission = credited x rate of the highest tier whose start <= credited attainment- Threshold and payout cap
commission = 0 if attainment < threshold; commission = min(commission, payout cap)- Draws
non-recoverable: paid = max(commission, draw); recoverable: if commission < draw, paid = draw and balance += draw - commission; else recovered = min(commission - draw, balance), paid = commission - recoveredRules run in this order: attainment, credit cap, threshold, rate, payout cap, draw. Amounts are shown to whole currency units; the CSV keeps cents.
Recoverable and non-recoverable draws
A draw is money paid to a rep before commission is earned, usually while a new hire builds a pipeline. A non-recoverable draw is a guaranteed minimum: if commission falls short, the company tops it up and never asks for the difference back. A recoverable draw is an advance: shortfalls accumulate as a balance, and later commission above the draw pays it back before the rep sees any extra.
In the draw example, a new rep with a 60,000 quota and a 3,000 recoverable draw earns 1,200, 2,700 and 4,600 in the first three months. They are paid 3,000 each month while a balance of 1,800, then 2,100, then 500 builds and shrinks. In month four they earn 6,600, of which 500 repays the last of the advance, so they are paid 6,100.
Limitations: what the result does not prove
- It models the rules you enter, in a fixed order. Real plans may apply caps after draws, count renewals differently or split credit between reps; check the order in your plan document matches the trace.
- Bookings are taken as final. Clawbacks for cancelled deals, payment timing and multi-year contract crediting are not modelled.
- It is not tax, payroll or legal advice. Whether a recoverable draw can be recovered from final pay depends on local employment law and the contract.
- Tier boundaries use attainment of the whole period's quota; plans with monthly tiers inside an annual quota need one row per month and a quota to match.
Privacy: where your data goes
Everything you paste, type or drop is processed in this browser tab. It is not uploaded, logged, stored or sent to analytics. Session recording and tag-manager scripts are switched off on this page.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between marginal and retroactive commission tiers?
With marginal tiers, each slice of bookings earns the rate of the tier it falls in, so crossing a boundary only raises the rate on sales above it. With retroactive tiers, reaching a tier moves every booking onto that tier's rate, which creates big jumps in pay at each boundary.
What is a commission accelerator?
An accelerator is a higher rate for bookings above a point, usually 100% of quota, to reward over-performance. A decelerator does the opposite: a lower rate above a high attainment, often used to limit windfalls from one very large deal. Both are simply tiers with different rates here.
How does a recoverable draw work?
It is an advance against future commission. When commission is below the draw, the rep still receives the draw and the difference is added to a balance they owe. When later commission exceeds the draw, the excess repays that balance first. Tick consecutive periods to see the balance carry across rows.
What is the difference between a credit cap and a payout cap?
A credit cap limits how much of the bookings counts, for example no credit above 200% of quota, so the rate is never applied to the excess. A payout cap limits the money paid, whatever the bookings. They can give different answers when tiers have different rates.
Where are my plan and bookings stored?
Nowhere. Everything is calculated in your browser. The share link carries only the plan rules, never the bookings rows, and the plan JSON download is a file on your own computer that you can load again later.
Why does a rep with higher sales sometimes earn less?
Usually because of a retroactive decelerator: crossing its start moves all bookings onto a lower rate. It can also come from a credit cap combined with a threshold on another measure. The rule trace for each row shows exactly which step changed the amount.
Last reviewed by the A2Z.Tools team against the sources listed above.
