The gap between revenue plan and incentive plan
Most comp plans were designed for the company that existed two years ago. They reward behaviors the business has outgrown, set quotas against territories that no longer make sense, and create disputes that consume management time and erode rep trust. The result: attainment concentration in a handful of reps, cost of sales that creeps upward, and a forecast that nobody believes because it is built on incentives that point in the wrong direction.
We publish independent research to help PE operating partners and revenue leaders navigate the growing landscape of compensation and quota design providers. Our analysis is based entirely on publicly available evidence: vendor websites, published methodologies, case studies, testimonials, and pricing disclosures.
Start here
Compensation & Quota Design: What It Is and Who Does It — A category overview covering what to look for in a provider, a capability matrix across leading vendors, and detailed provider notes with harvey ball ratings.
Provider Comparisons — Head-to-head analyses of specific providers, with scoring matrices, methodology comparisons, and deployment fit recommendations.
Glossary — Practitioner definitions for the terminology of comp design, quota methodology, and incentive architecture.
Why this exists
PE-backed companies that miss their growth case rarely fail because the market was wrong. They fail because the sales team was pointed at the wrong targets, compensated for the wrong behaviors, and measured against quotas that were either sandbagged or impossible. Compensation and quota design is the operating lever that connects the revenue plan to rep behavior — and getting it wrong is one of the most expensive post-close mistakes a portfolio company can make.