Your Account Managers are the beating heart of customer relationships. They spot friction early, resolve adoption issues, and identify expansion opportunities long before C-suite contracts renew.
But without the right incentives, critical signals get missed. Churn risks go unseen. Upsells stall.
This strategic compensation plan empowers your Account Managers to maximize the potential of every customer.
Who Should Use This Comp Plan Template?
For SaaS sales leaders and account professionals managing mid-market or enterprise customers. Ideally you have 5+ Account Managers each covering $500k+ in booked ARR.
Your Objective: Establish compensation driving customer success, renewals, and revenue expansion.
Additional criteria include:
- When your expansion <= 20% of total revenue
- Multiple sales reps spread across different verticals
- Excel spreadsheets no longer serve your complex comp plans
- Multiple KPIs to track
Key Details We’ll Use to Customize Your Plan:
Plug these performance metrics into our template to auto-generate a tailored Account Manager comp plan:
- Average ARR per customer
- Historical customer retention rates
- Expansion revenue targets
- Renewal commission rates
- Pay mix between base and variable
- Gross dollar retention benchmarks
- Ideal customer health KPIs
Outputs You'll Receive Include:
- Base salary vs. commission mix
- Customer success and expansion quota assignments
- Multi-tiered renewal commissions rates tied to ARR
- Accelerators for exceeding targets
- Upside potential for high performers
- Bonus eligibility qualifications
Benefits You’ll See Across Your Account Organization:
Get more from your Account teams using proven best practices for compensation design.
- Reduce involuntary churn through early renewal
- Increase expansion revenue
- Enhanced visibility into account health metrics
- Greater ownership and accountability
- Uplift in customer lifetime value
Take the first step toward customer success by empowering your Account Managers to maximize every contract's potential.
The Role of Account Managers
In a SaaS business, Account Managers build trusted relationships with customers while Customer Success Managers ensure adoption and satisfaction. Without clear role definition, Account Managers get pulled into tactical expansion tasks rather than strategic account planning.
Core Responsibilities:
- Trusted Advisor: Main customer contact, providing guidance to realize maximum value from products. Identify needs and serve as an in-house advocate.
- Customer Success: Ensure onboarding, adoption, and maturity through best practice sharing and training. Mature customers have higher retention and expansion potential.
- Account Planning: Analyze usage trends and customer roadmaps. Define plays to address risks, align to evolving needs, and spotlight new capability gaps to feed the expansion pipeline.
- Loyalty and Retention: Proactively position value delivered and address concerns to maximize renewals, reduce churn, and increase lifetime value.
- Expansion Collaboration: Work closely with AEs to diagnose new expansion opportunities based on intelligence gathered. Showcase internal capabilities for a tailored fit.
With the right incentives and customer success mindset, Account Managers nurture relationships to drive adoption, retention, and expansion.
Key Performance Indicators:
- Renewal and expansion revenue
- Account health scores
- Product usage and adoption rates
- Customer satisfaction (NPS)
- Frequency of interactions
The key is to motivate customer-centric behaviors that maximize lifetime value.
Talk to our Mid-Market Compensation Specialist
Take a free tour to learn how we can set you up for success.
