Average Sales Commission Rates by Industry and Role (2026)

There is no single average sales commission. A B2B SaaS account executive's commission at plan works out to about 10% to 11% of new annual contract value, based on Bridge Group's 2024 and 2026 reports. US real estate averages 5.46% per home (Clever, August 2026). Other industries vary, so compare like with like.

Most pages that rank for this search print a table of industry rates with no source, no year and no word on what the percentage is a percent of. We read the top five on October 25, 2026, and none of them dates its industry rates. This page does three things differently. Every figure below has its source and its date next to it. Where sources disagree, you see each one, not a blended number we made up. And for B2B SaaS, the page shows the math that turns OTE, pay mix and quota into a commission rate, because that is how SaaS companies actually set it.

What is the average sales commission rate by industry?

Published commission rates run from under 3% to over 25%, and much of that spread comes from what the rate is applied to: annual contract value, a home price, gross profit or a placement fee. The table keeps only figures from a dated, linked source. Two notes on the table. The "derived" rows are our arithmetic on Bridge Group's published medians, shown step by step in the SaaS section below. And Clever's earlier February 2026 survey put the real estate total at 5.70%, so even one source moves by a quarter of a point in six months.

What the top-ranking guides publish, side by side

The industry ranges most guides repeat come from commission software vendors, and none of the three below discloses how its ranges were built. We list them so you can see where they agree and where they contradict each other. Sources: Everstage, CaptivateIQ, SPOTIO.

Look at the automotive row. One vendor says 20% to 30% of the sale price, the other says 20% to 25% of gross profit. Those are very different paychecks on the same car. Retail runs from 1% to 15% across the three. That is why a rate copied from a table, without its base, tells you very little.

How much do sales roles earn? BLS pay by occupation (May 2025)

Median pay across US sales occupations runs from $35,410 for retail salespersons to $148,270 for sales managers, in the Bureau of Labor Statistics May 2025 estimates. OEWS wages include commissions: the program counts "incentive pay, including commissions and production bonuses," and tips, and leaves out overtime pay and nonproduction bonuses, per the BLS OEWS technical notes. So these figures are base plus commission, but not year-end bonuses. Figures are national, all industries, OEWS May 2025, pulled from the BLS public data API on October 25, 2026. The spread inside one code is wide. For technical and scientific sales reps (41-4011), the 10th percentile is $52,600 and the 90th is $200,440.

BLS has no separate code for software account executives. The closest codes are 41-4011 and 41-3091, and both mix SaaS sellers with people selling lab equipment, staffing or logistics. For SaaS roles, the company surveys in the next section are a better guide.

SaaS commission as a percent of ACV vs a percent of quota

In B2B SaaS, the commission rate is an output. It equals the variable pay at plan divided by the quota, and the rep earns it on each dollar of ACV they close. So a SaaS rate has two readings: the percent of ACV paid on a deal, and the target incentive as a percent of quota. On a flat plan at 100% attainment, they are the same number.

Commission rate = variable pay at plan / annual quota

Comp cost of sales at plan = OTE / annual quota = 1 / quota-to-OTE ratio

The rate calculation guide walks through the first formula for each role,. Here is what Bridge Group's published medians give you when you run both.

How to read it:

• The 47% variable share is from 2024. The public 2026 summary does not give a pay mix, so the 2026 rows assume the 2024 53:47 split held. If the split moved, the rate moves with it.
• Medians do not divide cleanly. $960,000 divided by $200,000 is 4.8x, but Bridge Group reports a 4.6x median ratio, because the median of each company's ratio is not the ratio of the two medians. Using the reported 4.6x and 47% variable gives 10.2%, so the 2026 rate sits between 9.8% and 10.2%.
• The long-run trend and the last step point different ways. In its June 2026 summary, Bridge Group puts quota growth at about 2.4% a year against about 4.9% for OTE, which pushes the rate up over time. Between 2024 and 2026, though, the median quota-to-OTE ratio rose from 4.2x to 4.6x, which pushes it down. The sample also changed (158 companies in 2026, more than 170 in 2024), one more reason not to blend the two years into one number.

Pete's view on quota ranges and the rate

From my work with SaaS revenue teams, AE quotas tend to stay in established ranges: about $500,000 to $1 million for many AE roles and $1 million or more for enterprise sellers. That range does most of the work in setting the rate. Hold OTE at $200,000 with a 50/50 mix (an illustrative plan, not a benchmark) and the rate is 20% on a $500,000 quota and 10% on a $1 million quota. Same paycheck at plan, half the rate.

That is why I tell finance teams to benchmark OTE, pay mix and quota-to-OTE, not the rate. Use the ratio benchmarks for OTE to quota and the pay mix guide, and the rate falls out. Where compensation gets interesting is when you want to change behavior. You might relieve quota or pay a multiple for selling a strategic product. That is a deliberate exception, not a reason to raise everyone's rate.

How pay mix, quota and attainment drive the variable

A commission rate only tells you what a rep earns at 100% of quota. What a rep actually takes home, and what each booked dollar costs you, depends on attainment, and most reps do not reach 100%.

The attainment data, each from its own source:

• Bridge Group, June 2026: 48% of AEs reached annual quota, down from 51% in 2024 (2026 AE report, 158 B2B companies).
• Bridge Group, February 2025: 60% of SDRs were at quota, the lowest in that study's history (2025 SDR report, 351 B2B companies).
• Everstage, 2026 benchmark (read October 2026): median AE attainment of 61.7%, with 77.2% of AEs below quota, from commission data on 25,112 quota carriers (Everstage).
• Pete's planning rule: plan for average attainment around 75% to 80%, with a tail below and a tail above. If your growth target needs average attainment to drop to 50%, you have a capacity problem, not a quota problem.

Worked example: one plan at four attainment levels (illustrative)

The plan below is illustrative, not a benchmark. An AE has $200,000 OTE split 50/50, so $100,000 base and $100,000 variable, on a $1,000,000 annual ACV quota. The rate is 10% up to quota and 15% on ACV above quota (a 1.5x accelerator). No cap, no decelerator.

The check on the 130% row: $100,000 on the first $1,000,000, plus 15% of the $300,000 above quota ($45,000), is $145,000. Total pay of $245,000 divided by $1,300,000 is 18.8%.

Two things to notice. Below quota, the commission rate on ACV stays at 10%, but the cost per booked dollar climbs fast, because the base is paid whatever happens. And the accelerator raises the rate on ACV above 10% while it lowers the cost per booked dollar. That is the trade a CFO is making when they approve accelerators. Run your own plan through the commission calculator, then model it at the attainment your team actually produces, not at 100%.

Why do published average commission rates disagree?

Because they measure different things. Before you compare a rate to your plan, check four points.

• The base. Revenue, ACV, total contract value, gross profit, a placement fee or a home price. Salesforce's guide (June 27, 2025) gives B2B tech as 5% to 20% of total contract value, while CaptivateIQ and Everstage use ACV or ARR. On a three-year deal, those bases differ by about three times.
• Rate vs share of pay. Mailshake's table (February 14, 2026) lists "performance-based" figures of 28% to 37% by industry from Glassdoor data. Those are shares of total pay, not commission rates, yet they sit on a page about commission rates.
• The role. New business, renewal and SDR roles carry different rates. A blended company-wide average fits no single role.
• The date. Rates change as quotas, pay and market practice change. A figure without a year is a figure you cannot check.

How do you benchmark your own commission rate?

Work from pay and quota to the rate, then test the cost at real attainment. Five steps:

• 1. Benchmark OTE for each role. Use a dated company survey (Bridge Group for SaaS AEs and SDRs) and the BLS table above as a floor check for non-SaaS roles.
• 2. Set the pay mix. Bridge Group's 2024 AE median was 53:47 and its 2025 SDR median was 68:32. Closing roles carry more variable than prospecting or renewal roles.
• 3. Size the quota from capacity, not the target. Divide variable by quota to get the rate. Check OTE divided by quota against the 4.2x (2024) and 4.6x (2026) Bridge Group medians.
• 4. Set separate rates by revenue type. New business, expansion and renewal commission should not share a rate, because the selling effort per dollar is different.
• 5. Model the cost at your real attainment curve. Use your own rep-level attainment, by role and region. Then forecast commission expense the same way you forecast bookings.

The fifth step is where most plans go wrong. A plan priced at 100% attainment looks cheap on paper and expensive in practice, because base pay does not flex down. ORM models attainment at the rep level by position and region, which is the input this step needs.

Sources and dates

All sources were read on October 25, 2026 unless noted.

• The Bridge Group, AE Models, Motions and Metrics: 2026 Research Report, published June 22, 2026, 158 B2B companies.
• The Bridge Group, 2024 AE metrics and compensation benchmark, March 5, 2024, more than 170 B2B SaaS companies.
• The Bridge Group, 2025 SDR Models and Metrics report, February 6, 2025, 351 B2B companies.
• US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, via the BLS public data API.
• Clever Real Estate, average real estate commission rate survey, August 2026, 434 agents (page updated October 1, 2026).
• FINRA, Rule 2341, Investment Company Securities.
• Everstage, average sales commission rates by industry, updated September 7, 2026, and 2026 quota attainment benchmarks.
• Optymyze, sales compensation benchmarks, undated, citing the Bridge Group 2024 report (secondhand).