Sales Plan Template

What a sales plan template should include

A sales plan template should answer one question: can this team, with these assumptions, hit this number? That takes seven parts, each tied to the next. Most templates online stop at goals, strategy and a timeline, which describes the plan without testing it.

The ninth tab, Plan on a page, pulls the numbers together on one printable sheet. It is the sales plan format to bring to a board or a QBR. For the method behind the parts, and how a plan differs from a forecast, read ORM's sales planning framework.

How to fill in the template, step by step

Fill in the tabs in this order. Each one feeds the next, so the summary is always current.

1. Targets. Enter the plan year start date, the company bookings target and each segment's share. Set quarter weights and month weights inside a quarter. Checks turn to "OK" when each set adds to 100%.
2. Assumptions. One column per segment (up to four): segment name, average deal size, win rate, sales cycle in days, annual quota for a fully ramped rep, planned attainment, and the addressable market multiple each territory needs. Below that, the ramp curve gives each tenure level (three months each) a share of a ramped rep's output.
3. Assumption log. For every assumption that changed, record last year's value, this year's value, why, and who owns it. This is the part of the sales plan form most teams skip, and the one that makes next year's plan faster.
4. Pipeline. No inputs. It shows deals to win, opportunities needed, pipeline needed, implied coverage, opportunities to create per month, pipeline needed each quarter, and the date each quarter's pipeline has to exist by.
5. Capacity. One row per rep or open role: segment (a dropdown), tenure in months at plan start, and start month for new hires. Quota and attainment fill in from Assumptions, and you can type over the quota. Twelve month columns show the ramp factor. The row returns expected bookings and assigned quota.
6. Territories. One row per territory: segment, owner, quota and addressable market. The check flags any territory under the multiple. A summary shows how far assigned quota sits above each segment target.
7. Actions and KPIs, then Plan vs actual. List the actions with owners and dates and the leading indicators you will review. Each quarter, enter actual bookings and pipeline created. Variance calculates itself.

Sales plan example: a $6M plan, worked through

This is the sample sales plan inside the example file. The company and numbers are illustrative, made up to show the mechanics. A B2B SaaS company plans $6,000,000 of new bookings for FY2027 across two segments: mid-market (60%) and enterprise (40%).

Step 1, the pipeline. Mid-market needs $3,600,000 / $40,000 = 90 wins. At a 25% win rate that is 360 opportunities and $14,400,000 of pipeline, which is 4.0x coverage. Enterprise needs 16 wins ($2,400,000 / $150,000), 89 opportunities and $13,333,333 of pipeline at 18%, which is 5.6x. The same company needs two different coverage ratios, because coverage is just 1 / win rate.

Step 2, the timing. Quarter weights of 20%, 26%, 24% and 30% put the Q1 target at $1,200,000. Enterprise Q1 needs $2,666,667 of pipeline ($480,000 / 18%), and with a 150-day cycle it had to exist by August 4, 2026. A plan built in October finds out that its enterprise Q1 is already decided.

Step 3, the capacity. The team has eight mid-market reps or roles and three enterprise reps. Expected bookings per rep are annual quota / 12 x attainment x ramp months, where a fully ramped month counts as 1.0.

Mid-market adds up to $3,689,000 (102.5% of target) and enterprise to $2,484,000 (103.5%). The plan covers $6,173,000, or 102.9% of the number. Assigned quota is $9,200,000, which is 153% of the target. Quota on paper is not capacity. The plan counts on expected bookings.

Step 4, the stress test. Move the two mid-market hires from month 1 to month 4. Each now has 2.4 ramp months in the year and books $112,000, not $203,000. Mid-market falls to $3,507,000, $93,000 short. Nothing about the people changed, only the start date. That is why the first action in the example is to open those roles by mid-November.

Step 5, the territories. Two mid-market territories have less than 3x addressable market to quota (2.6x and 2.1x), so they get flagged for more accounts or a lower quota before quotas go out.

The formulas in the template, in Excel and Google Sheets

Every formula uses functions both apps share. Examples come from the worked example.

In the ramp row, R2:R7 hold the six tenure levels and C2 is tenure at plan start. In the workbook the month number comes from a header row, and an INDEX and MATCH pair picks the segment's column. Divisions are wrapped in IFERROR so a blank row shows 0 instead of #DIV/0!.

What Pete Furseth checks in a sales plan

Pete Furseth, ORM's COO, builds capacity and territory plans with B2B SaaS revenue teams. These are the checks behind the template's design.

• Measure ramp, do not assume it. Most plans use one blended ramp, something like 25% productive in the first quarter, 50% in the second, 75% in the third, then full. In his words, that blend "is almost never actually true across the entire organization." Ramp differs by role and region, and it can take a seller 15 to 18 months to confidently hit quota. That is why the template has a ramp curve per segment.
• Use full quota when you measure. Measure a new rep's bookings against full quota, not a reduced ramp quota, or the rep looks more productive than they are. "Assigned quota is what you ask a rep to sell. Productive quota is what you should actually expect that rep to sell."
• Plan for 75% to 80% average attainment. Set quotas so the average rep lands around 75% to 80%, with a tail on each side. If the target only works at 50% average attainment, Pete calls it a capacity problem, not a quota problem. For SaaS AEs he sees quotas of about $500,000 to $1 million, and $1 million or more for enterprise reps.
• Check the market behind each territory. ORM likes about 3x or more addressable market to quota, on the assumption that only about a third of the market is in market in a given year. The Territories tab uses 3x as its default.
• Document every assumption and why it changed. At a minimum: ramp rates by position and region, addressable market with the minimum and maximum headcount a region can hold, and average sales price, win rate and days to close. Challenge them every year. That is the assumption log.
• If the plan does not reach the number, say so early. Add heads, find more market, fix conversion, change price, or look at whether the product is still competitive. Sometimes the answer is to call the number down with the board. "Bad news does not get better with time."

Two more points shape how to read the output. Pete's rule of thumb is that once the assumptions are about 80% right, execution becomes the bigger issue: sellers sell, managers coach, marketing creates demand. And a plan built on pipeline divided by win rate is the simple version. Pete splits a real quarter into deals already in pipeline, deals created and closed inside the quarter, and deals pulled forward from later quarters. Across ORM customers, only about 20% of the pipeline with close dates in the quarter on day one usually closes in that quarter. Track all three sources once the year starts.

Common sales plan mistakes the template catches

• One coverage ratio for every segment. The example needs 4.0x in mid-market and 5.6x in enterprise. A blended 3x rule would hide that.
• Counting new hires as full reps. A month-1 hire in the example adds 36% of a ramped rep in year one (4.35 of 12 months). A month-4 hire adds 20%.
• Treating assigned quota as capacity. $9,200,000 of quota supports a $6,000,000 plan, not a $9,200,000 one.
• Forgetting pipeline timing. A 150-day cycle means next quarter's enterprise pipeline already exists, or it does not.
• Even quarters. Splitting the target 25% a quarter makes Q1 look behind and Q4 look ahead. Use your own seasonality: in ORM's customer base Q4 is usually the largest quarter and the third month of a quarter the largest month.
• Planning on hope. Growth plans often miss. Maxio's 2025 benchmark found B2B SaaS companies planned 35% median growth for 2024 and delivered 26% (Maxio, 2025). Test the win rate you plan on against your history and against a reference such as the roughly 19% new-logo win rate in Ebsta and Pavilion's 2025 benchmarks.

Where to go deeper

Each tab has a full guide on ORM's site. For headcount and ramp, read how to build a sales capacity plan or try the sales capacity planner. For territories, see how to build a sales territory plan. For the Pipeline tab's dated creation targets, see how to build a pipeline generation plan. Once the year starts, the forecast takes over: the sales forecast template tracks deals against the plan.

ORM's take: the plan is the bet, the forecast keeps score

A sales plan template makes the bet explicit: these people, at these rates, by these dates. It cannot tell you in week six that enterprise cycles are running long or that deal sizes are slipping. Pete separates the two jobs. Planning puts the right people in the right seats with the right incentives. Prediction is about execution: what is in the pipe, what will show up this quarter, and what will close.

ORM does both. It plans capacity and territories from your own ramp and productivity data, then forecasts against that plan and updates as the quarter moves, so the gap between plan and forecast shows up while there is still time to act. ORM targets 95% forecast accuracy on the forecasts it builds.

Common questions

What should a sales plan template include?

At minimum: the target split by segment and quarter, the assumptions behind it (deal size, win rate, sales cycle, quota, attainment, ramp), the pipeline those assumptions require, the reps and open roles who will book it, territories and quotas, owners and dates for the actions, and a plan vs actual view. If the template cannot show whether capacity covers the target, it is a goals list.

Is there a free sales plan template for Excel and Google Sheets?

This one. The download is a standard .xlsx file with nine tabs and no macros, so it opens in Excel and in Google Sheets (upload it to Drive, then Open with Google Sheets). There are two versions: a worked example with illustrative numbers and a blank copy with the same formulas. No email is needed to download either.

How do you write a sales plan with this template?

Work backward from the number. Enter the target and its split on Targets, your own deal size, win rate, cycle, quota and ramp on Assumptions, then list every rep and open role on Capacity. Pipeline and Plan on a page calculate themselves. Close any gap by moving hires earlier, changing the plan or calling the number down. For the full planning method, read the sales planning framework.

What is the 10-3-1 rule in sales?

It is a prospecting rule of thumb: for every 10 prospects contacted, about 3 become real conversations or qualified opportunities, and 1 closes. It implies a 10% prospect-to-close rate. Treat it as a starting guess at most. A sales plan should use your own conversion and win rates by segment, because a 10% rule applied to an enterprise motion and an SMB motion gives two wrong answers.

What is a sales account plan, and how is it different?

A sales account plan covers one customer or prospect: the stakeholders, the opportunities, the risks and the actions to grow that account. A sales plan covers the whole team for a period: targets, pipeline, headcount, territories and quotas. Large accounts often get their own account plan that rolls up into the territory and segment rows of the sales plan.

How often should a sales plan be updated?

Set it once a year, compare it with actuals every month, and re-plan each quarter. Update the assumptions sooner when a leading indicator moves for two months in a row, such as win rate, deal size or cycle length. Write down every change and the reason in the assumption log, so next year starts from what you learned instead of from last year's guesses.

More free tools

Sales Capacity PlannerFind how many reps you need to hit the number, with ramp built in.Open the tool →Sales Forecast TemplateBuild a deal-level forecast with stage weighting.Open the tool →Quota Attainment CalculatorEnter each rep's quota and closed amount to see team attainment.Open the tool →