Standard vs Custom Sales Comp: When Your Best Candidate Pushes Back
When to Stick to Standard Sales Comp Plans and When to Bend
You finally find the right candidate. You share the comp plan: base, variable, OTE. It’s clean and simple. The candidate is excited, but then asks for a higher salary with more upside.
Now you face a tough call. Do you hold firm and risk losing the hire? Or make an exception and live with that decision all year or even longer?
We see this moment all the time. If you say yes, you create a one-off plan you may need to justify to the rest of the team. If you say no, you might lose a rare hire. The decision matters, because it impacts fairness, retention, and finance’s ability to model the business.
This post breaks down what we see in the market, when to stick to a standard plan, and when it’s worth customizing.
What We See in the Market
Most companies start with one standard plan per role. Then a strong candidate pushes back. To close the hire, the team makes an exception. Then another. Soon the exceptions become the norm.
When that happens, three things follow. People compare notes and start to question fairness. Finance struggles to predict payouts. And managers waste time explaining exceptions instead of coaching performance.
Exceptions aren’t bad in themselves. Sometimes they are necessary. But when they become common, they weaken trust and make it harder to run the business.
Where the Standard Plan Wins
A clear standard plan is usually the best default. It creates a shared understanding across the team. It reduces the risk of pay equity issues. It helps finance plan the quarter without guesswork.
It also makes hiring faster. With a set plan, recruiters don’t need custom math for every candidate. Managers can coach to the same rules. Reps know exactly what it takes to win.
A good standard plan still leaves room to adjust for fairness. Quotas and territories flex with potential. You can add a small quality measure so reps don’t chase bad revenue. You can shape accelerators so payout grows steadily with performance instead of jumping off cliffs.
When We Recommend Customizing
There are times when a candidate brings something so rare or valuable that a custom plan is worth it. Think of situations like these:
You’re entering a new market where results will take six to twelve months, and you need someone who can build it from scratch.
A candidate brings a network that could open doors quickly, perhaps as an ex-competitor who knows the accounts.
Timing is critical, and a candidate can start right away while others can’t.
They can turn on a key partner or marketplace that fuels co-selling and new pipeline.
They have influence with a community or industry group that drives trust and adoption.
They can unlock a region or language your current team cannot reach.
In these cases, a custom plan can help align pay with impact. But even then, it should be narrow, temporary, and clearly explained.
A Quick Gut Check
Here’s a simple way to know if a custom plan makes sense. Ask yourself:
Is this role a big change for the business, like a turnaround or a new market launch?
Does the job cover more than one type of selling, such as hunting, farming, and partner work?
Will it take more than six months for results to show up?
Do you need to measure quality, not just revenue, to be sure the right behavior happens?
Can your finance team handle the extra uncertainty?
If you answer yes to most of these, a custom plan could be worth it. If you only check one or two boxes, keep the standard plan and use quotas, territories, or short-term SPIFFs to fine-tune.
Guardrails for Custom Plans
If you decide to bend the rules, keep the plan simple and temporary.
Put a clear time limit on it, usually six to twelve months. After that, move the rep back to the standard plan.
Change only one thing. For example, add a milestone bonus or raise the salary. Don’t rewrite the whole plan.
Add a safety check so quality still matters. For example, only pay accelerators if deals are profitable.
Keep it to one page. Managers, finance, and reps should all be able to explain it without a spreadsheet.
Here’s an example: You’re hiring someone to open a new region. Their base salary is $100,000 and the standard plan would give them another $100,000 at target. To land them, you add a six-month bonus of $20,000 for signing the first five customers in that market. After six months, they roll back to the standard plan.
The Safer Option: SPIFFs
Often, a targeted SPIFF works better than changing the whole structure. A 90-day bonus for referenceable logos, or a kicker for disciplined discounting, can shape behavior without long-term complexity.
SPIFFs allow you to reward special situations without locking yourself into a permanent exception.
How We Roll This Out With Clients
When we guide clients through comp changes, we start by mapping role families so comparisons stay apples to apples. We test what different levels of performance would pay out, and make sure pay is fair across the team before launch. We align with finance and legal before rollout.
We train managers on how the plan makes money and why it exists. Reps get a one-page explanation instead of algebra in an offer letter. We set a cadence: structure annually, quotas quarterly, SPIFFs monthly.
And we monitor the first two quarters. We watch how people perform, check deal quality, track forecast accuracy, and listen to rep feedback so adjustments happen early.
The Bottom Line
Standard plans should be the rule. Use quotas, territories, bonuses, commissions, and SPIFFs for everyday nuance. Customize only when the work is truly different, and even then, add a time limit, a safety check, and a one-page explanation.
A plan that can’t be explained simply won’t hold up. And a plan that bends too often won’t hold trust.
