Case Studies
Engagement: 4-Week Compensation Design Sprint
Industry: DevOps & Infrastructure Software
Services: Consumption compensation strategy, workshop facilitation, plan design, policy development, plan documentation, calculator development
Written by
Matt Haller
A Series A DevOps software company was preparing to scale its sales organization from a dozen reps to nearly a hundred over the coming year. But their existing compensation program was not built for where the business was heading. The legacy points-based system did not incentivize ongoing customer expansion, which was increasingly central to how customers actually purchased and grew with the product.
Leadership wanted to migrate to a consumption-based compensation model that would align seller behavior with customer buying patterns and reward reps for driving expansion, not just landing new logos. The challenge was timing. Sales kickoff was weeks away, and they needed new plans designed, documented, and ready to roll out before the event so that compensation would not dominate the SKO conversation.
Two-hour decision-making workshop
RevEng facilitated a focused workshop with the Chief Revenue Officer and Head of Revenue Operations. Rather than spreading decisions across weeks of back-and-forth, RevEng created an environment to work through the critical choices for consumption-based compensation in a single session.
Consumption-specific design decisions
Consumption compensation introduces a set of design questions that do not exist in traditional bookings-based models. RevEng guided leadership through the key decision points: whether to pay on pure consumption revenue as it comes in or to establish a dynamic baseline that assumes a certain dollar amount of retained revenue before commissions kick in on net expansion above that threshold. The workshop also addressed crediting rules, performance periods, and clawback policies, specifically how to handle situations where reps are paid in advance on projected consumption that does not materialize, ensuring a fair policy that protects both the company and the seller.
Rapid plan development
Following the workshop, RevEng translated the decisions into complete plan documentation, including terms and conditions and a plan calculator that allowed leadership to clearly communicate the new program to reps and answer questions during rollout.
Delivered a consumption-based compensation program in weeks.
What could have taken months was completed in time for sales kickoff, allowing leadership to roll out new plans confidently and keep SKO focused on strategy and momentum rather than compensation mechanics.
Aligned compensation with how customers actually buy.
The new program replaced a legacy points-based system with a model that rewards reps for driving ongoing customer expansion, matching seller incentives to the consumption-based revenue motion.
Established clear policies for a complex model.
Consumption compensation introduces ambiguity around baselines, crediting, and clawbacks. RevEng helped leadership make deliberate choices on each, creating a program with clear rules that reps can understand and trust.
Enabled confident rollout with supporting tools.
Leadership walked away with plan documents, terms and conditions, and a calculator that made it easy to explain the new program and show reps exactly how their performance would translate into earnings.