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Glossary entry

Quota

The revenue or activity target a rep is measured against — typically expressed monthly, quarterly, or annually. For AEs: dollar-amount quota tied to ACV closed. For SDRs: meeting-count or SQL-count quota tied to AE acceptance. The single metric that drives every downstream behavior in a sales org: comp plans tie to quota, performance reviews tie to quota, hiring decisions tie to quota. Well-set quota is achievable by 60-70% of the team consistently; quota set above 80% attainment is broken (rep doesn't trust the plan) and quota set below 50% is also broken (org doesn't trust the rep).

Category: Metrics Reading time: 2 min

01Definition

TLDR
The revenue or activity target a rep is measured against — typically expressed monthly, quarterly, or annually. For AEs: dollar-amount quota tied to ACV closed. For SDRs: meeting-count or SQL-count quota tied to AE acceptance. The single metric that drives every downstream behavior in a sales org: comp plans tie to quota, performance reviews tie to quota, hiring decisions tie to quota. Well-set quota is achievable by 60-70% of the team consistently; quota set above 80% attainment is broken (rep doesn't trust the plan) and quota set below 50% is also broken (org doesn't trust the rep).

02Why it matters

The number that determines whether your sales team feels winning or losing on any given Tuesday. Shapes culture more than mission statements.

03Example

Worked example
AE quota: $1.2M ARR new business per year. SDR quota: 12 SQLs per month with 70% AE-acceptance rate.
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