Compensation Plans for SaaS Professional Services

The typical base/variable split in PS is most commonly 85/15 and occasionally 80/20.

Common variable compensation metrics:

NPS – High NPS scores help ensure strong renewal and expansion (both SW and Services) and delivery teams have direct influence on NPS
Project CSAT
Billable utilization – Very common metric but needs to balanced as delivery teams may not be as inclined to help w non-billable work which could help w customer engagement, pre-sales, etc
TTV (time to value) / TTFV (time to first value)
Revenue generation (where applicable) – Delivery teams tend to be risk averse. If comped on revenue, they will be more engaged on deal pursuit and will also look for adjacencies on current projects to create expansion.
Quantity of services completed (ex: 10 onboardings completed)
Retention (GDR and/or NDR) – Services led engagements should have materially higher renewal rates
Services Margin – Usually held at management as margins can be negatively influenced by deal shape. Management may decide to sacrifice margin to win deals and associates should not be penalized for this.

Professional Services