For a while, our SDR offer looked reasonable on paper: a modest hourly base plus a bonus for every demo booked. It was simple to explain and cheap to fund. The problem was who it attracted.
Strong US-based SDRs have seen what good commission looks like. They know a top caller on a pure commission seat can earn far more than a base-plus-bonus role pays, and they do that math before the first call. Our offer signaled a low ceiling, so the candidates who stayed interested were mostly people comfortable with a low ceiling. Some were fine. Many were not the closers we needed.
The fix was not a better pitch. It was changing the economics so the offer selected for the people we wanted.
We moved to pure commission with a high payout per qualified meeting. That creates self-selection. A rep who believes they can book meetings sees a clear path to real money and applies. A rep who wants a predictable salary opts out, and that’s fine. We would rather lose candidates who would never hit the number than spend three months coaching them toward it.
Our own numbers make the case. We measure performance as revenue per 1,000 dials. Break-even is about $69 per 1,000 dials, and our best reps earn roughly $200 an hour. One rep booked 40 meetings in five days. Under a base-heavy plan, that person is paid like everyone else. Under commission, they’re paid for what they produce.
Pure commission also changed how reps handle bad data, which I didn’t expect. When every meeting carries a premium, a rep who gets a list full of dead numbers and wrong titles doesn’t accept it quietly. They push back, ask for better lists, and report what’s broken. Lost dials are lost money to them, so they fix what they can. Under a salary, weak data is someone else’s problem. Under commission, it’s theirs.
Tiers reinforce this. Reps start on a campaign paying $650 per meeting and move up to campaigns paying up to $1,200 per meeting once they prove performance. The ladder gives strong reps something to climb toward and gives weaker reps an early, clear signal.
Commission has a cost, though. High per-meeting payouts only pay off if reps are disciplined. We learned this with one behavior: claiming a dial block and not using it. That breaks the client’s SLA planning, so we now treat two instances as grounds for termination. Commission rewards effort, but it also rewards anyone willing to game the system, so the rules need to be as sharp as the pay.
If you’re hiring SDRs and your base-plus-bonus plan can’t attract strong candidates, look at what the plan says about you. Strong callers read compensation as a signal of how seriously you take their output. A low base tells them you expect a low result. A high payout per qualified meeting tells them you want them to win.
Pick a metric you can measure, such as revenue per 1,000 dials or cost per qualified meeting. Set your break-even honestly. Then price the meeting so a top performer can build a strong living on it. The people who respond to that offer are the people you want to hire.