Tech Sales Salary for SDR, BDR and SaaS Account Executive Careers

One of the top questions people ask when considering a career in tech sales is, “How much is the average tech sales salary?”

With a quick Google search, you’ll probably come across a few “average” salaries or total compensation ranges, commonly referred to as “OTE” (on-target earnings).

What you may not read is that these average tech sales salaries are heavily weighted by high-cost tech hubs (Bay Area and NYC, for example) and senior roles for those with a successful track record in SaaS sales.

So, what compensation can you expect in tech sales if it’s your first sales job in the industry and you don’t work in the Bay Area or NYC?

The short answer is, it depends, but here’s some data we’ve compiled at Aspireship.com from helping people from all over the U.S. get a tech sales job for the first time.

How is Tech Sales Compensation Structured?

Tech sales compensation is typically broken down into two main forms of compensation:

  1. Base salary = Base annual salary paid
  2. Variable compensation = Commission paid out weekly, monthly or quarterly based on performance

These two components combine to create the total expected annual compensation, or OTE, wh (on-target-earnings).

Types of Tech Sales Jobs

Tech sales salaries vary significantly based on the type of role.

SDR salary / BDR salary

If it’s your first ever sales job, your likely entry point is an SDR (Sales Development Representative) or BDR (Business Development Representative) jobs. While these roles carry different titles and sometimes can carry different levels of responsibility, the roles are nearly identical in most organizations.

SDR / BDR Job Responsibilities
  1. Researching prospects and verifying / updating their contact information
  2. Cold outreach (email, phone, Linkedin, etc) to prospects to gain attention and interest in your solution
  3. Qualifying inbound leads to ensure they are motivated and likely to be a good fit before the company spends additional time cultivating the relationship
  4. Setting appointments for an Account Executive at the company, who will handle the rest of the sales cycle from that point forward.

In an SDR / BDR role you will not be closing business (i.e. you hand off all of your opportunities to an Account Executive to speak further and eventually complete the sale).

Some SDR / BDR roles are heavy outbound, meaning you are spending the majority of your time reaching out to prospects who don’t know you and haven’t indicated any interest in your company or solution.

Other SDR / BDR roles are heavy phone, some are heavy email / Linkedin. Some are heavy inbound (i.e. qualifying leads who have indicated interest).

The role can vary significantly from company to company, so you need to do your homework.

The average tech SDR / BDR salary (outside the Bay Area and NYC) is $45-$55k with $10k-$20k in variable commission, for a total OTE of $55k-$75k.  Salaries are typically a bit higher in the country’s most expensive cities.

Account Executive Salary (AE)

If you have past sales experience in a closing role (where you handled the sales process all the way to the sale), you may be able to leapfrog the SDR / BDR role and go straight into a SaaS Account Executive role. By no means is it guaranteed that you won’t have to start in the SDR / BDR role for 6-12 months if you’re new to tech sales, but we’ve helped many high-performing sales reps make the leap straight into becoming an Account Executive in SaaS after working in other industries.

Account Executive Job Responsibilities
  1. The same job duties as an SDR / BDR (yes, you still need to do prospecting). If the organization has an SDR / BDR function supporting you,  then you’ll do less researching, prospecting and qualifying, but you’ll still be responsible for a fair amount of it.
  2. Completing discovery calls, where you identify the size of the problem facing the prospect and their organization as a whole, as well as identifying how motivated they are to make a change.
  3. Running product demos, where you’ll show your product in action to help the prospect validate that the software can do what you told them it can do to address their pain points.
  4. Completing the sale. This part varies significantly based on the product, type of prospect you’re selling to and other factors, but generally involves some negotiation, identifying implementation timelines and asking prospects to make a decision, without delay.

The average SaaS Account Executive salary (outside the Bay Area and NYC) is $50k-$70k base and $50k-$70k in variable commission, for OTE of $100k-$140k. You can earn more than the OTE. Just like SDR salaries, the salary ranges for an Account Executive tend to be a bit higher in the country’s most expensive cities.

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SMB vs. Mid-Market and Enterprise

Salaries can vary dramatically based on the type of customers you’re targeting. If it’s your first tech sales job, (even if you’ve had past experience in other industries), it’s very likely that you’ll get a role that sells to SMBs (small to medium sized businesses).

Once you have multiple years of experience in tech sales, you may earn the opportunity (if you want it) to begin selling to larger businesses. Enterprise sales typically refers to large corporations, while Mid-Market typically refers to companies who are larger than SMBs but smaller than Enterprise customers.

SMB AEs typically earn the salary ranges described above. Mid-Market reps typically make 10-30% more than SMB, while Enterprise reps typically make 50-100% more than SMB reps.

With all that said, reps who consistently rank in the top 1% significantly exceed their OTE, potentially making SMB sales just as lucrative as Mid-Market or Enterprise sales if you excel in a fast-paced, “transactional” (short sales cycle) environment.

There are no hard rules to tech sales compensation, and compensation plans can vary significantly by company. The overview above covers the most common situations you’ll experience when applying for tech sales jobs.

Still have questions about working in tech sales?

Check out SaaS Sales Foundations to learn tech sales and get hired.

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