Four Sales Compensation Tactics for Consumption-Based GTM with MongoDB’s SVP of Sales

If you sell SaaS today, chances are your pricing deck includes at least one slide with the words
“consumption-based” or “usage-based”. Your finance team loves it, your product team swears it’s the future, and your board is obsessed with “land, adopt, expand.”
There’s just one tiny problem: your sales reps still get paid like it’s 2012.

That’s exactly the tension leaders like MongoDB’s SVP of Sales talk about at SaaStr: when your
go-to-market (GTM) model shifts to consumption, your sales compensation plan has to evolve or it will quietly sabotage your strategy.
Reps will chase big upfront commitments, ignore post-sale adoption, and treat customer success like a different company.

In this article, we’ll unpack four practical sales compensation tactics inspired by what leaders at MongoDB and other
high-growth cloud companies have learned as they’ve scaled consumption-based GTM.
We’ll look at how to align incentives, keep reps motivated (without turning them into actuaries), and avoid the classic
“my paychecks are a roller coaster” complaint.

Why Consumption-Based GTM Breaks Traditional Sales Compensation

Before we dive into tactics, it helps to understand why your classic “pay on ACV and call it a day” plan doesn’t fit a
usage-based or consumption-based model.

From One-Time Win to Ongoing Value

In a subscription world, the primary metric is usually Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) or
Committed Annual Contract Value (ACV). Reps sell a contract, the customer signs a fixed subscription,
and you pay commission on that commitment. Clean, predictable, easy to model.

In a consumption-based pricing world, however, value unfolds over time. Customers might start with a small commitment,
test your product on one workload, then ramp usage as they migrate more workloads, teams, or regions. The initial signature
is just the starting point, not the finish line.

This creates three big problems for traditional sales comp:

• Revenue is less front-loaded. A “small” deal can become a monster in year two if usage explodes.
• Multiple teams impact revenue. Customer success, product, and sales all influence adoption and expansion.
• It’s harder to predict earnings. If you pay purely on usage, reps might feel like they’re betting on crypto, not closing deals.

Common Mistakes When Paying for Usage

Many companies take one of two extreme approaches:

• Only pay on committed revenue. Easy to administer, but reps have zero incentive to care about actual usage.
• Only pay on consumption. Philosophically pure, but wildly volatile and almost impossible to forecast for reps.

The most successful models, including those used by data and infrastructure leaders like MongoDB, Snowflake, and others,
find a middle path: a mix of commit-based compensation plus usage-based upside, with clear roles, guardrails,
and simple rules of engagement.

The Four Core Sales Compensation Tactics for Consumption-Based GTM

1. Compensate on Both Commitments and Actual Consumption

The first tactic is deceptively simple: don’t pick between commit and consumptionpay on both.

Think of the deal in two phases:

1. Land: The customer signs an initial commit or agreement.
2. Expand: Usage grows beyond that baseline over time.

A practical plan might look like this:

• Pay a core commission on initial committed revenue when the deal closes (similar to subscription ARR).
• Layer in a usage bonus or accelerator when customers consume above their baseline or expand their commit.

For example, an account executive (AE) might earn:

• 10–12% of first-year committed revenue as commission.
• An additional bonus when the customer’s usage exceeds 120% of their original commit or when they sign a usage-based expansion.

This hybrid model keeps your finance team grounded in commitments, while still giving reps a real reason to push for adoption,
not just signatures. It also helps align with product-led growth motions, where usage is the clearest signal of value.

2. Separate “Land” and “Expand” Motions and Quotas

In a true consumption-based GTM, the rep who opens the door is not always the same person who owns ongoing growth.
That’s why many leaders, including those in data and infrastructure companies, separate roles and incentives for:

• New logo hunters: Focused on net-new accounts and initial consumption commitments.
• Farmers / expansion AEs: Focused on increasing usage in existing accounts and uncovering new workloads.
• Customer success managers (CSMs): Measured on adoption, health scores, and renewals more than pure revenue.

Your compensation plan should reflect this split:

• New logo AEs might have quotas tied mainly to new committed revenue, with a smaller portion tied to early-stage usage milestones
  (for example, number of workloads launched within 90 days).
• Expansion AEs can be measured primarily on net expansion revenue and growth in consumption relative to a baseline.
• CSMs may get bonuses for hitting adoption milestones, NPS targets, and renewal rates, so they’re not forced into hard selling.

Done right, this setup avoids the “who owns expansion?” fight that kills deals. Everyone has a piece of the pie, but it’s clear
who leads which motion. And, importantly, you’re not asking a single rep to be an SDR, closer, and adoption coach all at once.

3. Use Guardrails, Ramps, and Floors to Reduce Volatility

One of the most legitimate complaints about usage-based compensation is volatility.
If a big customer pauses a workload for a month, reps shouldn’t suddenly feel like they’ve been fired.

That’s why leading companies build guardrails into their compensation plans:

• Guarantees or draws: Temporary guaranteed minimums for new reps, or draws against future variable comp, so they can ramp without panic.
• Floors: Minimum payout levels on key accounts so short-term usage dips don’t crater earnings.
• Caps on negative adjustments: If an account declines heavily, limit the downside impact on a rep’s earnings in a given quarter.

You can also smooth volatility by basing parts of compensation on averaged usage across multiple months
or by using trailing indicators (for example, last 90 days of consumption) rather than a single billing period.

The message to your sales team should be clear: “Yes, your upside is tied to usagebut we’re not turning your livelihood into a slot machine.”

4. Make the Plan Data-Driven, Transparent, and Customer-Centric

In a consumption-based GTM, your sales compensation plan is only as good as your data and how clearly you communicate it.

MongoDB and similar companies lean hard into three principles:

• Real-time visibility: Reps can see their customers’ usage, expansions, and expected payouts in near real time.
• Simple rules: A rep should be able to explain how they get paid in under 60 seconds without a PhD in spreadsheets.
• Customer outcomes first: Compensation is tied to metrics that reflect real valueworkloads launched, data stored, queries processed, or other meaningful usagenot vanity metrics.

You don’t need perfect dashboards on day one, but you do need a reliable source of truth.
Even the best-aligned payout rules will fail if reps don’t trust the numbers.
Start by validating your billing and usage data, then invest in tools or processes that make that data accessible and accurate.

Putting It All Together: A Sample Compensation Blueprint

To make this more practical, here’s what a consumption-based sales compensation plan might look like for a
mid- to late-stage SaaS or cloud infrastructure company:

Role and Pay Mix

• New Logo AE: 50/50 base-to-variable pay mix, quota primarily on new committed revenue.
• Expansion AE: 50/50 mix, quota primarily on net expansion and incremental usage.
• CSM: 70/30 mix, variable tied to gross retention, NRR, and adoption milestones.

Key Metrics

• Committed Revenue: Commission paid when a new or expansion commit is signed and booked.
• Usage Growth: Bonus or accelerator paid when usage crosses thresholds (e.g., 110%, 130%, 150% of baseline).
• Adoption Milestones: Smaller spiffs for first production workload, X TB stored, or Y monthly active users.

Guardrails

• Six-month ramp draws for new reps.
• Minimum payout floors on strategic accounts to smooth usage dips.
• No negative clawbacks if customers optimize usage but stay healthy and committed.

This framework creates a strong throughline:
reps get paid to bring in the right customers, launch meaningful usage, and then grow that usage over time.
It aligns with the way modern SaaS companies succeed, especially in data, infrastructure, and platform categories.

How Revenue Leaders Should Roll Out a New Plan

Even the most beautifully crafted compensation plan will fail if you roll it out like a surprise tax bill.
Treat this as a change-management effort, not just a spreadsheet update.

1. Start with Principles, Not Formulas

Before you show any numbers, articulate your principles:
“We want to reward customer value, long-term growth, and teamwork across sales and CS.”
Reps might not love every detail, but they’re far more likely to buy in if they understand the “why.”

2. Pilot with a Subset of Accounts or Regions

Consider piloting the new plan with a specific region, segment, or cohort of reps.
Track results, gather feedback, and refine the rules before rolling them out company-wide.
This is especially important if your data systems are still maturing.

3. Over-Communicate and Show Real Examples

Don’t just hand out a PDF. Walk through concrete scenarios in your sales kickoff or team meetings:

• “Here’s what your payout looks like if a customer commits to $250K and ramps usage to $400K by Q4.”
• “Here’s what happens if usage flatlines and how floors protect your downside.”
• “Here’s how CSM and AE share credit on a major expansion.”

The more real and specific you get, the faster the fear and confusion drain out of the room.

4. Iterate Each Year (and Sometimes Mid-Year)

Consumption-based GTM is still evolving across the industry.
Your first plan will not be perfectand that’s okay.
Commit to revisiting the model annually, and be prepared to tweak accelerators, thresholds, and role definitions as you learn.

What matters most is that your sales compensation plan keeps moving toward the same goal as your business:
driving sustainable, value-driven customer consumption.

500-Word Experience: What Leaders Learn When They Change Sales Comp

So what does all of this feel like in real life? Imagine you’re a newly hired VP of Sales walking into a company that just
“went consumption-based” six months ago. The pricing page got the memo. The sales comp plan… did not.

In your first pipeline review, you notice something odd. Reps are obsessed with pushing big upfront commitsthree-year contracts, huge minimums, lots of bravado.
But when you look at the usage dashboards, half of those customers are barely turning the product on.
One rep proudly talks about a million-dollar commit; your head of customer success quietly mentions the account is at 12% utilization.

This is the first big realization many leaders have: people do what you pay them to do.
If your compensation is optimized for commitments, you’ll get commitmentseven if they’re not realistic, sustainable, or aligned with your product’s adoption curve.

When you start changing the plan, the second realization hits:
sales reps are incredibly good at finding the edge cases.
If there’s a loophole where they get paid twice on the same expansion, someone will find it by Tuesday.
If your rules are fuzzy around who owns usage in multi-region deals, you’ll have three people claiming credit for the same spike in consumption.

That’s why MongoDB-style plans and other modern usage-based models focus on clarity and simplicity.
Leaders who’ve been through the transformation will tell you they spent as much time workshopping “who owns what” scenarios as they did modeling payout curves.
They role-played customer journeys, from POC to global rollout, and only then locked in which behaviors would earn which dollars.

The third big learning is emotional, not analytical: you have to protect trust.
Nothing poisons a sales culture faster than a plan that feels rigged or unpredictable.
In a consumption-based world, usage can spike or dip for reasons outside a rep’s controla customer consolidates workloads, turns on an optimization feature, or pauses a project.
Good leaders build floors, guardrails, and stable base salaries to reassure reps: “We’ve got you. You’re not gambling; you’re building value.”

Finally, there’s a quiet but powerful upside. Once you align compensation with customer outcomes, your sales team starts behaving less like closers and more like long-term advisors.
Reps start asking questions about architecture and workload roadmaps. They proactively bring in solutions architects, suggest new use cases, and partner with customer success instead of competing with them.

That’s the real magic behind modern consumption-based GTMand it’s a consistent theme in conversations with leaders at MongoDB and other usage-based giants.
When your sales compensation plan finally reflects how your business truly creates value, everything clicks: customers grow, revenue compounds, and your reps stop asking,
“So… how exactly do I get paid on this again?”

The spreadsheet matters. But the behaviors it drives matter even more.