The Challenge: Scaling incentives without losing trust or control

Founded in 2020, WRITER is an enterprise generative AI platform that helps organizations orchestrate AI-powered work. With WRITER'S end-to-end platform, teams can build, activate, and supervise AI agents that are grounded in their company’s data and fueled by WRITER'S enterprise-grade LLMs. 

As Writer grew rapidly, its revenue organization became more complex. The company supported multiple sales roles—including Account Executives, SDRs, Customer Success teams, and other variable-compensated functions—each with different metrics, timelines, and performance expectations.

With that growth came increasing pressure on compensation operations. As Writer scaled toward enterprise readiness and future IPO milestones, audits became more frequent, compensation plans became more intricate, and the cost of errors grew higher.

Prior to CaptivateIQ, commission calculations were managed in spreadsheets. While workable at a smaller scale, spreadsheets made it difficult to maintain consistent documentation, provide reliable audit history, and give payees confidence in how they were being paid.

“As we scale as a company, documentation and control become much more important,” said Bastien, who owns go-to-market planning and compensation at Writer. “We need to understand historically what happened, who made changes, and why.”

As Writer scaled, the team knew they needed to move beyond spreadsheets, not just to handle more payees, but to support more complexity with confidence. They were looking for a compensation system that could grow with the business, keep pace with evolving plan design, and stand up to increased scrutiny as the company moved toward enterprise readiness.

Why WRITER chose CaptivateIQ

Writer chose CaptivateIQ because it could:

• Support complex incentive logic across multiple roles and plan structures, without forcing the team to simplify how they pay their go-to-market org
  
• Provide governance and auditability, including clear change history, centralized documentation, and traceability into what happened and why
  
• Increase payee transparency and trust, by giving earlier visibility into earnings drivers, calculations, and historical context
  
• Scale as complexity increased, without relying on fragile spreadsheets or creating bottlenecks in compensation operations
  

With CaptivateIQ, Writer established a single system of record for incentive compensation, enabling the team to operationalize intricate plan logic while maintaining the controls and clarity required as the organization grows.

[QUOTE
| quote: That level of complexity was all managed in CaptivateIQ. It allowed us to design the plan we wanted, even though it wasn’t simple.
| name: Bastien M.
| title: GTM Strategy, WRITER
| image: https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e20acf46e0215232a00fa2f/699ef32b8bc9067139b2f957_13784efa2395801fc6f4c6abe893ebfd_Bastien%20M..png
|]

Building Trust Through Payee Transparency

Bringing Transparency to the Commission Cycle

One of the most immediate outcomes of moving to CaptivateIQ was improved transparency for payees. Instead of waiting until after payroll runs, payees can see earnings drivers early in the cycle, including:

• Which deals they’re being paid on
  
• The rates applied to each deal
  
• How payouts are calculated across time periods
  
• Historical payouts and adjustments
  

Writer also uses CaptivateIQ’s review and inquiry workflows to validate payouts before they’re  finalized. Reviews move through operations, finance, managers, and individual payees, creating multiple layers of verification that help catch issues early.

[QUOTE
| quote: That review process is super helpful for us. It gives us confidence that we’re paying the right amounts and helps build trust with the team.
| name: Bastien M.
| title: GTM Strategy, WRITER
| image: https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e20acf46e0215232a00fa2f/699ef32b8bc9067139b2f957_13784efa2395801fc6f4c6abe893ebfd_Bastien%20M..png
|]

Enterprise-Ready Governance and Auditability

Operational Control and Audit Readiness

Beyond the payee experience, CaptivateIQ gave Writer the operational rigor needed for a growing enterprise. The team gained:

• Detailed audit history showing who made changes and when
  
• Centralized documentation of plan logic and calculations
  
• Snapshotting of data as it flows into the system
  
• A clear record of corrections and adjustments over time
  

These capabilities became increasingly important as Writer prepared for more scrutiny from audits and external stakeholders.

[QUOTE
| quote: Having the audit history and documentation matters a lot. When there are many moving parts, being able to look back and understand what happened is critical.
| name: Bastien M.
| title: GTM Strategy, WRITER
| image: https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e20acf46e0215232a00fa2f/699ef32b8bc9067139b2f957_13784efa2395801fc6f4c6abe893ebfd_Bastien%20M..png
|]

Flexibility Without Hard Limits

Supporting Nuanced Plan Design as the Business Evolves

Writer’s compensation strategy requires flexibility. The team wanted the freedom to design plans that reflect nuanced business goals without being constrained by rigid tooling. CaptivateIQ supports that flexibility by allowing complex logic to be built and scaled as plans evolve over time.

[QUOTE
| quote: Flexibility comes with the need to manage what you’ve built. But compared to other tools we’ve seen in the market, CaptivateIQ makes that manageable.
| name: Bastien M.
| title: GTM Strategy, WRITER
| image: https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e20acf46e0215232a00fa2f/699ef32b8bc9067139b2f957_13784efa2395801fc6f4c6abe893ebfd_Bastien%20M..png
|]

What’s Next

A Foundation for the Future

As Writer continues to grow, CaptivateIQ provides a foundation that balances transparency, control, and flexibility. With centralized incentive management, clear audit trails, and scalable workflows, Writer is able to:

• Support complex, evolving compensation plans
  
• Build trust with payees through transparency
  
• Maintain governance and documentation as the business scales
  

For Bastien, the value comes down to clarity and confidence.

[QUOTE
| quote: Transparency and flexibility are the two biggest things. Knowing how people are getting paid and being able to build the metrics that matter, that’s what makes the system work.
| name: Bastien M.
| title: GTM Strategy, WRITER
| image: https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e20acf46e0215232a00fa2f/699ef32b8bc9067139b2f957_13784efa2395801fc6f4c6abe893ebfd_Bastien%20M..png
|]

Looking ahead

Writer plans to continue bringing more compensation management in-house, leveraging CaptivateIQ as the system that enables scale without sacrificing accuracy or trust.