Setting a quota means splitting your revenue target across your sales team. An equal split, where every rep gets the same share, only works for reps who sell at full speed for the whole year. A rep hired mid-year sells less because they have to learn the product and its value propositions, then build a pipeline of deals that can take months to close. If you use an equal split, the quotas often add up to less than your revenue target. 

To find out a quota for both full-speed reps and ramping reps, use our sales quota calculator below.

“Set quota” is built for RevOps and sales planning leads working on next year's plan. To see where a rep stands against quota mid-quarter, switch to the “Check attainment” tab. Reps working out their own payout can use the sales commission calculator.

How to Calculate Sales Quota From a Revenue Target

To find the quota for a full-speed rep, multiply your team's rep-years by the percentage of quota your reps usually hit, then divide your revenue target by the result. One rep-year is a rep selling at full speed for a whole year. A new rep who's at full speed for half the year counts as half a rep-year.

Let’s say your revenue goal is $10 million next year. You have 12 reps who already sell at full speed, plus six new reps starting in April (these are the numbers already filled in on the calculator above).

New reps don't sell at full speed right away. They need time to learn the product and find their first customers. In this example, it takes them six months to ramp. 

Most reps also sell less than their quota. Here, you're assuming the average rep will hit 70% of theirs. You can manually work out quota in six steps:

1. Count the ramp months at half speed: A rep who starts in April works nine months of the calendar year. They’re ramping up over the first six months, selling almost nothing in April and reaching full speed by the end of September. Averaged over those six months, they sell at about half speed. Six months at half speed is worth three months at full speed.
   
   
2. Add the full-speed months: New reps sell at full speed for the last three months of the year. Together with the three months from ramp, each new rep gives you six full-speed months this year.
   
   
3. Turn months into rep-years: Remember, a rep-year is one rep selling at full speed for a whole year. Six full-speed months is half a year, so each new rep counts as half a rep-year. The six new reps count as three rep-years together. With your 12 full-speed reps added in, the team has 15 rep-years.
   
   
4. Adjust for reps who miss quota: Because reps only sell 70% of their quota, the team's 15 rep-years add up to 10.5 full quotas (15 × 70% = 10.5).
   
   
5. Split the target: Divide the $10 million target by those 10.5 full quotas to get the quota for each full-speed rep:
   
   $10,000,000 ÷ 10.5 = $952,381
   
   New reps get half, $476,190, because they only have half a year at full speed.
   
   
6. Check the answer: A full-speed rep who sells 70% of $952,381 brings in $666,667. Across the team's 15 rep-years, 15 × $666,667 comes to about $10 million.

Because you expect reps to close 70% of their quota, the total quota assigned has to come to $14,285,714, or 1.43 times the $10 million target.

From there, you'll adjust each rep's number for territory and pipeline, using the steps in our guide to sales quota planning.

Why Splitting the Target by Headcount Falls Short

If you split your revenue target by headcount, you overestimate how much your team can sell because it counts every rep as a full year at full speed and assumes everyone hits quota. In the example, splitting $10 million across all 18 reps gives each one a $555,556 quota. 

The six April hires spend half the year ramping, so they add only three rep-years, and more than half of account executives (AEs) missed quota in 2026. At 70% attainment, the team's 10.5 full quotas bring in about $5.8 million at $555,556 each. The headcount split leaves the target $4.2 million short.

How to Calculate Quota Attainment

Quota attainment is the share of their quota a rep has sold. It tells you who's on track to hit quota while there's still time to act, and it sets up next year's plan. To calculate it, divide what the rep has sold by their quota, then multiply by 100.

Suppose a rep with a $900,000 quota has sold $720,000 (the default numbers in the “Check attainment” tab). Their attainment is 80% ($720,000 ÷ $900,000 × 100). They've sold four-fifths of their quota and need another $180,000 to hit it.

Use the "Check attainment" tab mid-quarter, while there's still time to help reps who are behind. Enter what's been sold so far and the quarter's quota, for one rep or the whole team. The tab shows attainment and the dollars left to close.

At year end, your team's average attainment goes in the "% of quota reps usually hit" box when you set next year's quotas. If that number is off, every quota built on it will be too, and so is the revenue plan.

Benchmarks to Check Before Quotas Go Out

Once reps have their quotas, changing one means updating the comp plan. Only 12% of companies can do that in under two weeks, and for 39% it takes one to two months. So, check your numbers before they go out, while making a change is still easy.

• Months to reach full speed: Account executives took an average of 6.2 months to reach full speed in 2026, the longest The Bridge Group has recorded. If you use less than six months, you're assuming your new reps will get there faster than the average AE.
  
  
• % of quota reps usually hit: If you're not sure of your team's number, look at the row under the result. It shows how much each quota moves if your guess is off. In the example, planning for 60% instead of 70% raises the quota for each full-speed rep from $952,381 to $1,111,111.
  
  
• Quota for each full-speed rep: Divide the quota by the rep's on-target earnings (OTE). The result is how many dollars the rep has to sell for each dollar of OTE. In 2026, the median AE quota was 4.6 times OTE. A rep with $200,000 OTE would typically be asked to sell about $920,000 a year. The example's $952,381 quota is 4.8 times a $200,000 OTE, just above the median. A ratio well above 4.6 means you're asking the rep to sell more for their pay than the typical company does.

If your quota is still well above 4.6 times OTE after you've checked your inputs, your team is too small for the target. Start new reps earlier or hire more of them, and lower the target only if neither works. CaptivateIQ Sales Capacity Planning lets you test different hiring plans and start dates against the target.