AE Quota Attainment Falls to 48 Percent as Ramp Times Hit a Record
Summary
The Bridge Group's tenth biennial account executive study, drawn from 158 B2B companies, reports 48 percent of reps hit annual quota in 2026, down from 51 percent in 2024. Median AE on-target earnings reached 200,000 dollars against a 960,000 dollar median quota. Required experience at hire rose to 3.7 years while ramp stretched to 6.2 months, the longest the research has recorded.
TopCloserR Perspective
The takeaway
Quota is rising faster than attainment can follow: quotas grew about 2.4 percent a year while on-target earnings grew about 4.9 percent, and the quota-to-OTE ratio widened to 4.6 times. The headline comp number improved while the chance of actually earning it got worse, which is the part a candidate or a planner has to price in.
Who gets the most from this
- In the role
- A 4.6 times quota-to-OTE ratio and 48 percent attainment are the two numbers to hold against any plan you are handed. If fewer than half the team clears quota, your realistic earnings sit well below the OTE on the offer letter, and the 6.2-month ramp says your first two quarters are a building period.
- Aspiring
- SDRs and BDRs moving into a closing seat — Average experience required at hire is now 3.7 years, up from 2.7 in 2022, so the junior AE opening is rarer than it was. Build the closing evidence inside your current company before expecting the market to hand you the seat.
- In the role
- The distribution matters more than the average: fewer companies sit in the 50 to 90 percent attainment range and more are in the 0 to 30 percent band. That is a model problem, not a coaching problem, and the study's authors call it a mismatch between market conditions and the operating model.
- Aspiring
- Sales managers heading toward their first VP role — Learn to argue a quota from capacity rather than from the growth plan. This study is the evidence that quotas set the other way round are now missing.
- In the role
- You can rebuild next year's capacity plan against these figures directly: 48 percent attainment, a 6.2-month ramp and a 4.6 times quota-to-OTE ratio. Planning on a 70 percent attainment assumption is now two full studies out of date.
- Aspiring
- Sales ops analysts moving into planning work — Model ramp as a cost rather than a formality. At 6.2 months, a hire made in Q3 contributes almost nothing to that year's number.
Put it to work
- Stress-test any offer's OTE against the company's real attainment rate.Account Executive
Apply the attainment rate to the variable half of the package instead of reading the headline OTE. At the study's 48 percent, half the variable component is the honest expectation, not the quoted number.
- Rebuild next year's capacity model on a 6.2-month ramp.Sales / Revenue Operations
Replace whatever ramp constant your plan carries with the study's figure, then re-check hire timing. A rep starting in the second half of the year lands almost entirely in next year's capacity.
- Read your attainment distribution, not your attainment average.Revenue Leader
Count how many reps sit under 30 percent of quota rather than looking at the team mean. The study found that band growing, and an average hides it completely.
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