Sales commissions are the fuel that drives sales revenue. However, the complexities involved in commission tracking and payouts reduce the transparency of commissions.
Using spreadsheets for commission tracking is a thing of the past as they are prone to manual errors and are a hassle for sales reps to check and maintain. This is where sales commission automation software comes in.
Sales commission solutions automate commission tracking and greatly improve visibility into earnings and performance. Coming with advanced analytical capabilities, sales commission solutions are a great tool for leaders to see the effectiveness of their sales comp plans.
Spiff is a leading sales commission solution that has recently been acquired by Salesforce, the most common and largest CRM solution provider. While Spiff is a leading name, it still has its fair share of issues such as a complex implementation process and a steep learning curve. With the acquisition by Salesforce, users have also reported more issues such as a steep pricing increase.
This blog explores the factors that you need to consider while looking for a viable alternative to Spiff and lists 5 of the best alternatives available in the market.
How to Choose a Spiff Alternative
Choosing the right sales commission automation tool can be a big decision. The factors you’ll need to consider to opt for the right sales commission software for your needs are:
Ease of Use: How easy a sales commission automation software is to use will determine its absorption and its efficacy. The UI/UX should be easy to navigate for both end users and administrators.
Customizability: A good sales comp software will allow you to customize quotas, commission structures, bonuses, etc. according to your needs with relative ease.
Integrations: Your choice of sales comp software should not interrupt your organization’s workflow and should integrate with your existing CRM, HRMS, etc.
Analytics and Reporting: Sales commission software should not only enable you to implement commissions the way you want to, but it should also grant you access to insights tying performance to compensation.
Compensation calculations & Payout accuracy: A sales commission solution needs to be very accurate and reliable. If the payouts are not reliable, then opting for a solution becomes meaningless.
Data security: A sales commission automation tool deals with sensitive data such as deal amounts, names, etc. Strong data security measures and certifications are a must for ensuring the safety of proprietary information.
Evaluation on these fronts can enable you to choose the right sales comp software for your exact needs.
Top 5 Spiff Alternatives
Here are the top alternatives to Spiff, compared and explored according to the various decision criteria mentioned above.
1. Visdum
Visdum is an all-in-one sales compensation automation platform that is tailored specifically to SaaS companies. It offers native support for subscription-based business metrics and has support for a deep level of customization across various SaaS roles.
Ideal for:
Mid-market businesses with 15+ reps
Finance & Revenue Operations teams who need to move out of Excel for sales commission calculations
Key Features and Capabilities of Visdum
Real-time commission tracking and visibility into earnings and performance for sales reps on an intuitive dashboard.
Insightful dashboards for leaders and administrators to monitor performance, full of visualization of such data into charts and graphs.
Automated documentation and contract generation.
Seamless integration with major CRM, ERP, eSign, and Billing systems.
Allows for fully customizable compensation plans.
By automating commissions and providing real-time insights into earnings and performance, Visdum makes the sales rep’s experience better. Compensation management is simpler thanks to data consolidation and dashboard analytics offered by Visdum.
Why Visdum is a Strong Alternative to Spiff
Specialized for SaaS: Visdum offers native support for subscription metrics and measures performance with a special focus on SaaS roles and metrics. It has complete support for all unique SaaS needs, whether for an entry-level, mid-market, or enterprise-level SaaS company.
Intuitive dashboards: Visdum’s dashboards consolidate all important data and metrics into a single place. Different dashboards for sales reps, leaders, and managers bring forth the most important data (deeply customizable) and display it in various visual formats.
Seamless Integration: Visdum integrates seamlessly with major CRMs such as Salesforce, Hubspot, etc. It also integrates with major HRMS, billing, invoicing, and eSign platforms to facilitate ease of business and administration.
ASC 606 Compliant Reports: Visdum features automated reports for amortization of sales commissions under ASC 606, making it an ideal alternative to Spiff.
Potential Drawbacks
Initial Learning Curve: Sales commission solutions such as Visdum require a slight learning curve and change in behavior for users who haven’t used such solutions before and are used to Excel spreadsheets.
Report Generation: The report generation and analytic reports sometimes may not be as flexible. However, upon admins raising tickets to customize these reports, the product team has proved to be responsive and quick.
2. Everstage
Everstage is a sales commission automation platform offering end-to-end commission calculations and insight into performance analytics.
Ideal For:
Enterprise businesses with a large number of sales reps.
RevOps teams who want to introduce efficiency in sales comp management.
Key Features Include:
Automated commission tracking
Data visualization and performance reporting
Detailed earning statements
Payout and incentive forecasting
By automating commissions and providing performance analytics, reporting, and forecasting, Everstage is simplifying compensation management.
Why Everstage is a Strong Alternative to Spiff
Automated Commission Tracking: Everstage automates commission tracking, reducing manual errors in the process.
Performance Visibility: Everstage offers real-time performance analytics that helps users stay informed and updated on progress.
User-friendly UI: The user interface is simple with not much training required to use the software.
Potential Drawbacks:
Limited Customization for Some Features: While the compensation plans are fully customizable, some features still remain rigid.
Platform Bugs: Some users have reported bugs, errors, and broken features that hinder usability.
Slow Loading Times: Users have reported slow data loading times.
3. Varicent
Varicent is a Sales Performance Management (SPM) solution that aims to motivate sales performance by streamlining incentive management.
Ideal For:
Enterprises with special needs who want to build a customs solutions package.
Companies that can dedicate development resources to developing and maintaining Varicent.
Key Features Include:
Customizable compensation plan configuration.
Integration capabilities with major financial systems, CRMs, ERPs, etc.
Sales Planning and Seller Insights features to help reps plan their way to maximum revenue.
By allowing comprehensive customization and development, Varicent facilitates the adoption of the software according to a business’s specific needs.
Why Varicent is a Strong Alternative to Spiff
Flexibility: Varicent is highly configurable and scalable, making it fit for users with specialized requirements.
Customizability: Varicent allows specific compensation strategies to be implemented to align compensation goals to business requirements.
Real-Time Dashboards: Varicent’s real-time dashboards are a storehouse of analytics data and performance insights.
Potential Drawbacks:
Steep Learning Curve: Many users report that Varicent is tough to use, with long periods of time required to get comfortable with using it.
Long Calculation Time: Varicent’s calculations and report generation often take a long time, as reported by users.
Too Complex: While the configurability and flexibility allow more specialization, it has reportedly made the software too complex, needing dedicated resources to manage its implementation and customization.
4. QuotaPath
QuotaPath is a sales compensation automation platform that automates commissions and allows companies to track the effectiveness of compensation plans.
Ideal For:
Small businesses looking to automate commissions.
Companies looking for a quick buy-and-use solution.
Key Features Include:
Automation of payment workflows
Flexible and customizable compensation plans
Compensation plan performance monitoring
By automating commissions and providing an easy-to-use compensation management platform, QuotaPath drives revenue by making commissions transparent.
Why QuotaPath is a Strong Alternative to Spiff
Real-time Visibility: QuotaPath offers real-time visibility into commissions, performance, etc. to help users stay updated.
Seamless Integrations: QuotaPath integrates with existing sales stacks to accurately fetch data and automate commission calculation.
Forecasting: QuotaPath lets you test the effectiveness of your compensation plans in advance using previous performance data and modeling.
Potential Drawbacks:
Integration Issues: Some users have been facing integration issues where data transfer takes a long time.
Time Delays: Some users have experienced delays in compensation data updates.
Loading Times: Users have reported slow loading times for screens and report generation. Sync is also slow with CRMs, making real-time tracking unfeasible.
5. Performio
Performio is an incentive compensation management platform that simplifies commissions and keeps them flexible while avoiding complexity issues that come with flexibility.
Ideal For:
Mid-market businesses with complex compensation plans.
Companies that want a no-code quick compensation plan-building solution along with commission automation.
Key features Include:
Structured plan builder to build and scale compensation plans easily.
Performance reporting for all members of the organization through visuals on an intuitive dashboard.
AI-powered analytical abilities to generate deep insights regarding sales performance management.
By offering component-based compensation plan creation, Performio has simplified comp plan design while still making it scalable with ease.
Why Performio is a Strong Alternative to Spiff
Simplicity: Performio makes building and editing compensation plans easy and flexible.
Custom AI-powered Analytics: Performio’s Analytics Studio’ is an AI-powered insights tool that can generate custom reports and actionable insights.
Automated Real-Time Commissions: Performio gives complete visibility of performance and commissions to each sales rep and their leaders on specific dashboards full of visualization of such data
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Potential Drawbacks:
Slow Updates: Many users have reported that updates are very slow and information lag is a persistent issue.
Missing Features: The dashboard lacks metrics such as QoQ or YoY growth, currency conversions, etc. Information gaps across features also trouble users.
Lack of Customization: The dashboards and reports both need more customization options according to users, as many of the analytics are absent.
Conclusion
There are many sales compensation software available in the market that can serve as good alternatives to Spiff. Where these offerings surpass or fall behind Spiff, is dependent on the features offered and the exact needs of the business.
For specialized SaaS needs, Visdum is the best choice, whereas, for enterprise-level teams, Varicent is the go-to. Different solutions have different ideal use cases, and your choice of solution should be carefully catered to your needs.
Sales compensation management is supposed to streamline commissions and incentives for sales teams, and the contenders in this list, namely Visdum, Everstage, Varicent, QuotaPath, and Performio, have different approaches to doing exactly that.
The final choice depends upon a business’s specific requirements of accuracy, integrations, customization, ease of use, etc., and other other unique needs it might have.
If you’re looking for more alternatives to Spiff or want to look at the best sales compensation software available in the market in more detail, check out our detailed guide on the 10 Best Sales Compensation Software in 2024 to evaluate features, capabilities, and reviews across all the top platforms.
The right sales compensation software can streamline incentives and commissions, leading to improved sales performance and shattered revenue targets.
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