// GuidesGlossary
What percentage of sales reps hit quota? 2026 benchmarks, and why "half miss" is by design
Short answer
About half. The Bridge Group’s 2026 AE research (158 B2B companies) found 48% of reps hit annual quota, down from 51% in 2024; Forrester (2023) puts the B2B average at 47% with a median seller at 101%; RepVue’s Cloud Sales Index is relayed at 42.8%, secondhand. The "only 28% hit quota" line misreads a Salesforce survey question about whether sellers expected their team to hit quota. About half missing is what a plan built on a stretch quota and accelerators is meant to produce, so ask which half, by how much, and what your first-line managers saw before the quarter closed.
What percentage of sales reps hit quota?
Between 43% and 51%, depending on the year and who counted. The most recent large sample is The Bridge Group’s 2026 AE research (June 2026, 158 B2B companies): "48% of reps achieved annual quota in 2026, down from 51% in 2024 and well below the long-term trend." Forrester’s Seth Marrs wrote in March 2023 that "the average quota attainment for B2B sales organizations is only 47%." The two agree, and the direction is down.
| Source | Year | Sample | What it measures | Number |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| [The Bridge Group](https://blog.bridgegroupinc.com/2026-ae-compensation-quota-ai-metrics), AE research | June 2026 | 158 B2B companies | Share of AEs at or above annual quota | 48% (51% in 2024) |
| [Forrester](https://www.forrester.com/blogs/your-companys-quota-attainment-is-probably-around-50-and-thats-not-a-bad-thing/), Seth Marrs | March 2023 | Not stated on the post | Share of sellers at or above quota; median seller attainment | 47%; median 101% |
| RepVue, Cloud Sales Index | Q3 2023 | Method and size not relayed | Share of reps hitting quota | 42.8%, as relayed by Sales Talent Inc. (secondhand) |
| [Salesforce](https://www.salesforce.com/news/stories/sales-research-2023/), State of Sales research story | December 2022 | 7,775 sales professionals, Aug–Sep 2022 | Share of sellers who expect their team to hit its full quota | 17%, and "fewer than three out of 10" |
| [QuotaPath](https://www.quotapath.com/blog/sales-teams-miss-quota/), 2024 Compensation Trends | October 2023 (H1 2023 survey) | 450+ finance, RevOps and sales leaders | Share of companies below 80% of their quota targets | 91% |
| [QuotaPath](https://www.quotapath.com/blog/sales-capacity-planning-model/), capacity planning page | December 2024 | Links to Bridge Group data, 2012–2024 | Long-run share of reps hitting quota | "only about 51%" |
Read the "what it measures" column first. Three rows count reps who hit quota, one counts companies, one is a median, and one is a survey of expectation. On one slide, as if they measured the same thing, they span 17% to 91% and mean nothing.
Note
Provenance on this page
Every number above was checked on its publisher’s page on September 28, 2026, except RepVue’s, which we could not read directly; that one is carried as Sales Talent Inc. relays it (November 2023, updated January 2026).
Average, median or share of reps: which "quota attainment" are you looking at?
Four different numbers are called quota attainment. Bridge Group and Forrester report the share of reps at or above 100%; Forrester adds the median rep’s attainment; finance and the board usually mean the mean rep attainment or the team’s aggregate. All four can be true of one team at once and point in different directions.
| Term | Formula | What it tells you | Who quotes it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Share of reps at quota (attainment rate) | Reps at or above 100% of quota ÷ ramped reps | How many people the plan paid at target | Bridge Group, Forrester, RepVue |
| Median rep attainment | The middle rep’s bookings ÷ that rep’s quota | Where the typical rep landed; outliers cannot move it | Forrester (101%) |
| Mean rep attainment | Average of every ramped rep’s bookings ÷ quota | The typical rep, pulled by outliers | Comp teams, board decks |
| Team (aggregate) attainment | Total bookings ÷ total quota | Whether the company made its number | Finance ("we closed at 96% of plan") |
| Share of companies at target | Companies at X% of target ÷ companies surveyed | Industry mood; nothing about your reps | QuotaPath’s 91% |
| Expect to hit | Sellers who answered yes to a survey | Sentiment on the day of the survey | Salesforce’s 17% |
Say ten ramped reps, each on a $1M annual quota, close the year at 45, 70, 84, 92, 98, 101, 105, 110, 118 and 140% of quota (illustrative). Five hit quota, so the rate is 50%. The median is 99.5%, the mean 96.3%, and with equal quotas the team closed at 96.3% of its $10M. Four honest numbers for one team; "half the reps missed" and "we closed at 96% of plan" are both true.
With unequal quotas the mean and the aggregate drift apart, and finance uses the aggregate. Leave ramping reps out or give them their own row; a rep in month three of a six-month ramp is not a miss.
Is it true that only 28% of sales reps hit quota?
No. The figure comes from a survey of what sellers expected about their team. It has been retold as a count of reps who hit quota, which the source never claimed.
The reachable original is Salesforce’s State of Sales research story of December 8, 2022, from a survey of 7,775 sales professionals in August and September 2022. It says "only 17% of sellers expect their team to hit its full quota this year" in one passage and, in another, that "fewer than three out of 10 sellers expect their team to hit their full quota this year." Fewer than three in ten is most likely where the 28% comes from. Sales Talent Inc. (November 2023, updated January 2026) still keeps the verb, writing "only 28% of sales professionals expect to hit quota in 2023" and citing Salesforce. Between that page and the slide, "expect to hit" becomes "hit".
Watch out
Check the verb before the number goes on a slide
An expectation survey measures mood on the day it was taken; an attainment rate measures money against quota after the period closed. A benchmark that says "expect", "on track" or "confident" belongs in a different column from Bridge Group’s 48%, and should never be the reason a quota moves.
What percentage of sales reps should hit quota? What a good attainment rate looks like
Fifty to sixty percent of ramped reps at or above 100%, the median rep near 100%, and about seven in ten at 80% or better. That is the planning rule of thumb, and it sits close to what the benchmarks observe, which is Forrester’s point. A rate around half is what the plan was built to produce.
Mostly Metrics states the planning rule as "typically five or six out of ten hit 100%, and seven out of ten achieve 80% or more", and adds the mechanism that makes half missing survivable: "most companies over-assign quotas by 20-30% to ensure quotas are aligned with the company-wide revenue plan", so the company can make its number while half its reps miss theirs. Forrester notes that company attainment usually sits near 50% and is often misread as a team underperforming; Marrs’s answer is that half at quota is what the incentive structure is built to produce. Quota is set where the median rep is expected to land, so the median lands near 100% and about half the reps land under it.
So the share of reps at quota checks the plan, and the shape of the distribution checks the team. Three rules of thumb of our own follow the table.
| Measure | Team A | Team B |
|---|---|---|
| Attainment by rep | 45, 70, 84, 92, 98, 101, 105, 110, 118, 140% | 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 130, 140, 145, 150, 160% |
| Share at or above 100% | 50% | 50% |
| Median | 99.5% | 85% |
| Mean | 96.3% | 87.5% |
| Reps below 60% | 1 | 5 |
| What it says | The plan is working; one rep needs a conversation this week | A split team; look at territories, ramp and hiring before the quota |
- Below 40% at quota two quarters running, median under 85%: the plan, territories and pipeline coverage come before any rep (the CEO’s diagnosis order).
- Above 70% at quota, median well over 100%: the quota is light or the plan was sandbagged, and accelerators are paying out on more reps than the plan assumed.
- A wide spread with a healthy mean: two teams in one average; split by manager, segment and tenure first.
Why do reps miss quota? Plan, territory, comp, ramp, or execution
Most misses have a structural cause set months before the quarter and an execution cause visible weeks before the close. Executives reach for the second because it has a name attached; check the first, because it repeats with new reps.
Fullcast (August 2026) lists seven root causes of missed quota. Six are decided above the first-line manager. The seventh, no rep-level accountability for what drives performance, lives inside a team, one rep at a time.
| Cause | Structural or execution | How to tell | Who owns the fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quota set without a method | Structural | Under 40% at quota in every team and tenure band; quota grew faster than bookings | CEO, CRO, finance |
| Territories out of balance | Structural | Attainment tracks territory, and the same territories miss every year | CRO, RevOps |
| Quota and comp misaligned | Structural | Reps stop at 100% or push deals into next quarter | CRO, comp committee |
| Missing tools and visibility | Structural | Managers cannot name this week’s quiet deals without a spreadsheet | CRO, RevOps |
| Forecast built on bad assumptions | Structural | The plan assumed 70% attainment; the observed rate is 48% | CRO, finance |
| Ramp and role ignored | Structural | Most misses are reps under nine months in seat | CRO, RevOps |
| No rep-level accountability | Execution | Pipeline created, deals gone quiet and 1:1s held vary rep by rep inside one team | The first-line manager, weekly |
Only the seventh is fixable by a first-line manager inside a quarter; managing an underperforming rep covers that work once the structural causes are cleared.
What can a manager see before the quarter closes?
Attainment is the last number to move; when it is known the quarter is over and the only lever left is next quarter’s quota. Five leading numbers per rep move weeks earlier, in systems your managers already have.
| Leading indicator | Where it lives | When it shows | What the manager does |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pipeline coverage on day one (open pipeline ÷ remaining quota) | CRM | Day 1 of the quarter | Under your coverage line the miss is already probable; pipeline creation tops every 1:1 (coverage ratio) |
| Deals created per rep, per week | CRM | Weeks 1–4 | Two weeks under the rep’s usual means a prospecting conversation, this week |
| Deals past the no-activity line | CRM activity; ask the rep to check their inbox and calendar for unlogged work | Every week | 7 days on a sales cycle under 30 days, 14 for 30–90, 21 for over 90 (a rule of thumb, adjust to your data); each is re-engaged or leaves the forecast |
| Committed deals with a pushed close date or no next step | CRM close-date history and next-step field | Weeks 4–10 | Drops a forecast category that week; the manager joins the next buyer call on the largest (at-risk deals) |
| 1:1s held and what was coached | The manager’s calendar and notes | Every week | A rep under target with no 1:1 in three weeks is a manager finding |
What a VP or CEO asks each first-line manager at mid-quarter
- Which reps are under coverage today, and what did each create this month?
- Which committed deals went quiet, and what happened to each this week?
- Which three reps concern you most, with the evidence, and what did you do?
- Which likely misses are structural (territory, ramp, quota) rather than execution?
- Which leading number moves by next month, and by how much?
Ask for what the manager saw rather than a mid-quarter forecast, which is the reps’ opinions added up.
How diffi helps
Attainment is the lagging number; diffi is built for the leading ones, one rep at a time. It keeps a living file per rep from Salesforce or HubSpot (read-only; it does not write to your CRM), the Slack public channels the manager picks, the Gmail labels or Outlook folders they select (or the whole inbox if none is selected), the calendar and recorded meetings. The manager sees a summary, a cross-source timeline, active signals with the evidence behind each (deal and pipeline risk, disengagement, coaching gaps, performance risk), open actions and 1:1 prep, and can ask who needs attention, what changed this week, or a rep’s pipeline and win rate; from Salesforce, a deal with no change for 21 days is flagged on its own. Once the manager confirms, it books the 1:1 or messages the rep. You then ask each manager the five questions above from what they saw rather than what they feel; whether a miss is structural, and what the quota should be, stays your judgment and your VP’s. Book a demo to see one rep’s file the way a manager does.
See it on your own teamHow do you read your own attainment numbers? A seven-step procedure
Once a quarter, before the number reaches a board slide; an hour with RevOps is enough if the CRM holds a quota and a start date per rep.
- Fix the population. Ramped reps only (Bridge Group’s 2026 figure is 6.2 months); ramping reps get their own row with their month in seat.
- Compute all four numbers. Share at or above 100%, median, mean, team aggregate, each with its formula written beside it.
- Plot the distribution. Bands from under 40% to over 140%, reps per band. Two humps means two teams in one average.
- Compare like with like. Your share at quota against Bridge Group’s 48% and Forrester’s 47%, your median against Forrester’s 101%, and nothing against Salesforce’s 17% or QuotaPath’s 91%.
- Split by manager, segment and tenure. A rate that holds in one segment and collapses in another is a territory or plan finding.
- Clear the structural causes first. Walk Fullcast’s first six with RevOps and finance; a miss caused by quota or territory repeats with new reps.
- Then go per rep, with the manager. For each ramped rep below 80%, the manager brings pipeline created, deals gone quiet, close dates pushed, 1:1s held and next quarter’s plan (the rep scorecard template holds them in one place).
For next year’s plan, plug in the observed share (47–51%) unless something has changed that moves it; the sales capacity planning model covers which figure goes where.
Frequently asked questions
What percentage of sales reps hit quota?
About half. The Bridge Group’s 2026 AE research (158 B2B companies) found 48% of reps achieved annual quota in 2026, down from 51% in 2024, and Forrester (2023) puts the B2B average at 47% with a median seller at 101% of quota. RepVue’s Cloud Sales Index is relayed at 42.8% for Q3 2023, secondhand. The share has drifted down a few points over the last few years.
What is a good quota attainment rate?
Fifty to sixty percent of ramped reps at or above 100%, the median rep near 100%, and about seven in ten at 80% or better, which is the planning rule of thumb Mostly Metrics states and close to what Bridge Group and Forrester observe. The shape matters more than the share; two teams at 50% can be healthy or split down the middle. Under 40% two quarters running points at the plan, and over 70% usually means the quota is light.
What percentage of sales reps should hit quota?
Around half, by design. Quota is set where the median rep is expected to land, so the median lands near 100% and about half the reps fall under it; Forrester’s Seth Marrs argues that half at quota is what the incentive structure is built to produce. Plan for five or six in ten at quota and seven in ten at 80% or more, and treat a rate far from that in either direction as a question about the plan before it is a question about the reps.
Is it true that only 28% of sales reps hit quota?
No. The number most likely traces to Salesforce’s State of Sales research story (December 2022, 7,775 respondents), which reported that "fewer than three out of 10 sellers expect their team to hit their full quota this year", and elsewhere "only 17%." It measured expectation about the team, and no reps who hit quota were counted. The published counts of reps at quota are 48% (Bridge Group, 2026) and 47% (Forrester, 2023).
How do you calculate quota attainment?
For one rep, bookings in the period divided by that rep’s quota for the period, as a percentage. For a team, pick one of four and say which: the share of ramped reps at or above 100%, the median of the per-rep percentages, the mean of them, or total bookings divided by total quota. They differ on the same team. Leave reps still ramping out, or show them as their own row.
What is the difference between average and median quota attainment?
The average (mean) adds every rep’s attainment percentage and divides by the number of reps, so one rep at 200% lifts it. The median is the middle rep’s attainment and ignores outliers. Forrester’s 2023 figures show why both matter: organizations where 47% of sellers hit quota had a median seller at 101%, so the typical rep made the number even though half did not.
Why do so many sales reps miss quota?
Mostly for structural reasons set before the quarter: quotas set without a method, imbalanced territories, comp that does not line up with quota, forecasts built on bad assumptions, and quotas that ignore ramp time, which is most of Fullcast’s list of root causes (August 2026). Execution misses show up weeks earlier as low pipeline creation, deals gone quiet and pushed close dates, and those are the ones a first-line manager can act on inside the quarter.