Modeling and optimizing plans

Who this is for: admins deciding whether to change a plan's rates, cap or accelerators. Build the plan first with Create your first comp plan; the Simulator only works on saved plans.

The Plan Simulator shows what a change would cost before you make it. Nothing on this screen changes anyone's pay. To adopt a change, you copy the values into the plan yourself.

Opening the Simulator

Go to Insights → Plan Simulator, or click Simulator on a plan's page to open it on that plan. The page has two tabs:

• Simulate, with two modes: Forecast and Backtest.
• Optimize, which searches for plan values that fit a budget.

Ratio (per FTE) plans are not listed. Model those by changing the goal and checking the effect on a draft period.

What you can change

The Plan Variables card holds the values you test. A Modified badge appears once you change one.

Tier boundaries (the Attainment Range column) are fixed. You can't add or remove tiers here. A plan with no tiers shows "No tiers configured — flat rate plan". A flat-rate unit plan is priced as units × rate. Reset Setup discards your changes.

Forecast or backtest?

Use Forecast to see where accelerators start to cost money. Use Backtest before you change a live plan.

Forecast: a what-if at a chosen attainment

Forecast is a model, not a replay. It prices every active rep on the plan as if they reached a given attainment, using full periods with no ramp or proration.

1. Pick the Plan and choose Forecast.
2. Set Team Attainment (60% to 180%, in steps of 5).
3. Choose a Simulation Range. Full Year (Blended) shows a whole year with even quarters. Q1 Only to Q4 Only show one quarter using the team's seasonality weight for it.
4. Change one or more Plan Variables and click Run Simulation. The button reads Fix Errors to Run while a value is invalid.

You get Current Commission, Proposed Commission, the Delta, cost of sales, a cost curve across attainment levels, and a table of each rep's current and proposed pay. In the table you can type a different attainment for one rep. Moving the main slider resets those. Export CSV downloads the table.

Backtest: replay real history

Backtest re-runs your real sales through the commission engine, the same calculation that produces payouts.

1. Choose Backtest and a Lookback Period: Last Month, Last 3 Months, Last 6 Months or Last 12 Months.
2. Change at least one Plan Variable. Run Simulation stays disabled until you do.
3. Click Run Simulation.

"Current" is the engine re-pricing the window on the plan as it is today. It is not what you actually paid. If the plan, a quota or a position changed during the window, or a payout was corrected, current and paid amounts can differ.

People the engine couldn't price for some months, and people whose currency has no exchange rate to your base currency, are named above the results and left out of the totals.

Optimize: search for a plan that fits a budget

The Optimize tab ("Optimize plan against a budget") works backwards from a target.

Example. Your reps earned about $40,000 a month in commission and you want the plan to cost about 10% less. With Months back at 6, the window's current cost is about $240,000, so enter a Budget of 216,000, not an annual 432,000 or a monthly 36,000. Leave Tolerance ±% at 5 to accept anything from $205,200 to $226,800.

Click Find plan candidates. The search tries different tier multipliers, a different cap and a different Base Payout Rate. It never changes tier boundaries, the floor or kickers. Every candidate is backtested over the window and scored:

• Budget: how close the candidate's cost is to your budget (50% of the score).
• Alignment: whether reps who sold more against quota still earn more (30%).
• Stability: how little individual pay moves (20%).

You get a Recommended plan and up to a few Alternative cards. Each shows its Score, Projected cost, Current cost, Delta, Base rate, Proposed tiers and Largest per-rep moves.

Messages you may see:

• "No feasible candidate found — loosen the max rep move or widen the tolerance."
• "Large dataset — the scan was reduced (32 candidates). Results cover every rep; only the search breadth was narrowed."
• "Search stopped at the time limit — showing the best candidates found so far."
• "No active reps on this plan — nothing to optimize."
• "Plan has no active version with tiers."

Adopting a result

The Simulator never saves a plan. To use a result:

1. Open the plan and click Configure rules.
2. Copy the multipliers, cap and Base Payout Rate into the General and Commission Schedule tabs.
3. Save. What happens depends on the plan's history:
   • Nobody on the plan has been paid yet: the save applies now, to every period.
   • Someone has been paid: the save starts a new version in a period you pick. It appears on Organization → Scheduled Changes, where you can cancel it until it starts.

See Scheduled changes and history.

Limits

• Each admin can run about 30 forecasts, 20 backtests and 6 optimizer searches a minute. Past that you see, for example, "Too many forecasts — please wait a minute and try again."
• Ratio plans are excluded.
• Forecasts ignore ramps, proration and mid-period moves. Use Backtest for those.

FAQ

Does running a simulation change anyone's pay? No. Both tabs are read-only.

Why doesn't the backtest's current cost match what I paid? It re-prices the window on today's plan, so past plan changes and corrections are not reflected.

Can the optimizer suggest moving a tier boundary? No. The Simulator and the optimizer both keep tier boundaries where they are, and neither can add or remove a tier.

My budget is annual. What do I enter? Set Months back to 12 and enter the annual figure, or scale the budget to the window you choose.

Why do two runs give different answers? Different seeds search differently. Use the same seed to repeat a result.