The Bridge Group puts together an annual survey of software sales teams. The 2026 survey includes data from 158 B2B companies with median ARR of $35mm and median ACV of $49k. The report is well worth the read and available at bridgegroupinc.com. Below we summarize the parts we found most insightful.
40% of AE pipeline is from marketing, but AE’s are also self sourcing. This includes inbound SDR support and excludes outbound sales development efforts. That figure is unchanged from 2024 and up materially from 33% in 2022. The gain in marketing-sourced pipeline hasn’t come at the expense of AE self-sourcing though. It has come at the expense of outbound SDRs, whose share of pipeline has declined materially. AEs are picking up the slack. If you’re building a sales team today and assuming your SDR org will carry 25–30% of pipeline, revisit that assumption. It has compensation and quota implications downstream. As always, as ARR and ACV grow, marketing contributes a smaller fraction. The enterprise motion remains largely outbound.
74% of AE groups are supported by an SDR team. This is consistent with prior years. At ACV of $100k+, SDR support runs 80–90%. Below $25k ACV, triple specialization into SDR, AE, and CSM has largely disappeared, down sharply from 2022 levels. As you get larger, roles become more specialized and focused, and SDR’s become a must.
AEs are owning more of the customer relationship. 38% of AEs now own renewal and expansion responsibility, sole or blended, nearly double the 2022 figure. AM ownership of expansion halved since 2024. The old AE-to-CSM-to-AM handoff model is quietly dying which we found surprising. AEs are increasingly servicing the customer over the life of the contract, not just closing and moving on.
At hiring, the average AE has 3.7 years of experience and needs 6.2 months to ramp. In 2022 those figures were 2.7 years and 5.3 months. In 2024 they were 3.6 years and 5.3 months. Bridge Group has been doing these surveys since 2007 and 6.2 months is the highest ramp time ever recorded. In 2022 the median new hire was ramped in under 4 months. Now it takes over 6. The era of junior AE hiring appears to be over, especially at higher contract values. The practical implication is if you hire an AE today, don’t count on full productivity for 2 quarters.
Tenure is now 3.2 years. In 2024 it was 2.8 years and in 2022 it was 2.2 years. After 6.2 months of ramp you get roughly 30 months of quality production from a good rep. The average tenure of 3+ years has nearly tripled since 2022, a direct reflection of the post-Great Resignation normalization.
Attrition dropped to 21%. This is down from 30% in 2024 and 32% in 2022. The split is 12% involuntary and 9% voluntary. Voluntary quits have fallen from 20% in 2022 to 9% today. The labor market has shifted decisively in favor of employers. Some percentage of your sales team is staying not because they love the job but because the job market is tight. When conditions loosen, churn will pick back up.
Activity and win rates. AEs average 18 calls and 23 emails per day, essentially unchanged from prior years; that’s fascinating as we would have guessed higher numbers with AI. Win rates rebounded to 23%, up from 19% in 2024 and back to 2022 levels. Sales cycles however remain elevated versus 2022 across all contract value segments, and near-majorities of respondents report increases in stakeholder count, cycle length, discounting pressure, and deal slippage compared to Q1 2025.
Quota achievement is 48%. This is down from 51% in 2024 and well below the 66% figure from 2022, but that was covid era data and should be discounter. Bridge Group found more companies in the 0–30% danger zone and fewer in the healthy 50–90% range than in any prior survey.
Quota to OTE is 4.6x. This is up from 4.2x in 2024. Median OTE is $200k, implying a median quota of $920k for SaaS AEs. The median commission rate at 100% of quota is 10% of ACV. SaaS quotas have grown at roughly 2.4% compounded annually but have fallen behind inflation in real terms since 2012. Interestingly, senior management is getting more expensive: manager OTE is up 27% since 2022 versus roughly 14% at the rep level. VP of Sales OTE is now $370k.
The AI data is the most interesting addition to the 2026 report. AI tools are being used in specific areas of the sales cycle: post-call summaries are ubiquitous at 84% adoption. Account research and call prep is at 79%. Email personalization at 65%. After that adoption of AI tools drops sharply. Proposal generation is at 30%, automated CRM updating at 23%, and autonomous outreach at only 12%. In 10 of 11 use cases, leaders are split between “not there yet,” “hit or miss,” and “game changer.” Companies with the broadest AI adoption across AE workflows had 57% of reps at quota versus 39% for the lowest adopters. Bridge Group controlled for experience, tenure, and base salary across the groups. The difference wasn’t explained by higher-quality hires or better pay. Bridge is careful to call the gap observational rather than causal, but an 18-point gap in quota attainment is hard to ignore.
The report is full of a lot more data and insights than presented here. Their website is bridgegroupinc.com if you want to download it directly. It’s the best sales data we’ve found and it’s updated annually.
Thank you for your readership. See more blogs and SaaS data at blossomstreetventures.com. Other resources we’ve built for founders include: SoftwareMultiples.com; softwareMRRcalculator.com; FounderInvited.com, and TwoFoundersTalk.com. Founders are always welcome to reach out to sammy@blossomstreetventures.com as well.