If you had to guess, what would you say is the average Account Executive salary?
Well, you don’t even have to guess … because we’ve got the data!
Account Executives are the main characters in the tech sales world. AEs are the closers—the people who actually pitch the product, negotiate pricing, and win the deals.
Apparently, compensation for AEs has increased even more in the past year, even though it was already pretty high. 🙂
According to the 2022 Compensation Guide by Betts Recruiting:
“2021 brought significant increases to Account Executive and Enterprise Account Executive compensation. For example, AE and EAE compensation increased by 10-15% across the board … candidates have more leverage than ever before, and experienced AEs and EAEs have secured higher compensation as a result.”
First, let’s look at the average AE salary city by city.
Then, we’ll look at which specific tech companies are paying the highest salaries for AEs.
Account Executive Salary – By City
In the past, if you wanted to make the most as an Account Executive, it mattered what city you were in. AEs got paid the most in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York.
Nowadays, remote work has changed things. According to Betts,
“Tech is becoming more decentralized, and companies have embraced remote work. This has resulted in a flattening of compensation across the country … remote compensation grows closer to San Francisco and New York compensation.”
In some cases, you’ll still get paid more if you live in the top cities for tech sales, but it’s becoming more and more normal to be able to command top compensation, even if you’re working remotely.
The data in the tables below comes from the 2022 Compensation Guide(PDF) created by Betts Recruiting, a recruiting firm that specializes in tech sales. Betts sourced the data from the thousands of tech sales roles they filled over the previous year.
Account Executive Salary By City For 0-3 Years Experience
AE (0-3 Years) | Base Salary | OTE* |
San Francisco | 75-110 | 150-220 |
Los Angeles | 75-110 | 150-220 |
New York | 75-110 | 150-220 |
Austin | 75-110 | 150-220 |
Chicago | 60-90 | 100-180 |
Remote | 70-100 | 140-200 |
*OTE stands for “on-target earnings.”
Experience level makes a big difference in terms of how much you can make in tech sales.
Based on this compensation data from Betts, AEs with 3-5 years of experience can make 15-20% more than AEs with 0-3 years of experience.
Account Executive Salary By City For 3-5 Years Experience
AE (3-5 Years) | Base Salary | OTE* |
San Francisco | 90-125 | 180-250 |
Los Angeles | 90-125 | 180-250 |
New York | 90-125 | 180-250 |
Austin | 90-125 | 180-250 |
Chicago | 80-110 | 160-220 |
Remote | 90-125 | 180-250 |
Enterprise Account Executives are the top dogs.
They have the most experience, so companies trust them to sell to the biggest accounts, and thus they make the most money.
Enterprise Account Executive Salary By City For 5-10 Years Experience
EAE (5-10 Years) | Base Salary | OTE* |
San Francisco | 120-200 | 240-400 |
Los Angeles | 120-200 | 240-400 |
New York | 120-200 | 240-400 |
Austin | 120-140 | 240-280 |
Chicago | 120-150 | 240-300 |
Remote | 120-200 | 240-400 |
Here’s the full2022 Compensation Guide(PDF) by Betts Recruiting, which includes compensation data for other tech sales roles (e.g., SDR, Sales Manager, VP of Sales, CRO).
Account Executive Salary – By Company
Next, here’s data on which tech companies pay their AEs the most.
This data comes from CompGauge in April 2022. CompGauge sourced the data from entries on their website submitted by tech salespeople.
Top Paying Tech Companies For SMB Account Executives
Rank | Company | Account Size | Base Salary | OTE* | Total Comp** |
1 | SMB | $107k | $162k | $199k | |
2 | Google Cloud | SMB | $90k | $179k | $199k |
3 | Amazon Web Services | SMB | $96k | $163k | $193k |
4 | Workday | SMB | $96k | $172k | $187k |
5 | Impact | SMB | $85k | $170k | $185k |
6 | Stripe | SMB | $80k | $140k | $180k |
7 | Amplemarket | SMB | $85k | $170k | $180k |
8 | Segment | SMB | $85k | $155k | $178k |
9 | Elastic | SMB | $74k | $147k | $175k |
10 | Snyk | SMB | $85k | $170k | $173k |
*OTE stands for “on-target earnings.”
**Total Comp = OTE + Signing Bonus per year + Stock Bonus per year
Top Paying Tech Companies For Mid-Market Account Executives
Rank | Company | Account Size | Base Salary | OTE* | Total Comp** |
1 | Paycom | Mid-Market | $92k | $255k | $266k |
2 | Workday | Mid-Market | $111k | $233k | $261k |
3 | Google Cloud | Mid-Market | $100k | $214k | $252k |
4 | Coupa | Mid-Market | $110k | $218k | $249k |
5 | Workiva | Mid-Market | $115k | $227k | $233k |
6 | Segment | Mid-Market | $107k | $202k | $230k |
7 | ServiceNow | Mid-Market | $108k | $208k | $223k |
8 | Braze | Mid-Market | $107k | $214k | $223k |
9 | Pendo | Mid-Market | $109k | $220k | $220k |
10 | Cloudera | Mid-Market | $110k | $220k | $220k |
*OTE stands for “on-target earnings.”
**Total Comp = OTE + Signing Bonus per year + Stock Bonus per year
Top Paying Tech Companies For Enterprise Account Executives
Rank | Company | Account Size | Base Salary | OTE* | Total Comp** |
1 | Snowflake | Enterprise | $133k | $266k | $362k |
2 | TripActions | Enterprise | $150k | $300k | $350k |
3 | Google Cloud | Enterprise | $127k | $278k | $341k |
4 | Confluent | Enterprise | $150k | $300k | $332k |
5 | Definitive Healthcare | Enterprise | $135k | $325k | $325k |
6 | LiveRamp | Enterprise | $150k | $300k | $320k |
7 | Zoom | Enterprise | $116k | $232k | $320k |
8 | Sumo Logic | Enterprise | $137k | $282k | $320k |
9 | Mediaocean | Enterprise | $150k | $300k | $315k |
10 | Okta | Enterprise | $134k | $268k | $313k |
*OTE stands for “on-target earnings.”
**Total Comp = OTE + Signing Bonus per year + Stock Bonus per year
If you want to research more of the highest paying companies for Account Executives, CompGauge has compensation data for 200+ tech companies that hire SMB AEs, Mid-Market AEs, and Enterprise AEs.
Bigger deals, higher compensation
Each table above includes a column for “Account Size,” which indicates the size of the account to which the Account Executive sells.
In tech sales organizations, Account Executives are typically split into three different account sizes: small-to-medium business (SMB), mid-market, and enterprise.
Here are definitions for each account size:
- SMB: fewer than 100 employees & less than $50 million in annual revenue
- Mid-Market: 100 to 999 employees & $50 million to $1 billion in annual revenue
- Enterprise: anything larger than Mid-Market
This is important to keep in mind as you plan your tech sales career path.
If you want to make more money as an Account Executive, you’ll need to sell to bigger accounts.
But wait, there’s more! Strategic, Majors, Global, Large, Key Accounts
Generally, Enterprise is the highest you can go on the Account Executive career track.
At the biggest tech companies, however, there are Account Executives that work on accounts that are even larger than Enterprise accounts. We’re talking about deals that are worth tens of millions, hundreds of millions, and sometimes even billions of dollars.
Account Executives that work on these larger-than-Enterprise accounts have various titles: Strategic AE, Majors AE, Global AE, and the list goes on.
And, you guessed it, they make a lot more money.
The compensation data in this next table comes from Bravado, a sales professional network company that acquired CompGauge in May 2022, so we assume they have similar sources and methodologies for how they get their data.
Rank | Company | Title | Base Salary | Commission* | Bonuses** | Total Comp |
1 | Google Cloud | Field Sales Representative | $141,363 | $211,837 | $95,000 | $448,202 |
2 | Amazon Web Services | Principal Account Manager L7 | $180,000 | $120,000 | $139,000 | $422,500 |
3 | Snowflake | Majors Account Executive | $162,500 | $162,500 | $100,000 | $425,000 |
4 | Slack | Large Enterprise Account Executive | $178,750 | $178,750 | $62,500 | $420,000 |
5 | Splunk | Strategic Regional Sales Manager | $155,000 | $155,000 | $73,900 | $383,900 |
6 | Dell | Global Account Executive | $175,000 | $175,000 | $20,000 | $370,000 |
7 | Workday | Enterprise Account Executive | $133,333 | $201,667 | $33,333 | $368,333 |
8 | Sprinklr | Global Strategic Account Executive | $160,000 | $160,000 | $45,000 | $365,000 |
9 | SAP | Senior Account Executive T4 | $117,500 | $225,000 | $20,000 | $362,500 |
10 | Microsoft | Enterprise Account Manager L65 | $180,000 | $140,000 | $36,000 | $356,000 |
*Commission is commission at 100% of quota.
**Bonuses include signing and stock bonuses per year.
Click here to read the full blog post by Bravado.
Conclusion
The average Account Executive salary ranges from $60,000 to $200,000. The range is so wide because Enterprise Account Executives make a lot more than SMB Account Executives.
Also, you have to remember: salary is just a part of an AE’s total compensation package. If you factor in commission, signing bonus, and stock bonus, you can make $400,000 as an Enterprise Account Executive.
What does it mean to be an AE in sales? Click here to learn more about the day-to-day responsibilities of an AE.
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