ISG Research has conducted market research for over two decades across vertical industries, business applications, AI and IT. We have designed the ISG Buyers Guide™ to provide a balanced perspective of software providers and products that is rooted in an understanding of business and IT requirements. Utilization of our research methodology and decades of experience enables our Buyers Guide to be an effective method to assess and select software providers and products. The findings of this research provide a comprehensive approach to rating software providers and rank their ability to meet specific product and customer experience requirements.
The ISG Buyers Guide for Revenue Performance Management is the distillation of continuous market and product research. It is an assessment of how well software providers’ offerings address enterprises’ requirements for revenue performance management software. The Value Index methodology is structured to support a request for information (RFI) for a request for proposal (RFP) process by incorporating all criteria needed to evaluate, select, utilize and maintain relationships with software providers. The ISG Buyers Guide evaluates customer experience and the product experience in its capability and platform.
The structure of the research reflects our understanding that the effective evaluation of software providers and products involves far more than just examining product features, potential revenue or customers generated from a provider’s marketing and sales efforts. It can ensure the best long-term relationship and value achieved from a resource and financial investment We believe it is important to take a comprehensive, research-based approach, since making the wrong choice of revenue performance management software can raise the total cost of ownership, lower the return on investment and hamper an enterprise’s ability to reach its potential. In addition, this approach can reduce the project’s development and deployment time and eliminate the risk of relying on opinions or historical biases.
ISG Research believes that an objective review of existing and potential new software providers and products is a critical strategy for the adoption and implementation of revenue performance management software. An enterprise’s review should include a thorough analysis of both what is possible and what is relevant. We urge enterprises to do a thorough job of evaluating revenue performance management software and offer this Buyers Guide as both the results of our in-depth analysis of these providers and as an evaluation methodology.
We recommend using the Buyers Guide to assess and evaluate new or existing software providers for your enterprise. The market research can be used as an evaluation framework to assess existing approaches and software providers or establish a formal request for information from providers on products and customer experience and will shorten the cycle time when creating an RFI. The steps listed below provide a process that can facilitate best possible outcomes in the most efficient manner.
Using the ISG Buyers Guide and process provides enterprises a clear, structured approach to making smarter software and business investment decisions. It ensures alignment between strategy, people, processes and technology while reducing risk, saving time and improving outcomes. The ISG approach promotes data-driven decision-making and collaboration, helping choose the right software providers for maximum value and return on investment.
The goal for every revenue organization is to align its strategy and organization with clear objectives that guide selling across all channels and departments. Leaders and operations must design unified plans that connect quotas, territories and incentives to fully leverage sales talent and drive optimal results. While AI and automation can enhance performance, success also depends on engaging today’s more selective and demanding buyers with thoughtful, customer-focused strategies that engage and retain for optimal customer lifetime value.
ISG Research defines revenue performance management (RPM) as a coordinated set of management and operational activities, processes and applications that enable organizations to plan, execute and guide selling activities across any channel to achieve customer, product and revenue targets. The evolution towards RPM is a proven one that can encompass all sales channels in a comprehensive manner and support the business, financial and operational requirements across everyone involved in sales-related activities.
RPM has evolved beyond traditional Sales Performance Management (SPM), which primarily served direct sales teams and focused on territories, quotas, and incentives within a single channel. Today, RPM encompasses all revenue streams—including indirect channels, e-commerce, subscriptions and renewals—bringing them together under one unified approach. Modern RPM systems integrate forecasting, revenue recognition, attribution and predictive analytics to generate actionable insights that drive smarter decisions and more consistent growth across the entire revenue ecosystem.
Enterprises are moving from traditional sales models to integrated revenue teams that bring together sales, marketing, customer success, partnerships, and digital channels. Growth now depends on both acquiring new customers and expanding existing ones. To succeed, organizations need RPM systems that unify strategy, processes and data. By connecting information from CRM, ERP, billing and support systems, enterprises can better understand customer value and design smarter territories, quotas and incentives that align all channels around shared revenue goals.
To manage revenue effectively, organizations need connected, intelligent platforms that support continuous optimization and agile decisions. Modern software should align people, processes and performance by automating planning, linking pay to results and enabling real-time data-driven adjustments. Balanced territories, fair incentives and shared accountability help drive predictable revenue and teamwork. Leading enterprises treat revenue performance as a unified system powered by insight and technology to ensure that every customer interaction fuels growth.
Effective RPM software should serve leaders, managers, sellers and operations teams by connecting strategy with execution. It should provide a unified platform that supports all revenue channels with intelligent insights to guide performance. Key capabilities include territory and quota planning, incentive and commission management, and sales planning and forecasting, enabling organizations to plan, monitor and optimize revenue outcomes across the business.
Traditional CRM and SFA tools track accounts and opportunities but do not provide the visibility into the entirety of revenue performance. Their reports focus on past results and lack real-time insight into quotas, incentives or current progress. In contrast, RPM platforms offer dynamic, forward-looking guidance and the flexibility to engage everyone involved in generating revenue.
AI and machine learning are reshaping revenue management by turning data into actionable insights. They can score deals, predict churn, find upsell opportunities, and recommend next-best actions to sellers. When combined with traditional forecasting, these insights make revenue predictions more accurate and reliable. AI also helps improve team performance and retention by identifying top talent and those at risk of leaving. In fact, we assert that through 2027, software providers will be utilizing AI to provide plan templates and optimization to both speed time-to-value and help enterprises deploy performance plans using best practices.
Enterprises should adopt RPM systems that unify planning, forecasting, and execution across all teams and channels to create predictable, data-driven revenue operations. Modern platforms must allow leaders and operations teams to adjust territories, incentives and SPIFFs quickly, while integrating seamlessly with ERP, CRM, HR and finance systems. As omnichannel engagement grows more complex, AI-driven optimization is becoming essential providing smarter guidance for territory, account and quota alignment, and helping design incentive plans that reflect today’s multichannel buyer behavior. By aligning all revenue functions around shared goals and continuous optimization, enterprises can achieve greater agility, coordination and growth.
The ISG Buyers Guide™ for Revenue Performance Management RPM evaluates products based on sales and revenue resource capacity, territory and quota planning, incentive compensation planning and execution, sales and revenue forecasting, and the use of data and analytics for insights to identify process improvements. The evaluation identifies capabilities that enable organizations to plan for and execute against objectives by aligning and incentivizing all those involved in supporting revenue and to identify ways to continually improve.
This research evaluates the following software providers that offer products that address key elements of revenue performance management as we define it: Akeron, Anaplan, Board, Oracle, Salesforce, SAP, Varicent and Xactly.
Revenue Performance Management (RPM) unifies strategy, processes and technology to drive predictable, data-informed growth across all revenue channels. It extends beyond traditional Sales Performance Management by aligning sales, marketing, partnerships and customer success to shared revenue goals. Modern RPM platforms integrate forecasting, attribution and AI-driven optimization to improve agility and decision-making. Enterprises adopting unified RPM systems can strengthen collaboration, accelerate planning and improve revenue predictability.
Software Provider Summary
The research identifies Anaplan, Xactly and Oracle as overall leaders, with Anaplan achieving the highest composite score across categories. Classification placed Akeron, Anaplan, Varicent and Xactly in the Exemplary quadrant, while Oracle was rated Innovative and Board, Salesforce and SAP were categorized as Merit. No providers were classified as Assurance. The research assessed providers on Product Experience and Customer Experience to highlight strengths and areas for improvement.
Product Experience Insights
Product Experience represented 80% of the evaluation, weighted across Capability and Platform. Oracle, Anaplan and Xactly led in overall Product Experience, demonstrating strong performance in adaptability, manageability, reliability and usability. The top providers delivered connected planning, seamless integration and scalable architectures supporting complex revenue operations. Leaders demonstrated strength in unified planning frameworks and advanced analytics that enhance forecasting accuracy and optimize incentive design.
Customer Experience Value
Customer Experience accounted for 20% of the evaluation, emphasizing Validation and TCO/ROI through provider commitment, success programs and measurable value delivery. Anaplan, Xactly and Varicent led this category by maintaining close customer partnerships and transparent ROI articulation. Non-Leader vendors often lacked clear documentation of outcomes or consistent support structures, limiting confidence in their implementation reliability and long-term engagement quality.
Strategic Recommendations
Enterprises should view RPM as a central platform that unites all revenue contributors around shared goals and continuous optimization. Buyers should prioritize providers that combine scalable platform performance, predictive analytics and seamless integration across CRM, ERP and finance systems. AI-enabled guidance that supports territory alignment and incentive planning will be key to sustaining growth in complex channel ecosystems. Organizations adopting RPM as an enterprise-wide discipline will gain the agility and visibility needed to drive consistent revenue outcomes.
The software providers and products evaluated in the research provide product and customer experiences, but not everything offered is equally valuable to every enterprise or is needed to operate in business processes and use cases. Moreover, the existence of too many capabilities in products may be a negative factor for an enterprise if it introduces unnecessary complexity. Nonetheless, you may decide that a more comprehensive set of capabilities in the product is important, and where they match your enterprise’s requirements.
An effective customer relationship with a software provider is vital to the success of any investment. The overall customer experience and the full lifecycle of engagement play a key role in ensuring satisfaction and long-term success. Providers with dedicated customer leadership, such as chief customer officers, tend to invest more deeply in these relationships and prioritize customer outcomes to TCO and ROI expectations. It is equally important that this commitment to customer success is clearly demonstrated throughout the provider’s website, buying process and customer journey.
The overall representation of the research below places the rating of the Product Experience and Customer Experience on the x and y axes, respectively, to provide a visual representation and classification of the software providers. Those providers whose Product Experience have above median weighted performance to the axis in aggregate of the two product categories place farther to the right, while the performance and weighting for the Customer Experience category determines placement on the vertical axis. In short, software providers that place closer to the upper-right on this chart performed better than those closer to the lower-left.
The research categorizes and rates software providers into one of four categories: Assurance, Exemplary, Merit or Innovative. This representation of software providers’ weighted performance in meeting the requirements in product and customer experience.
Exemplary: This rating (upper right) represents those that performed above median in Product and Customer Experience requirements. The providers rated Exemplary are: Akeron, Anaplan, Varicent and Xactly.
Innovative: This rating (lower right) represents those that performed above median in Product Experience but not in Customer Experience. The provider rated Innovative is: Oracle.
Assurance: This rating (upper left) represents those that performed above median in Customer Experience but not in Product Experience. No providers are rated Assurance.
Merit: This rating (lower left) represents those that did not surpass the median in Customer or Product Experience. The providers rated Merit are: Board, Salesforce and SAP.
We advise enterprises to use this research as a supplement to their own evaluations, recognizing that ratings or rankings do not solely represent the value of a provider nor indicate universal suitability of a set of products.
The process of researching products to address an enterprise’s needs should be comprehensive and evaluate specific capabilities and the
The research results in Product Experience are ranked at 80%, or four-fifths, using the underlying weighted performance. Importance was placed on the categories as follows: Capability (30%) and the Platform category (50%). Oracle, Anaplan, and Xactly were designated Product Experience Leaders.
The Capability criteria is designed to assess the products and features across a broad range of capabi
ISG Research evaluated more than 180 different function points in 20 sections to assess the full scope of RPM capabilities. It also examined the investment by the software provider. The research weights Capability at 30% of the overall rating. Xactly, Anaplan and Oracle are the Leaders in this category.
The Capability evaluation framework for RPM provides a framework for enterprises. Software providers that have more breadth and depth and support the entire set of needs fared better.
The Platform category evaluates the underlying requirements of a platform and examines how well a software product meets enterprise needs across business and IT. It measures how effectively the product can be managed and configured and integrated into enterprise environments, how efficiently it can be governed and secured, how reliably it performs and scales, and how intuitively it supports users across varied roles and skill levels. The platform category in the ISG Buyers Guide examines specific requirements for adaptability, manageability, reliability and usability.
The grading of the underlying platform focuses on a software product’s overall robustness and the flexibility of a provider’s software foundation. Adaptability measures a product’s ability to be customized and integrated across systems and data, while manageability focuses on governance, security and compliance. Reliability considers performance and scalability across environments, and usability assesses how intuitive and accessible the product is through design, use of AI and ongoing provider investment.
ISG Research evaluated 16 function points in 5 sections to assess the full scope of platforms capabilities.
Platform is an essential evaluation category as it indicates the strength and resilience of a software provider’s product architecture. A well-designed platform ensures secure and compliant operations, dependable scalability and uptime, and a unified, intuitive experience for range of usage personas. It also reflects the provider’s capacity to enable deployment models while maintaining flexibility for enterprise demands.
Software providers that performed best in the Platform category were those that have support for the breadth and depth of needs across business and IT supporting adaptability, manageability, reliability and usability. Providers with lower performance were challenged in one or more of these areas or did not demonstrate a cohesive, enterprise-grade approach. The underlying platform for a software provider’s products is essential in any evaluation.
The importance of a customer relationship with a software provider is essential to the actual success of the products and technology. The evaluation of the Customer Experience and the entire lifecycle an enterprise has with its software provider is critical for ensuring satisfaction in working with that provider. The ISG Buyers Guide examines a software provider’s customer commitment, viability, customer success, sales and onboarding, product roadmap and services with partners and support. The customer experience category also investigates the TCO/ROI and how well a software provider demonstrates the product’s overall value, cost and benefits, including the tools and resources to evaluate these factors.
The research results in Customer Experience are ranked at 20%, or one-fifth of the 100% index, a
The software providers that evaluated the highest in the Customer Experience category are Anaplan, Xactly, and Varicent. These category leaders best communicate commitment and dedication to customer needs.
Software providers that did not perform well in this category were unable to provide or make sufficient information readily available to demonstrate success or articulate their commitment to customer experience. The use of a software provider requires continuous investment, so a holistic evaluation must include examination of how they support their customer experience.
For inclusion in the ISG Buyers Guide™ for Revenue Performance Management in 2025, a software provider must be in good standing financially and ethically, have at least $25 million in annual or projected revenue verified using independent sources, sell products and provide support on at least two continents, and have at least 50 customers. The principal source of the relevant business unit’s revenue must be software-related and there must have been at least one major software release in the past 12 months.
The provider must provide products that support RPM and revenue processes in these functional areas:
The research is designed to be independent of the specifics of software provider packaging and pricing. To represent the real-world environment in which businesses operate, we include providers that offer suites or packages of products that may include relevant individual modules or applications. If a software provider is actively marketing, selling and developing a product for the general market and it is reflected on the provider’s website that the product is within the scope of the research, that provider is automatically evaluated for inclusion.
All software providers that offer relevant products and meet the inclusion requirements were invited to participate in the evaluation process at no cost to them.
Software providers that meet our inclusion criteria but did not completely participate in our Buyers Guide were assessed solely on publicly available information. As this could have a significant impact on classification and ratings, we recommend additional scrutiny when evaluating those providers.
|
Provider |
Product Names |
Version |
Release |
|
Akeron |
Vulki Sales Performance Management |
N/A |
October 2025 |
|
Anaplan |
Anaplan |
N/A |
September 2025 |
|
Board |
Board Sales Planning, Sales Analytics, Incentive and Compensation Management |
N/A |
September 2025 |
|
Oracle |
Oracle Fusion Cloud Sales Performance Management, Oracle Incentive Compensation |
v. 25d |
September 2025 |
|
Salesforce |
Salesforce Agentic Sales, Sales Performance Management, Spiff |
v. Winter '26 |
October 2025 |
|
SAP |
SAP SuccessFactors Compensation, SAP Sales Cloud |
v. 2511 |
October 2025 |
|
Varicent |
Varicent Incentives, Sales Planning, Revenue Intelligence, Seller Insights |
v. 10.1.1, Release 99 |
October 2025 |
|
Xactly |
Xactly Intelligent Revenue Platform |
N/A |
October 2025 |
The goal for every sales organization is to align its strategy and organization with clear objectives that guide selling activities across all channels and departments. Leaders and operations must design unified plans that connect quotas, territories and incentives to fully leverage sales talent and drive optimal results. While AI and automation can enhance performance, success also depends on engaging today’s more selective and demanding buyers with thoughtful, customer-focused strategies that engage and retain for optimal customer lifetime value.
ISG Research defines sales performance management (SPM) as a coordinated set of management and operational activities, processes and applications that enable organizations to plan, execute and guide selling activities to achieve customer, product and revenue targets. The path to SPM is a proven one that can encompass all sales channels in a comprehensive manner and support business, financial and operational needs in sales-related activities.
Enterprises are moving from traditional sales models to integrated sales teams that unite sales, marketing, customer success, partnerships and digital channels. Sustainable growth now relies on revenue performance management systems that connect strategy, processes, and data. By integrating applications systems, organizations can better understand customer value and design smarter territories, quotas and incentives. Modern platforms use automation and real-time insights to drive predictable revenue.
Enterprises should adopt sales performance management systems that unify planning, forecasting and execution across all teams and channels to build predictable, data-driven operations. Modern platforms should let leaders and operations teams quickly adjust territories, incentives and SPIFFs while integrating with ERP, CRM, HR and finance systems. Aligning all sales functions and continuous improvement enables greater agility and growth.
The ISG Buyers Guide™ for Sales Performance Management evaluates products based on sales resource capacity, territory and quota planning, incentive compensation planning and execution, sales forecasting, and the use of data and analytics for insights to identify process improvements. The evaluation identifies capabilities that enable organizations to plan for and execute against objectives by aligning and incentivizing sales to improve.
This research evaluates the following software providers that offer products that address key elements of revenue performance management as we define it: Akeron, Anaplan, Board, Jedox, NiCE, Optymyze, Oracle, Salesforce, SAP, Varicent, Workday and Xactly.
Sales Performance Management (SPM) enables enterprises to align sales strategy, processes and incentives to achieve predictable, data-driven growth. By connecting planning, forecasting and execution, these systems provide transparency and accountability across all sales channels. Modern SPM platforms unify performance data from CRM, ERP and HR systems to drive agile decision-making and continuous improvement. As selling grows more complex, SPM serves as the foundation for balanced quotas, equitable rewards and sustainable sales success.
Software Provider Summary
The research identifies Anaplan, Xactly and Oracle as overall leaders, with Anaplan earning the highest overall ranking across multiple categories. Classification placed Akeron, Anaplan, Oracle, Salesforce, Varicent and Xactly in the Exemplary quadrant, while no providers were rated Innovative or Assurance. Board, Jedox, NiCE, SAP, Workday and Optymyze were categorized as Merit. The research assessed providers on Product Experience and Customer Experience to highlight strengths and areas for improvement.
Product Experience Insights
Product Experience represented 80% of the overall evaluation, weighted across Capability and Platform. Oracle, Anaplan and Xactly led in overall Product Experience by demonstrating strong adaptability, manageability, reliability and usability across enterprise environments. Top performers delivered cohesive planning, forecasting and incentive capabilities supported by secure, scalable platforms. Leaders demonstrated strength in connected planning architectures and embedded AI features that improve forecasting precision and performance optimization.
Customer Experience Value
Customer Experience accounted for 20% of the evaluation, focusing on Validation and TCO/ROI through provider commitment, support and measurable value realization. Anaplan, Xactly and Varicent led this category by maintaining strong customer engagement and transparent communication of success outcomes. Non-Leader vendors often lacked documented ROI evidence or consistent customer success structures, limiting confidence in post-deployment value and partnership longevity.
Strategic Recommendations
Enterprises should treat SPM as a strategic enabler that connects sales planning, execution and performance management. Buyers should prioritize providers offering flexible configuration, integrated analytics and AI-driven guidance for territory and incentive optimization. Platforms with proven scalability and transparent ROI reporting will deliver greater predictability and sales alignment. Organizations adopting unified SPM systems can strengthen accountability and responsiveness across all sales channels to achieve consistent revenue performance.
The software providers and products evaluated in the research provide product and customer experiences, but not everything offered is equally valuable to every enterprise or is needed to operate in business processes and use cases. Moreover, the existence of too many capabilities in products may be a negative factor for an enterprise if it introduces unnecessary complexity. Nonetheless, you may decide that a more comprehensive set of capabilities in the product is important, and where they match your enterprise’s requirements.
An effective customer relationship with a software provider is vital to the success of any investment. The overall customer experience and the full lifecycle of engagement play a key role in ensuring satisfaction and long-term success. Providers with dedicated customer leadership, such as chief customer officers, tend to invest more deeply in these relationships and prioritize customer outcomes to TCO and ROI expectations. It is equally important that this commitment to customer success is clearly demonstrated throughout the provider’s website, buying process and customer journey.
The overall representation of the research below places the rating of the Product Experience and Customer Experience on the x and y axes, respectively, to provide a visual representation and classification of the software providers. Those providers whose Product Experience have above median weighted performance to the axis in aggregate of the two product categories place farther to the right, while the performance and weighting for the Customer Experience category determines placement on the vertical axis. In short, software providers that place closer to the upper-right on this chart performed better than those closer to the lower-left.
The research categorizes and rates software providers into one of four categories: Assurance, Exemplary, Merit or Innovative. This representation of software providers’ weighted performance in meeting the requirements in product and customer experience.
Exemplary: This rating (upper right) represents those that performed above median in Product and Customer Experience requirements. The providers rated Exemplary are: Akeron, Anaplan, Oracle, Salesforce, Varicent and Xactly.
Innovative: This rating (lower right) represents those that performed above median in Product Experience but not in Customer Experience. No providers are rated Innovative.
Assurance: This rating (upper left) represents those that performed above median in Customer Experience but not in Product Experience. No providers are rated Assurance.
Merit: This rating (lower left) represents those that did not surpass the median in Customer or Product Experience. The providers rated Merit are: Board, Jedox, NiCE, SAP, Workday and Optymyze.
We advise enterprises to use this research as a supplement to their own evaluations, recognizing that ratings or rankings do not solely represent the value of a provider nor indicate universal suitability of a set of products.
The research results in Product Experience are ranked at 80%, or four-fifths, using the underlying weighted performance. Importance was placed on the categories as follows: Capability (25%) and the Platform category (55%). Oracle, Anaplan and Xactly were designated Product Experience Leaders.
The Capability criteria is designed to assess the products and features across a broad range of sales performance management capabilities that support revenue operations, performance planning, management, forecasting, insights and use of AI.
The Capability evaluation framework for compensation insights provides a framework for enterprises. Software providers that have more breadth and depth and support the entire set of needs fared better.
The Platform category evaluates the underlying requirements of a platform and examines how well a software product meets enterprise needs across business and IT. It measures how effectively the product can be managed and configured and integrated into enterprise environments, how efficiently it can be governed and secured, how reliably it performs and scales, and how intuitively it supports users across varied roles and skill levels. The platform category in the ISG Buyers Guide examines specific requirements for adaptability, manageability, reliability and usability.
The grading of the underlying platform focuses on a software product’s overall robustness and the flexibility of a provider’s software foundation. Adaptability measures a product’s ability to be customized and integrated across systems and data, while manageability focuses on governance, security and compliance. Reliability considers performance and scalability across environments, and usability assesses how intuitive and accessible the product is through design, use of AI and ongoing provider investment.
ISG Research evaluated 16 function points in 5 sections to assess the full scope of platforms capabilities.
Platform is an essential evaluation category as it indicates the strength and resilience of a software provider’s product architecture. A well-designed platform ensures secure and compliant operations, dependable scalability and uptime, and a unified, intuitive experience for range of usage personas. It also reflects the provider’s capacity to enable deployment models while maintaining flexibility for enterprise demands.
Software providers that performed best in the Platform category were those that have support for the breadth and depth of needs across business and IT supporting adaptability, manageability, reliability and usability. Providers with lower performance were challenged in one or more of these areas or did not demonstrate a cohesive, enterprise-grade approach. The underlying platform for a software provider’s products is essential in any evaluation.
The research results in Customer Experience are ranked at 20%, or one-fifth of the 100% index, and represent the underlying provider validation and TCO/ROI requirements as they relate to the framework of commitment and value to the software provider-customer relationship.
The software providers that evaluated the highest in the Customer Experience category are Anaplan, Xactly and Varicent. These category leaders best communicate commitment and dedication to customer needs.
Software providers that did not perform well in this category were unable to provide or make sufficient information readily available to demonstrate success or articulate their commitment to customer experience. The use of a software provider requires continuous investment, so a holistic evaluation must include examination of how they support their customer experience.
For inclusion in the ISG Buyers Guide™ for Sales Performance Management in 2025, a software provider must be in good standing financially and ethically; have at least $25 million in annual or projected revenue, verified using independent sources; sell products and provide support on at least two continents; and have at least 50 customers. The principal source of the relevant business unit’s revenue must be software-related, and there must have been at least one major software release in the last 12 months.
The provider must offer products that support sales performance management for sales processes and are inclusive of at least four of the following functional areas:
The research is designed to be independent of the specifics of software provider packaging and pricing. To represent the real-world environment in which businesses operate, we include providers that offer suites or packages of products that may include relevant individual modules or applications. If a software provider is actively marketing, selling and developing a product for the general market and it is reflected on the provider’s website that the product is within the scope of the research, that provider is automatically evaluated for inclusion.
All software providers that offer relevant products and meet the inclusion requirements were invited to participate in the evaluation process at no cost to them.
Software providers that meet our inclusion criteria but did not completely participate in our Buyers Guide were assessed solely on publicly available information. As this could have a significant impact on classification and ratings, we recommend additional scrutiny when evaluating those providers.
| Provider | Product Names | Version | Release Month/Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Akeron | Vulki Sales Performance Management | N/A | October 2025 |
| Anaplan | Anaplan | N/A | September 2025 |
| Board | Board Sales Planning, Sales Analytics, Incentive and Compensation Management | N/A | October 2025 |
| Jedox | Jedox Sales Performance Management Solution | 2025.1 | October 2025 |
| NiCE | Sales Performance Management | N/A | October 2025 |
| Optymyze | Sales Performance Management | N/A | October 2025 |
| Oracle | Oracle Fusion Cloud Sales Performance Management, Oracle Incentive Compensation | 25d | September 2025 |
| Salesforce | Salesforce Agentic Sales, Sales Performance Management, Spiff | Winter '26 | October 2025 |
| SAP | SAP SuccessFactors Compensation, SAP Sales Cloud | v. 2511 | October 2025 |
| Varicent | Varicent Incentives, Sales Planning, Revenue Intelligence, Seller Insights | 10.1.1, Release 99 | August 2025 |
| Workday | Workday Adaptive Planning for Sales | 2025R2 | September 2025 |
| Xactly | Xactly Intelligent Revenue Platform | N/A | October 2025 |
We did not include software providers that, as a result of our research and analysis, did not satisfy the criteria for inclusion in this Buyers Guide. These are listed below as “Providers of Promise.”
| Provider | Product | Revenue | Customers | Geography | Capability |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CaptivateIQ | CaptivateIQ Catalyst, Incentives, Planning | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| ElevateHQ | Sales Incentive Designer, Compensation Management, Commission Plan Performance | No | No | No | Yes |
| Forma.ai | Forma Architect, Operator, Prophet | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| Fullcast | Fullcast Pay, Perform, Plan, Pulse, AI | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| infinitySPM | infinitySPM | Yes | No | Yes | No |
| Performio | Analytics Studio, Incentive Compensation, Plan Management, Sales Performance Management | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Pigment | Pigment and Pigment AI | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
The goal for every revenue organization is to align incentive compensation with clear business objectives that motivate and guide performance across all sales channels. Leaders and operations teams must design well-balanced compensation plans that connect quotas and territories with incentives to maximize sales potential. Success depends on creating incentive structures that reward meaningful engagement, retention, and value with customers.
ISG Research defines incentive compensation management (ICM) as a coordinated set of activities, processes and systems that enable enterprises to both design and plan incentive compensation, credit and calculate commissions and payments achieve customer, product and sales targets. Incentive compensation systems must integrate with CRM, ERP, and other sources to accurately calculate and credit shared commissions, ensuring verified final payouts and to payroll for approval and disbursement.
Enterprises should ensure their incentive compensation plans are competitive by benchmarking against industry standards and using AI-driven optimization to design data-informed plans that reflect modern buyer behavior. Reliance on custom systems or spreadsheets limits agility and scalability, so organizations must adopt modern incentive management software that automates updates, scales with growth, and delivers real-time insights to continually refine and improve plans.
Enterprises should implement modern ICM systems that drive predictable, data-informed revenue growth by empowering business leaders to quickly adjust incentives, SPIFFs, and commissions as markets change. These platforms must integrate with applications and systems to ensure a single source of truth, while using AI-driven optimization to design fair, performance-based plans that support revenue goals.
The ISG Buyers Guide™ for Incentive Compensation Management evaluates products based on incentive compensation design, planning and execution, ease of integration with third-party systems and the use of data and analytics to identify process improvements. The evaluation identifies capabilities that enable organizations to plan for and execute against objectives by aligning and incentivizing all those involved in supporting revenue.
This research evaluates the following software providers that offer products that address key elements of revenue performance management as we define it: Akeron, Anaplan, Beqom, Board, Everstage, Jedox, NiCE, Optymyze, Oracle, Salesforce, SAP, Varicent, Workday, Xactly and Xoxoday.
Incentive Compensation Management (ICM) connects sales performance to strategic objectives through transparent, data-driven planning and execution. It enables enterprises to align territories, quotas and incentives across all revenue channels to encourage fair and effective performance. Modern ICM systems integrate with CRM, ERP and HR applications to automate calculations, ensure accuracy and improve payout visibility. As organizations pursue scalable growth, unified incentive platforms provide the governance and agility needed to sustain motivation and reward long-term value creation.
Software Provider Summary
The research identifies Anaplan, Xactly and Oracle as overall leaders, with Anaplan achieving the highest composite score across categories. Classification placed Akeron, Anaplan, NiCE, Oracle, Salesforce, Varicent and Xactly in the Exemplary quadrant, while Board was rated Innovative and Everstage was rated Assurance. Beqom, Jedox, Optymyze, SAP, Workday and Xoxoday were categorized as Merit. The research assessed providers on Product Experience and Customer Experience to highlight strengths and areas for improvement.
Product Experience Insights
Product Experience represented 80% of the overall evaluation, weighted across Capability and Platform. Oracle, Xactly and Anaplan led in overall Product Experience by demonstrating robust adaptability, manageability, reliability and usability. Top providers delivered strong integration frameworks, flexible configuration and scalable performance to support complex compensation operations. Leaders demonstrated strength in AI-driven incentive optimization and secure, enterprise-grade architectures that improve accuracy and reduce administrative complexity.
Customer Experience Value
Customer Experience accounted for 20% of the overall evaluation, emphasizing Validation and TCO/ROI through provider commitment, transparency and customer success. Anaplan, Xactly and Varicent led this category by providing proven implementation outcomes and responsive engagement throughout the customer lifecycle. Non-Leader vendors often lacked accessible ROI data or documented success programs, reducing confidence in their long-term partnership quality and post-deployment support consistency.
Strategic Recommendations
Enterprises should view ICM as a central platform that unites sales operations, finance and HR around measurable performance outcomes. Buyers should prioritize providers that combine strong calculation accuracy, flexible modeling and seamless integration across business systems. AI-driven design and optimization capabilities are essential for aligning incentives with strategic goals while maintaining fairness and compliance. Adopting modern ICM platforms will enable organizations to automate complexity, motivate teams effectively and sustain revenue growth through consistent performance alignment.
The software providers and products evaluated in the research provide product and customer experiences, but not everything offered is equally valuable to every enterprise or is needed to operate in business processes and use cases. Moreover, the existence of too many capabilities in products may be a negative factor for an enterprise if it introduces unnecessary complexity. Nonetheless, you may decide that a more comprehensive set of capabilities in the product is important, and where they match your enterprise’s requirements.
An effective customer relationship with a software provider is vital to the success of any investment. The overall customer experience and the full lifecycle of engagement play a key role in ensuring satisfaction and long-term success. Providers with dedicated customer leadership, such as chief customer officers, tend to invest more deeply in these relationships and prioritize customer outcomes to TCO and ROI expectations. It is equally important that this commitment to customer success is clearly demonstrated throughout the provider’s website, buying process and customer journey.
The overall representation of the research below places the rating of the Product Experience and Customer Experience on the x and y axes, respectively, to provide a visual representation and classification of the software providers. Those providers whose Product Experience have above median weighted performance to the axis in aggregate of the two product categories place farther to the right, while the performance and weighting for the Customer Experience category determines placement on the vertical axis. In short, software providers that place closer to the upper-right on this chart performed better than those closer to the lower-left.
The research categorizes and rates software providers into one of four categories: Assurance, Exemplary, Merit or Innovative. This representation of software providers’ weighted performance in meeting the requirements in product and customer experience.
Exemplary: This rating (upper right) represents those that performed above median in Product and Customer Experience requirements. Theproviders rated Exemplary are: Akeron, Anaplan, NiCE, Oracle, Salesforce, Varicent and Xactly.
Innovative: This rating (lower right) represents those that performed above median in Product Experience but not in Customer Experience. The provider rated Innovative is Board.
Assurance: This rating (upper left) represents those that performed above median in Customer Experience but not in Product Experience. The provider rated Assurance is Everstage.
Merit: This rating (lower left) represents those that did not surpass the median in Customer or Product Experience. The providers rated Merit are: beqom, Jedox, Optymyze, SAP, Workday, and Xoxoday.
We advise enterprises to use this research as a supplement to their own evaluations, recognizing that ratings or rankings do not solely represent the value of a provider nor indicate universal suitability of a set of products.
The research results in Product Experience are ranked at 80%, or four-fifths, using the underlying weighted performance. Importance was placed on the categories as follows: Capability (45%) and Platform (35%). Oracle, Xactly and Anaplan were designated Product Experience Leaders.
The Capability criteria is designed to assess the products and features across a broad range of incentive compensation management capabilities that support [INSERT].
ISG Research evaluated more than 80 different function points in 17 sections to assess the full scope of compensation operations capabilities. It also examined the investment by the software provider in resources and improvements.
The research weights Capability at 45% of the overall rating. Xactly, Anaplan and Oracle are the Leaders in this category. While not a Leader, Varicent was also found to meet a broad range of enterprise capability requirements.
The Platform category evaluates the underlying requirements of a platform and examines how well a software product meets enterprise needs across business and IT. It measures how effectively the product can be managed and configured and integrated into enterprise environments, how efficiently it can be governed and secured, how reliably it performs and scales, and how intuitively it supports users across varied roles and skill levels. The platform category in the ISG Buyers Guide examines specific requirements for adaptability, manageability, reliability and usability.
The grading of the underlying platform focuses on a software product’s overall robustness and the flexibility of a provider’s software foundation. Adaptability measures a product’s ability to be customized and integrated across systems and data, while manageability focuses on governance, security and compliance. Reliability considers performance and scalability across environments, and usability assesses how intuitive and accessible the product is through design, use of AI and ongoing provider investment.
ISG Research evaluated 16 function points in 5 sections to assess the full scope of platforms capabilities.
Platform is an essential evaluation category as it indicates the strength and resilience of a software provider’s product architecture. A well-designed platform ensures secure and compliant operations, dependable scalability and uptime, and a unified, intuitive experience for range of usage personas. It also reflects the provider’s capacity to enable deployment models while maintaining flexibility for enterprise demands.
Software providers that performed best in the Platform category were those that have support for the breadth and depth of needs across business and IT supporting adaptability, manageability, reliability and usability. Providers with lower performance were challenged in one or more of these areas or did not demonstrate a cohesive, enterprise-grade approach. The underlying platform for a software provider’s products is essential in any evaluation.
The research results in Customer Experience are ranked at 20%, or one-fifth of the 100% index, and represent the underlying provider validation and TCO/ROI requirements as they relate to the framework of commitment and value to the software provider-customer relationship.
The software providers that evaluated the highest in the Customer Experience category are Anaplan, Xactly and Varicent. These category leaders best communicate commitment and dedication to customer needs.
Software providers that did not perform well in this category were unable to provide or make sufficient information readily available to demonstrate success or articulate their commitment to customer experience. The use of a software provider requires continuous investment, so a holistic evaluation must include examination of how they support their customer experience.
For inclusion in the ISG Buyers Guide™ for Incentive Compensation Management in 2025, a software provider must be in good standing financially and ethically, have at least $10 million in annual or projected revenue verified using independent sources, sell products and provide support on at least two continents and have at least 50 customers. The principal source of the relevant business unit’s revenue must be software-related, and there must have been at least one major software release in the past 12 months.
The provider must offer products that support the incentive compensation management processes in these functional areas evaluated:
The research is designed to be independent of the specifics of software provider packaging and pricing. To represent the real-world environment in which businesses operate, we include providers that offer suites or packages of products that may include relevant individual modules or applications. If a software provider is actively marketing, selling and developing a product for the general market and it is reflected on the provider’s website that the product is within the scope of the research, that provider is automatically evaluated for inclusion.
All software providers that offer relevant products and meet the inclusion requirements were invited to participate in the evaluation process at no cost to them.
Software providers that meet our inclusion criteria but did not completely participate in our Buyers Guide were assessed solely on publicly available information. As this could have a significant impact on classification and ratings, we recommend additional scrutiny when evaluating those providers.
| Provider | Product Names | Version | Release Month/Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Akeron | Vulki Sales Performance Management | N/A | October 2025 |
| Anaplan | Anaplan | N/A | September 2025 |
| Beqom | Sales Performance Management | N/A | October 2025 |
| Board | Board Sales Planning, Sales Analytics, Incentive and Compensation Management | N/A | October 2025 |
| Everstage | Incentive Compensation Management | N/A | October 2025 |
| Jedox | Jedox Sales Performance Management Solution | 2025.1 | October 2025 |
| NiCE | Sales Performance Management | N/A | October 2025 |
| Optymyze | Sales Performance Management | N/A | October 2025 |
| Oracle | Oracle Fusion Cloud Sales Performance Management, Oracle Incentive Compensation | 25d | September 2025 |
| Salesforce | Salesforce Agentic Sales, Sales Performance Management, Spiff | Winter '26 | October 2025 |
| SAP | SAP SuccessFactors Compensation, SAP Sales Cloud | v. 2511 | October 2025 |
| Varicent | Varicent Incentives, Sales Planning, Revenue Intelligence, Seller Insights | 10.1.1, Release 99 | August 2025 |
| Workday | Workday Adaptive Planning for Sales | 2025R2 | September 2025 |
| Xactly | Xactly Intelligent Revenue Platform | N/A | October 2025 |
| Xoxoday | Compass | N/A | September 2025 |
We did not include software providers that, as a result of our research and analysis, did not satisfy the criteria for inclusion in this Buyers Guide. These are listed below as “Providers of Promise.”
|
Provider |
Product |
Revenue |
Customers |
Geography |
Capability |
|
CaptivateIQ |
CaptivateIQ Catalyst, Incentives, Planning |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
No |
|
ElevateHQ |
Sales Incentive Designer, Compensation Management, Commission Plan Performance |
No |
No |
No |
Yes |
|
Forma.ai |
Forma Architect, Operator, Prophet |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
|
Fullcast |
Fullcast Pay, Perform, Plan, Pulse, AI |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
|
infinitySPM |
infinitySPM |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
No |
|
Quotapath |
Quotapath |
No |
No |
No |
Yes |
|
Performio |
Analytics Studio, Incentive Compensation, Plan Management, Sales Performance Management |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
|
Pigment |
Pigment and Pigment AI |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
To prepare this Buyers Guide, we utilize our Value Index methodology that draws on our more than two decades of market research, which includes benchmarking and advising thousands of enterprises. Our continuous market research provides the context of the real needs of buyers, complemented by our research on software providers, knowledge of the market and subject matter expertise in this area.
The following guidelines were presented to potential participants that met our inclusion criteria:
To ensure the accuracy of the information we collect and ensure that the Buyers Guide reflects the concerns of a well-crafted RFI, we require participating software providers to provide evaluation information across all seven categories. ISG Research then validates the information, first independently through our knowledge base of software providers, product information and extensive web-based research, and then through consultation.
After validation, we grade and aggregate each software provider to determine performance in each evaluation category. Then, through weighted analytics, the ratings in the product and customer experience categories and the overall ranking are assigned. If a provider submitted more than one product for evaluation, we assessed the additional product(s) using our Capability and other evaluation categories.
We have made every effort to encompass the overall requirements that best meet an enterprise’s needs today and into the future. Even so, there may be aspects of the software provider that we did not cover but affect which products best fit your particular requirements. Therefore, while this research is complete as it stands, utilizing it in your organizational context is critical to ensure that products deliver the highest level of support for your requirements.