Q4 2023 Report
RepVue
Cloud Sales Index
q4 2023
Throughout 2023, organizations adopted far more conservative approaches to their GTM strategy in an effort to stop the bleeding. Right-sizing teams via RIFs and a more measured approach to hiring became the status quo. Quota Attainment stabilized after a sharp decline starting in 2022 — does a slight rebound in sales quota attainment in Q4 indicate the worst is behind us?
Amid this new normal in cloud sales, with ZIRP-era euphoria in the rearview, what will 2024 have in store?
The RepVue Cloud Sales Index (comprising 207 companies with ~28,000 full sales professional ratings and over 600,000 datapoints), enables us to provide a clear breakdown of where sales professionals are succeeding, which organizations are outperforming their peers, and other deep insights into the B2B sales landscape.
01
Is the Bottom In? Time Will Tell
Sales professionals in the RepVue Cloud Sales Index continued to face challenges hitting their quotas. The Cloud Index shows that only 43.1% of sales professionals hit quota in Q4-2023, compared to 47.6% in Q4-2022. However, this number is an improvement over quota attainment reported in Q3-2023.
It’s likely too soon to tell whether the difficulties of the last two years are behind us. Slightly higher quota attainment figures could be the result of companies continuing to right-size their organizations through layoffs and slower hiring. End-of-year budgetary spending may also be a factor. Continued recovery through Q1-2024 will offer a better indication of industry health.
02
Most Sub-Industries Continue to Struggle, but Marketing Tools & Sales Tools See Q4 Gains
In every sub-industry in the RepVue Cloud Index, B2B sales professionals reported significantly lower quota attainment year-over-year in 2022 to 2023.
56.73%2022
50.54%2023
10.9%Data & AI
44.71%2022
40.96%2023
8.4%Finance & ERP
50.54%2022
45.68%2023
9.6%Marketing Tools
54.05%2022
47.36%2023
12.4%HR Tools
52.24%2022
42.71%2023
18.2%DevOps & Developer Tools
50.33%2022
41.63%2023
17.3%Productivity & Collaboration Tools
48.4%2022
39.31%2023
18.8%Cybersecurity
51.24%2022
40.61%2023
20.8%Vertical Industry Software
49.1%2022
39.01%2023
20.6%Sales Tools
And while quota attainment figures achieved gains over the previous quarter on aggregate, few sub-industries saw meaningful improvements. Marketing Tools and Sales Tools saw the greatest gains, which may indicate that companies are starting to increase investment in their go-to-market functions. Data & AI fell the most compared to the previous quarter, but remains the sub-industry with the highest overall quota attainment as businesses look to improve productivity with AI implementation. The ongoing variation in quota attainment across sub-industries suggests that any potential recovery may come in fits and starts as buyers prioritize certain solutions over others.
03
Larger Deals Face Fewer Headwinds
The size of deals continues to be a significant factor in B2B sellers ability to attain quota.
Sales professionals with deals under $50K saw the steepest declines in quota attainment year-over-year, while larger deals still see less significant impacts, though $100K–$200K deals proved to be an exception. This continuing trend reinforces the idea that smaller deals face greater scrutiny in a challenging macroeconomic environment. Larger deals also benefit from fewer competitive options and more consistent demand from corporate strategic initiatives.
Deals under $10k
8%
Deals $10k - $50k
14%
Deals $50k - $100k
5%
Deals $100k - $200k
11%
Deals $200k+
3%
04
Sales Cycle Lengths Mostly Decreased
Sales cycle lengths shortened for all deal sizes with the notable exception of $100–$200K deals. That same deal size proved an outlier for decreases in quota attainment among larger-sized deals (QoQ). It’s possible that deals over $100K are facing the same scrutiny previously reserved for deals over $200K, lengthening sales cycles and impacting quota attainment.
Deals $200k+
Deals $100k - $200k
Deals $50k - $100k
Deals $10k - $50k
Deals under $10k
RepVue began collecting data on sales cycle lengths at the beginning of 2023. The Q1 2024 Cloud Sales Index will be the first to feature YoY data for this metric.
05
Deal Sizes By Segment - Minimal Impact
RepVue is tracking how average deal sizes are shifting within segments in tech to understand if the definition of the Enterprise or SMB buyer is changing over time.
This trend is indicative of the market challenges including but not limited to macro economic shifts, increased competition due to over-saturation in SaaS verticals, and tightening of buyer budgets. A slight uptick in Key Accounts and Enterprise in Q2 2023 hinted at potential recovery, but the following quarter witnessed a dip again, indicating challenges to SaaS companies may be persistent.
06
Included Companies
We created the RepVue Cloud Sales Index by aggregating ratings data from 207 companies and categorizing them into SaaS sub-industries. This report comprises ~28,000 ratings from quota-carrying sales professionals who worked at these organizations.