Incentive Compensation Management (ICM) software takes much of the manual work out of ensuring sales reps get paid correctly and on time — a tricky part of dealing with complex comp plans or large sales teams. Among other things, it’s a handy tool that helps you plan the right incentives and manage performance, 

However, not all ICMs have the same functionality, and you may find yourself paying more for a tool that doesn’t meet your needs.

What happens if you outgrow your ICM or find it lacks the latest in data analysis and user support features? You shop around. 

With over a dozen well-known Performio competitors available in the market, it can be hard to know where to start. We’ve researched for you, and are ready to give you the pros and cons of top ICM tools at a glance so you can pick the one that meets your every need. 

Criteria for Choosing an Incentive Compensation Management Tool

Although there are dozens of options for incentive compensation management tools, they all offer different features. You need to choose wisely so that the tool you invest in actually helps you reduce (or, ideally, eliminate) errors in commission payments and increase efficiency across all departments handling sales payroll. 

To pick an ICM tool that meets your needs, consider how you’ll use it to enhance your day-to-day tasks, such as tracking performance or giving sales reps a detailed look at their progress. Ideally, you’ll want a tool that continuously syncs with your own data and allows you to customize it as often as you wish.

Key Features to Look For

At a minimum, a good ICM should:

• Integrate with other data-based tools, such as your CRM
• Let you set rules for compensation based on your choice of performance metrics
• See the real-time performance of individual reps or entire teams
• Calculate commissions and incentives accurately
• Provide easy-to-read reports and insights, preferably through a visually appealing dashboard
• Adhere to regulations and industry standards for data security and privacy, as well as the unique needs of your organization

Also, look for a company with a good reputation for customer service and a high rating on review sites like Capterra or G2. While ICM tools should be fairly automated once set up, you may have to contend with a learning curve in order to make the most of every feature. 

Look for ICM software that includes dedicated support to help you quickly get up and running with your existing data and compensation plans.

The Importance of Integration and Scalability 

The ideal ICM is one that connects to your essential business systems without a hitch, so it’s able to turn raw data into actionable insights. Through this capability, your reps' activities, deal sizes, and customer interactions feed directly into commission calculations, while connections to your payroll, HR, and finance systems eliminate double entries and other such mistakes.

Growing sales organizations need software that scales with their ambitions. As your commission structures become more sophisticated and the volume of data increases, your platform has to keep pace. So look for systems that not only handle today's workload but also offer the flexibility to adapt as your needs evolve.

The software's integration capabilities deserve particular scrutiny. Strong platforms maintain current connections with major business tools while offering straightforward options for custom integrations through APIs. This future-proofs your investment — when you adopt new sales tools or need specialized connections, your incentive compensation system won't become a bottleneck.

Most importantly, examine how the platform handles increasing complexity. As you add product lines, expand your sales team, or enter new markets, your compensation system should support these changes without requiring a replacement or major overhaul.

Top 10 Performio Competitors

Are you looking to switch from Performio? Here are ten Performio competitors for sales teams of every size. Each has its own pricing formula, which will vary depending on your team size and needs and may not be disclosed on their websites.

1. CaptivateIQ

CaptivateIQ is a highly-rated sales compensation management software that helps with commission planning, payment, and territory optimization. 

CaptivateIQ Incentives provides an end-to-end commission platform that automates calculations, payments, and reporting while giving sales reps clear visibility into their earnings. CaptivateIQ Planning empowers sales leaders to design, model, and optimize territories and quotas using flexible rules that ensure fairness and keep errors at bay. 

Main features include:

• Automated commission calculations and tracking
• Real-time performance tracking, including details of earnings and attainment
• Customizable compensation plan creator, including forecasting with “what-if” scenario modeling
• Sales territory optimization
• Integration with payroll, budgeting, and CRM systems, as well as local data files and sources
• Personalized workflows for each manager, including verification and approval milestones
• Easy-to-read personalized dashboards with reports and visualizations for KPIs
• Sales rep view for accessing earned commissions and future estimations
• Assist, an AI-powered solution for easy insights, plan adjustments, and customization
• Set up in as little as two weeks 

Pros

CapitivateIQ simplifies the dispute resolution process by giving reps a way to initiate concerns through the sales portal. The Excel-like interface is familiar to even those without previous ICM experience, and because it’s a no-code solution, it requires no engineering resources to implement. The AI-based chat functionality lets managers ask conversational questions to mine for insights, set up new sales quotas, or adjust compensation plans. 

Users report time saved using our tool’s automation features and excellent customer support from implementation through scale. CaptivateIQ’s flexibility makes even complex compensation structures, clawbacks, and tier-based commissions as simple as adding numbers to a spreadsheet. Users also love its intuitive dashboards and reporting interface. 

Cons

CaptivateIQ is a no-code solution, but those wanting to use the available API may need internal IT resources to get their preferred customization. Because this ICM can accommodate multiple complex compensation plans at once, the UI can become cluttered if not regularly maintained to remove outdated plans. 

Pricing: Available upon request 

Overall rating: 4.8/5 based on Capterra user reviews

2. Xactly

Xactly’s sales management platform is divided into separate offerings by stage, including Plan, Design, Manage, and Incent. The latter is focused on being a true ICM for teams of all sizes. 

Main features of the Xactly platform (as a whole) include:

• Sales performance monitoring and reporting
• Territory and quota planning
• Advanced forecasting and analytics
• Integration with CRM and ERP systems

Xactly aims to be a single source of truth for all sales activities, giving managers a better chance to adjust plans proactively to meet future needs.

Pros

The Xactly platform offers almost unlimited possibilities for crafting a customized sales compensation management workflow, including integrations with popular CRMs and an add-on for working directly within Salesforce CRM. Customers enjoy the level of service provided by the company and consider the analytics and reporting capabilities to be robust. 

Cons

Many of the Xactly offerings are sold piecemeal, so assessing what tools to purchase and implement can take time. As new pieces are added, this can result in a steep learning curve, and it may be difficult to customize the “just right” plan without technical expertise. 

Solutions are sold individually, so small companies that want the full range of tools may find them out of their price range. Xactly has announced an AI integration, but it’s in the early pilot phases and not widely available for all users yet. 

Pricing: Available upon request 

Overall rating: 4.2/5 based on Capterra user reviews

3. Spiff

Now a part of the Salesforce brand, Spiff is an ICM with support for several big-name integrations.

Features include:

• Sales commission automation
• Native integration with Salesforce (recently acquired)
• Easy-to-read performance analytics
• Customizable commission structures
• Real-time commission tracking

Pros

Because Spiff is now a Salesforce product, it offers seamless integration with Salesforce tools and data. Users report its calculations and compensation plan analysis to be accurate and timely, and the process automation to be logical and easy to manage once set up. 

Cons

Spiff doesn’t offer a lot of information about the inner workings of the tool on its website, leaving much of the documentation and guides to the Salesforce site. As such, if you don’t use Salesforce, you may encounter a steeper learning curve and a lack of educational support. 

While the pricing isn’t shared publicly on the website, users report a price increase and some growing pains in customer service after the Salesforce acquisition.

Pricing: Available upon request 

Overall rating: 4.7/5 based on Capterra user reviews

4. Varicent

Varicent is a Canadian company specializing in business solutions such as data security, AI, and systems integrations. Its ICM offering is just one of the services it provides.

Features include:

• Automations to simplify incentive compensation management
• Transparent workflows with documentation on how calculations are made
• Integration with popular tools, including a customized Slack app
• AI-driven analytics and forecasting

Pros

Customers report excellent support and learning resources and easy-to-understand and deploy reporting. Companies can easily scale to include more functionality and increase their workflows for more reps, integrations, and transactions. 

Varicent also claims to have very secure data handling practices, which is unsurprising for a company that offers data security services.

Cons

Many of the user complaints revolve around the inability to run more than one process at a time and requests stopping for unknown reasons in the middle of high-volume data retrieval. 

Once set up, the tool seems very user-friendly and intuitive, but some report having a difficult onboarding process as they learn how the tech works. While AI drives many of the insights, there’s not yet a genAI or chat-based way to easily update plans or set up new scenarios for testing. 

Pricing: Available upon request 

Overall rating: 4.5/5 based on G2 user reviews

5. Anaplan

Anaplan offers enterprise-level planning and logistics solutions, with sales planning tools as part of its portfolio. The sales portion handles planning, incentives, forecasting, and marketing performance integrated into one unified platform.

Features include:

• Connected planning across finance, sales, supply chain, and HR
• Predictive modeling and scenario planning
• Flexible modeling engine
• Integration with CRM and ERP systems
• Scalable for companies of any size

Because Anaplan is to be used across the entire organization, it’s focused on data integration and management and can connect to almost any tool for any purpose.

Pros

Anaplan’s core competencies include complex planning needs for all company areas. For those looking to use Anaplan as an all-in-one tool for HR, payroll, budgeting, operations, logistics, and data management, it makes sense to consider its available sales planning tools as well. 

Its strong scenario planning and forecasting capabilities work well for sales or any department needing a data-based approach to business intelligence. 

Cons

Anaplan’s enterprise-level features come at a cost that may be outside the startup or small enterprise budget. It also may not be a suitable option for a small team that just wants sales management and compensation support. The vast number of integrations and data use cases can be overwhelming and come with an intensive initial learning phase. 

Users may also need a dedicated IT or engineering team to ensure the system runs smoothly and can scale appropriately as the company grows. 

Pricing: Available upon request 

Overall rating: 4.6/5 stars based on G2 user reviews

6. Oracle Incentive Compensation

Oracle Incentive Compensation is part of the Oracle e-business suite of enterprise solutions. It allows managers to track performance and create plans for meeting sales quotas.

Features include:

• Performance and compensation dashboards
• Bonus and earnings estimators
• Integrations with other Oracle services as well as web applications
• At-a-glance dashboard icons that tell managers which reps won’t make quota
• Progress reporting for various pay-per-performance curves

Since the tool is native to the Oracle environment, it’s ideal for large organizations with complex compensation rules and dozens (or more) reps. 

Pros

The Oracle tool scales easily for large companies, especially those already using Oracle products. Its seamless integrations with these proprietary tools may be more convenient than importing data from external sources. 

It also features a powerful processing engine for large data volumes, including months or years of sales activity, budgets, and payroll reports. 

Cons

All of this data integration may come at a much higher price than what the typical small business can afford. Also, for those who have no interest in using Oracle for their other business insights, the learning curve may be too steep to get started with just one sales tool. 

Users report that the dashboards are very text-heavy and lack engaging graphics and easy-to-read illustrations. 

Pricing: Available upon request 

Overall rating: 3.9/5 based on G2 user reviews

7. SAP SuccessFactors

SAP is an enterprise software provider that offers management, planning, and optimization services across several industries. Its ICM product, SuccessFactors (formerly called Commissions), automates much of the sales compensation process for managers and teams.

Features include:

• Comprehensive, automated compensation management for teams of all sizes
• Real-time insights into performance, earnings, and payouts
• Cloud deployment and compatibility with other SAP tools

SuccessFactors also offers a mobile app experience for teams to check their performance on the go. The ICM is aimed at mid-sized to large enterprises that already use SAP solutions but can be used by anyone with complicated compensation processes. 

Pros

Like other enterprise-level solutions, SuccessFactors is adept at handling large volumes of data from other departments, such as payroll, HR, and integrated CRMs. 

The ICM is also known for its analytics and reporting capabilities — a trademark of SAP. The technology works best with SAP solutions and offers seamless integration for these proprietary tools. Its AI-driven optimization comes with suggestions for managers to improve their compensation plans over time. 

Cons

Without SAP-specific technical knowledge, it can be difficult to get up and running quickly. The larger data volumes needed for more in-depth insights can be difficult to manage, making this tool out of reach for those without dedicated IT teams knowledgeable in SAP. 

While SAP’s AI toolkit is growing constantly, the use of genAI for building and adjusting compensation plans isn’t currently being promoted. Some users say that the reporting dashboard isn’t as customizable as they would like. 

Pricing: Available upon request 

Overall rating: 4.1/5 based on G2 user reviews

8. Everstage

Everstage is an incentive plan designer that uses “if/then” logic to build compensation frameworks for versatile commission structures.

Features include:

• Automated commission tracking, including special incentives and tiered commissions
• Contract management
• Commission structure templates to help you get started
• Permission and approval overrides
• Forecasting that simulates future plans as well as backtesting for past data
• Out-of-the-box business analytics dashboards

Everstage has partnered with Salesforce for easy integration and data sharing between tools.

Pros

Users report that it’s easy to learn how to use and manage, and the dashboards are simple to understand. They can easily set up plans or check analytics without needing any previous technical know-how. Templates make the initial setup for the most common compensation plans very simple. 

Cons

Some users cite a lack of mobile support. Others note that the Salesforce integration doesn’t provide real-time updates — it can take a day or two for Salesforce to send over new data. 

There’s some confusion over how some reporting and payout breakdowns work, with users requesting a tutorial to help them know how things were calculated. 

Pricing: Available upon request 

Overall rating: 4.8/5 based on Capterra user reviews

9. Commissionly

Commissionly describes itself as the first cloud-based sales compensation manager built for small to medium-sized businesses. It has fewer reviews than other tools but offers standard ICM features like:

• Managed setup for new users
• Easy split management and missing payments reporting
• Real-time residual calculations and progress
• Built-in CRM system or integrations to top sales tools

Commissionly is stand-alone, not requiring any other tool or integration to make it work. 

Pros

Commissionly’s website claims it can set up a new customer with its customization compensation plan within four weeks, and users claim the customer experience is very good. 

Also, the company offers a partner program that pays companies for every successful new customer referral they make. Users like that it has templates to help quickly set up compensation structures, while the report builder tool allows users to customize reports for their needs. 

Cons

Because it’s aimed at smaller companies, it lacks some of the AI-based features that are becoming common in the ICM industry. 

For example, while it lets you input historical data for insights, it doesn’t claim to offer advanced analytics, suggestions for plan improvement, forecasting, or scenario testing. There is no gen-AI functionality or guided chat to get new users up and running. 

Pricing: Available upon request 

Overall rating: 4.8/5 based on G2 user reviews

10. QuotaPath

QuotaPath is a sales compensation management software with three pricing plans for companies of all sizes. Note that many of the enhanced features are available only on the most expensive plan.

Features include:

• Integrations with ERP, payments, database, and CRM tools (as well as custom options)
• Sales forecasting and analysis
• Deal flagging and resolution support
• Compensation plan modeling to demonstrate “what if”
• Team contest support
• Multi-level approvals and permissions workflows

QuotaPath also offers an API for midsized plans and up.

Pros

Both sales reps and managers report that the interface is easy to navigate and use. Users also praise the company’s customer support and mention that they are knowledgeable in the space. Others enjoy that once a compensation plan is set up, it takes mere minutes to add a new rep rather than having to build from scratch. 

A top feature of the product is the ability for sales reps to model potential scenarios to determine their potential earnings. 

Cons

Some users have reported occasional syncing issues with CRM data and a lack of advanced or more robust AI-driven analytics and reporting. While the lower-priced plans are truly affordable for small companies, they lack the functionality that even small teams might enjoy (such as contests, quarterly compensation plans, and modeling.) 

One-on-one training is only available for the higher-priced plans, and there’s currently no gen-AI functionality to guide new users through setup and plan adjustments. 

Pricing: Starting at $25 per user per month 

Overall rating: 4.7/5 based on G2 user reviews

Choose a Next-Gen ICM That Scales With You

The ICM market is growing quickly, with a fair share of Performio competitors to choose from. Admittedly, many of the tools offer similar features, such as basic compensation plan setup and analysis and easy-to-read reporting for managers and teams.

However, when picking a tool, consider the time you’ll spend implementing it and what you’ll do as soon as your needs change. Sales is a fluid field — you’ll need to adjust on the fly without introducing any mistakes into your compensation plans. 

With CaptivateIQ, you have the ability to flexibly experiment with different sales scenarios to see how they’ll play out before committing to them. You’ll also get the gen-AI assistance you need to make changes on your own. Ask questions, dig into additional insights, and mine for data — without the need for a data science background. 

‍Demo CaptivateIQ today and find out how you can unlock 60x faster commissions calculations!