Growing companies have growing sales needs, and that includes ensuring commissions are paid correctly and on time. Incentive Compensation Management (ICM) software tools make this possible by automating complex calculations while giving sales leaders the insights they need to evolve their compensation strategies as they scale. 

If you're considering Varicent but want to explore all your options, you're in the right place. While Varicent has been a long-standing player in the compensation management space, the market is brimming with solutions that might better align with your needs. 

Let's examine some of the leading ICM platforms that could be the right fit for your organization, whether you're focused on improving sales rep visibility, streamlining administrative tasks, or building more sophisticated compensation strategies.

What to Look for in an Incentive Compensation Management Tool

It can be hard to narrow down just one must-have feature in an ICM. At a minimum, you’ll want to look for a tool that provides compensation management basics, such as the ability to track performance, customize compensation plans, and support your sales operation as it scales.

Non-negotiable Features to Look For

If your ICM doesn’t have the following, you’ll likely end up making mistakes in how you pay your reps, as well as missing out on important insights that help your sales team stay competitive:

• Real-time data management and visibility into commission calculations
• Scenario modeling, so you can adapt your plans according to market conditions
• Rep visibility into their progress, performance, and payouts
• Integrations for your top CRM and payroll tools
• Easy onboarding and user-friendly platform
• Insightful reports and dashboards for real-time updates

Most ICMs live in the cloud, so you’ll also want your platform to be compliant with security best practices that keep your data private and safe from hackers.

The Importance of Flexibility, Scalability, and Support

Beyond features, you also want to know that you can get the most out of an ICM. After all, the best perks really don’t matter if you can’t deploy them easily. 

Look for products that offer excellent customer support and multiple learning resources. Whether you need a wide support base, 24/7 customer service, or gen-AI chat that can answer your every question, consider how easy it will be to get help when you need it.

Your ICM of choice should also grow with your company at an affordable price, giving you multiple ways to integrate the tools you use now and in the future. If you switch CRMs, you need to know that your ICM integrates with your new data sources and adapts to different data structures without disruption. Whatever platform you use should also scale effortlessly as you add more sales reps or products, allowing customization through straightforward configuration rather than requiring a complete system revamp. 

Top 10 Varicent Competitors

Not every ICM has the potential to maximize your team’s performance and get payments out on time. See how these popular Varicent competitors stack up in terms of features, insights, and customer support. 

1. CaptivateIQ

CaptivateIQ is a full-feature sales management platform that simplifies compensation plan setup, performance tracking, and commission payouts. We’ve recently branched out with Planning, a solution that streamlines the entire territory and quota optimization process.

With both Incentives and Planning, CaptivateIQ empowers sales and comp leaders to make data-driven decisions, automate complex calculations, and adapt their strategies as the organization scales.

Noteworthy features include:

• Ability to show sales reps their real-time performance and progress toward quota
• Automated commission tracking, calculations, and payouts
• Detailed earnings statements, including clawbacks and attainment
• Forecasting with custom testing scenarios to measure the impact of compensation plans

• Full integration with top HR, payroll, and sales tools, including CRMs and business analytics platforms
• Custom API to use with your own tools and systems
• Dashboards with customizable, easy-to-read reports
• Excel-like interface with no-code setup

Pros

CaptivateIQ makes it easy to launch a customized incentive compensation management (ICM) experience in as little as two weeks. 

No coding experience? No problem — we designed CaptivateIQ to be an intuitive, no-code solution reminiscent of Excel, but with all the benefits of a modern automation platform. You can build, adjust, and manage compensation plans on your terms without grappling with massive spreadsheets.

With live data tracking, performance visibility, and built-in territory and quota management, there’s no need to juggle multiple tools to keep your team on target. Assist, our AI-powered chat solution, makes plan updates simple, offering smart recommendations and step-by-step guidance whenever you need it.

Features like audit trails, version control, and clear commission breakdowns keep finance and sales teams aligned, while reps always know exactly how their earnings are calculated. 

Cons

While the API is completely optional, those wanting a totally custom API experience will need to dedicate some IT resources to ensure it’s set up correctly. It’s so easy to create new plans that it can be tempting to set up too many scenarios; users can end up with dozens of inactive or scenario plans that need to be cleaned from the dashboard. 

Because the scenarios rely on historical data to make their predictions, users without years of sales and performance data may not be able to access the AI-based forecasts for some time. 

Pricing: Contact for details 

Overall rating: 4.8/5 from Capterra user reviews

2. Xactly

For data-based tools with a pure ICM focus, Xactly’s sales management platform offers the Incent service. It’s one of four products sales managers can buy: Plan, Design, Incent, and Manage. 

Users have to purchase all four services to get the full experience, which includes:

• Sales performance tracking, including analytics and forecasting
• Quota progress and compensation reporting
• Territory planning, management, and optimization

• Integration with top CRMs, such as Salesforce
• Automated sales, compliance, and true-up changes

Xactly also gives managers reusable elements for creating plans, including rules, rate tables, and sales quotas. 

Pros

Because Xactly has focused so much on its integration with Salesforce, CRM users accustomed to Salesforce should have no issues mastering the integration. 

The customer service team has been described as responsive, and the company currently offers support in many languages, including Czech, German, English, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Dutch, and Chinese.

Cons

Managers can’t access many of the best sales tools without purchasing Incent with another service (or two), making it possibly more expensive to automate the full sales workflow. Users have expressed difficulty building reports in Xactly Analytics, and the newest UI updates have been met with some frustration. 

Pricing: Contact for details 

Overall rating: 4.3/5 from G2 user reviews

3. Spiff

Spiff was acquired by Salesforce, so it now includes many integrations and ICM features that complement existing Salesforce workflows.

Notable features include:

• Automated sales commission calculation
• Simple analytics and reporting interface
• Build-your-own commissions structures
• Quick onboarding 
• Compatibility with Salesforce data and reporting

Pros

Users shouldn’t have difficulty reading or understanding reports — they are laid out logically for anyone with a sales background. Most users report that the compensation details are accurate and timely, and it’s easy for sales reps to check on their commission status at any time. The Salesforce integration is a plus for managers who already use the platform.  

Cons

Many of the custom features may not be as useful for those who don't use Salesforce. Users have reported oversimplification of reporting, with no way to access more granular breakdowns of commissions earned or paid. Others claim that customer support isn’t quite what it was before the Salesforce acquisition. 

Pricing: Contact for details

Overall rating: 4.7/5 from Capterra user reviews

4. Performio

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Performio’s sales commission software is designed to help businesses automate commission calculations, track performance, and provide real-time insights for sales teams. It’s an ICM alone, but managers can purchase additional sales management tools within the Performio platform. 

Features include:

• Integration with CRMs like Salesforce and other tools
• Support for complex sales crediting, including crediting rules
• Dispute management support
• Visually-appealing reports

Performio also offers live customer support for things like password resets and technical issues. 

Pros

Sales professionals like the platform's ease of use and reliability, claiming that it rarely has outages or needs IT support. Insights can be created without a lot of technical knowledge or a lengthy setup period. 

Cons

Users report that changes made in Salesforce can take a day or longer to show up in Performio. The dispute resolution process seems inconvenient for some, and others can’t easily see original commissions once they’ve been adjusted. 

Pricing: Contact for details

Overall rating: 4.4/5 from G2 user reviews

5. Anaplan

Anaplan is a cloud-based enterprise performance management platform that includes incentive compensation management (ICM) as part of its broader suite of planning and analytics tools.

Top features include:

• AI-powered predictive modeling with custom scenario planning features
• Flexible modeling to account for very recent market changes
• Compatibility with top CRM and ERP tools
• Connects with software used by HR, logistics, finance, and marketing
• Quickly scales to support large companies with multiple sales teams and product lines

Anaplan also supports data-driven territory management and sales pipeline visibility. 

Pros

Anaplan gets deep into data, giving managers access to insights from a variety of real-time data sources such as data lakes, SaaS tools, or internal files from company departments. Sales managers using Anaplan may be more informed in their decision-making than when using more scaled-down ICMs. 

Cons

This large-scale data potential may be too much for the average sales manager, and the enterprise-level capabilities will cost significantly more than a standalone ICM. Also, the almost unlimited integrations require internal tech resources to connect, monitor, and maintain, something smaller teams might not have the bandwidth for. 

Pricing: Contact for details

Overall rating: 4.6/5 from G2 user reviews

6. Oracle Incentive Compensation

Part of the Oracle e-business suite, the Oracle Incentive Compensation software was designed for enterprise-level sales managers who need to customize sales and incentive plans. 

Notable features include:

• Intuitive dashboards for sales reps and their managers
• Tight integration with Oracle Human Capital Management for shared employee performance data
• Compliant with major industry regulations and policies, including a documentation trail to show how calculations were made
• Management notifications and tools for tracking those who likely won’t meet quota

The Oracle system analytics are based on real-time data sources within the Oracle ecosystem, but they can also generate insights from third-party integrations. 

Pros

Those already using Oracle will find the system easier to learn and manage, and the real-time data updates give sales managers accurate insights into how a plan is (or isn’t) working. Oracle can scale to support large organizations with years of sales, HR, and performance data. 

Cons

Those uninterested in using Oracle for all their business needs may find the initial cost unreasonable, which includes software licenses, consulting, and data migration. Oracle is also a more complicated tool than a standalone ICM, requiring large amounts of data from other departments like HR and finance to provide the best forecasting and ROI. 

Pricing: Contact for details

Overall rating: 3.9/5 from G2 user reviews

7. SAP SuccessFactors Incentives

SAP’s ICM was once called Commissions but now goes by SuccessFactors Incentives. It offers much of the same functionalities, including connecting to its larger suite of SuccessFactors HR and human capital applications for management and optimization. 

Noteworthy offerings include:

• Automated handling of compensation tracking and payouts for large teams
• Cloud deployment with mobile app options
• Prescriptive analytics that guide managers on how to adjust plans
• Plan templates with drag-and-drop customization

As an SAP product, it’s naturally integrated with other SAP offerings. 

Pros

The integration into the SAP suite of solutions gives sales managers a better view of employee performance and what motivators can help them achieve quota. When it comes time to create a new plan or scale an existing one, the logical UI helps managers do so quickly. 

Cons

Those who don’t already use SAP environments may find this product irrelevant to smaller, sales-only performance goals, as it can be expensive to start with and uses a lot of data. Users report difficulties with the reporting dashboard and wish it was more easily customized. 

Pricing: Contact for details

Overall rating: 4.1/5 from G2 user reviews

8. Everstage

Everstage is a largely plug-and-play ICM with a built-in Salesforce integration that’s used by Fortune 1000 companies across industries.   

Features include:

• Contract creation and management
• Customization for special payments (SPIFFs) and multi-tiered bonuses and commissions
• Commission structure templates for the most common sales plans 
• Backtesting capabilities to see how past plans fare
• User-friendly business analytics dashboards

Everstage also comes with basic gamification features to support sales competitions. 

Pros

Everstage is very beginner-friendly and requires almost no previous ICM knowledge. Users find the reporting informative and the “Crystal Ball” forecasting tool easy to understand and manage. Reps enjoy using the leaderboard function to see how they rank against other team members. 

Cons

Some users like the SalesForce integration but find it slow and cumbersome to use at times. The more complex compensation plans can take a long time to configure, with some users needing support to fine-tune them to their unique needs. 

Pricing: Contact for details

Overall rating: 4.8/5 from Capterra user reviews

9. Commissionly

Commissionly doesn’t have the same number of reviews as other tools but prides itself on being a cloud-based compensation management tool for even the smallest startups. 

Promising features include:

• Automated reporting for sales reps, including scheduled emails
• Report builder tool with templates
• Comprehensive split management
• Integration with top tools
• CRM functions

Commissionly works independently with your own data and doesn’t need to be connected to any third-party tools or integrations to begin producing insights. Connecting to a CRM is optional, as it could be used as a standalone CRM in itself. 

Pros

Commissionly has an affiliate program to reward loyal users who refer friends. Its onboarding is fast, with users appreciating how easy the templates are to use. For companies who don’t want or need to spend a lot on SaaS integrations, there’s still quite a bit of functionality within the ICM from internal data alone. 

Cons

As a smaller company, it lacks more robust AI insights, such as prescriptive analytics. Its historical data insights don’t compare to those with advanced forecasting or plan improvement recommendations. 

Pricing: Contact for details

Overall rating: 4.8/5 from G2 user reviews

10. QuotaPath

QuotaPath offers three levels of service for customers, with the most robust features available only in the two higher-priced plans. 

Features include:

• Customized workflows and permissions
• Resolution support from the dashboard
• Team competition plans and gamification
• Basic sales forecasting and analysis
• Scenario testing and planning

QuotaPath supports several integrations and has an API for the higher-priced plan. 

Pros

Sales plan modeling is a favorite feature among users, with sales managers liking how intuitive it is to set up and review new scenarios before implementation. While the lower-priced plan doesn’t offer many of the analytics features, it is reasonably priced for those who want to get basic ICM benefits on a budget.  

Cons

Syncing issues have come up for some users. If you want to use even one of the more AI-driven offerings, such as seeing which customer behaviors drive the most sales or the commissions most likely to improve performance, you’ll have to invest in the full suite of services. 

Pricing: Starting at $25 per user per month 

Overall rating: 4.7/5 based on G2 user reviews

Test Drive the Top Varicent Competitor

With so many ICMs to choose from, it can be difficult to know where to start. We might be partial, but we believe CaptivateIQ tops the list, with a high volume of (raving) user reviews, an intuitive UI, and features sales managers can incorporate into their workflows in as little as two weeks.

When it comes time to build your first plan, CaptivateIQ seamlessly connects to your best data sources for real-time insights. Our AI-driven chat function helps you quickly create new compensation plans, test them, and choose the right one for your needs with a simple back-and-forth conversation. 

With real-time data showing you the success of your plan, you can choose to stay the course or adjust on the fly. The custom compensation scenarios tell you which plans are truly best for your current sales team so you keep motivation high and performance metrics healthy.

Ready to get started? Schedule a demo with our team today!