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$5k/month is just Cloudflare's opening bid. In Enterprise sales, you are expected to negotiate for a discount. Common rule of thumb is that Enterprise sales (in

$5k/month is just Cloudflare's opening bid. In Enterprise sales, you are expected to negotiate for a discount. Common rule of thumb is that Enterprise sales (in general, across vendors) start at ~$2k/month (this is what's necessary to pay for salespeople's salaries) and savvy negotiators will end up close to that figure for bare-bones plans.

candiddevmike 3y ago
In what world does 2k/month pay a sales persons salary? And what enterprise sales person is OK selling something for $2k/month/$24k/year when they carry a quota 20-50x that amount? Enterprise deals start at 100-200k/year, minimum, IME.
- Hello71 3y ago
  > what enterprise sales person is OK selling something for $2k/month/$24k/year when they carry a quota 20-50x that amount probably someone who spends no more than one man-week on this sale, which doesn't seem that hard if the customer is a small org and only wants to buy one feature? sure, if you expect to spend months negotiating and years implementing, you'll need to charge a lot to make up for the time, but we're not talking about that case here.
- VanTheBrand 3y ago
  So cloudflare quotes him $5k so that’s 60k. You’re already wrong there. Then your 24k a year sales person number is assuming that the sales person will sell one license the entire year, an insane assumption.
- solatic 3y ago
  I'm not including some full Solutions Engineer / Customer Success Engineer kind of integration work on part of the vendor - I'm talking about, you go to the vendor's website, you see some feature you need (like SSO) is under "Contact Us" pricing, usually the barebones for that is $2k/month. This represents meeting with Sales for 15 minute calls a handful of times so they can qualify you, understand your usecase, present you with a quote for more than you need, then negotiate down. Enterprise salespeople working in that segment understand you're small-fry and they'll kick you a small contract not because they're going to get rich off the commission but because they know that depending solely on whales is a high-risk approach that sooner or later gets them fired. Small contracts pad them out and provide more reliable monthly numbers as long as the sales process doesn't turn into a tarpit that isn't worth the money.

candiddevmike 3y ago

In what world does 2k/month pay a sales persons salary? And what enterprise sales person is OK selling something for $2k/month/$24k/year when they carry a quota 20-50x that amount? Enterprise deals start at 100-200k/year, minimum, IME.

Hello71 3y ago
> what enterprise sales person is OK selling something for $2k/month/$24k/year when they carry a quota 20-50x that amount probably someone who spends no more than one man-week on this sale, which doesn't seem that hard if the customer is a small org and only wants to buy one feature? sure, if you expect to spend months negotiating and years implementing, you'll need to charge a lot to make up for the time, but we're not talking about that case here.
VanTheBrand 3y ago
So cloudflare quotes him $5k so that’s 60k. You’re already wrong there. Then your 24k a year sales person number is assuming that the sales person will sell one license the entire year, an insane assumption.
solatic 3y ago
I'm not including some full Solutions Engineer / Customer Success Engineer kind of integration work on part of the vendor - I'm talking about, you go to the vendor's website, you see some feature you need (like SSO) is under "Contact Us" pricing, usually the barebones for that is $2k/month. This represents meeting with Sales for 15 minute calls a handful of times so they can qualify you, understand your usecase, present you with a quote for more than you need, then negotiate down. Enterprise salespeople working in that segment understand you're small-fry and they'll kick you a small contract not because they're going to get rich off the commission but because they know that depending solely on whales is a high-risk approach that sooner or later gets them fired. Small contracts pad them out and provide more reliable monthly numbers as long as the sales process doesn't turn into a tarpit that isn't worth the money.