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Dear Quota Team,

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I’m an AE at a mid-sized SaaS company. I closed one of the biggest deals of my career, a mid-six-figure contract I worked for months, and got the commission. There's a 90-day clawback clause on commissions. I’ve always thought it was annoying but fair… mostly because it never happened to me. Then, right before the 90-day mark, the client canceled. Not because of anything I did, but because implementation dropped the ball. Missed deadlines, poor communication, the whole thing unraveled.

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Now finance says I owe back every dollar of that commission. It’s a huge hit, and what bothers me most is that leadership keeps insisting “we win and lose as a team,” yet I feel like I'm the one taking the loss. My base comp is low—I live off my commissions,

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I don’t want to come off entitled or like I’m blaming other departments, but this feels fundamentally unfair. Is there anything I can do?

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Burned in Location Withheld 

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Dear Burned,

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Being penalized for another team’s failure hurts. It's unlikely you'll be able to keep any of the commission if the contracts are written that way. You could offer to be more involved in hand-off and implementation for the first 90 days of new contracts to help ensure everything goes smoothly so this doesn't happen again. But if you don't want to do that, you have two choices: accept it and move on or look for a new job with a company that's better at retaining the customers you bring them. Good luck!