Compensation

Variable pay at IT companies - how much do you actually get?

Lakshay Desai

8/4/2025

494

At a lot of Indian IT companies, the CTC includes a "variable pay" or "performance bonus" component. But how much do people actually receive?

At my company (large IT company), the variable is 15% of CTC but most people get only 50-70% of it. So effectively, your actual take-home is 5-8% less than what you expected.

Is this the norm? How transparent are product companies about their variable pay structure?

variable-paybonusit-companiesindia

Comments (7)

Ravi Batra6 months ago

What I've heard is that even within a company, variable payouts can differ across departments. Sales might get closer to 100% while tech teams don't, which seems unfair.

Aman Malhotra9 months ago

Product companies are a bit more transparent in my opinion. I worked at a startup and though the variable pay was less, we got clear criteria on how it was calculated. It takes some of the guesswork out.

Kapil Bhatt11 months ago

My experience is pretty similar. At my organization, they say 20% is variable but in reality, only senior management sees anything close to that. Most of us usually get around 60%. It's kinda frustrating when you plan your finances based on the full CTC.

Urvi Garg11 months ago

I've seen cases where the variable component is completely discretionary. HR says it's based on company performance, but the criteria are never shared. It feels like a black box.

Jayesh Mittal11 months ago

In some cases, I've seen people negotiate to convert part of their variable pay into a fixed component during salary discussions. Has anyone tried that?

Mayank Bhat8/20/2025(edited)

Honestly, I think it's designed to benefit the company more than the employees. By keeping a chunk of pay variable, they can adjust based on their profits.

Tushar Gupta8/18/2025

Just curious, does anyone know if these percentages vary widely across different regions in India, or is it a consistent trend?