Motivated by the SEC’s proposal for requiring disclosure on “actually paid” executive compensation, we use hand-collected actual payout data from CEOs’ accounting performance-based incentive plans to evaluate the usefulness of such disclosure. We find that actual payouts contain information on the realized pay-for-performance relation and CEO quality that goes beyond what ex-ante pay estimates could predict. On average, firms tie payouts to firm performance, and the strong payout-for-performance is not driven by earnings management or contract design. Shareholders react positively when CEOs achieve payouts at the target level or higher. These CEOs are more likely to receive shareholders support in future compensation proposals and less likely to leave the firm over the next two years. Using the payout data, we also identify a subset of firms with powerful CEOs and weaker governance that grant abnormally high plan payouts. These payouts are not supported by past or future performance, and are due to unclear disclosure, uncertain ex-ante payout design, or board discretion. Together, our findings show that actual payouts from performance-based compensation plans contain unique information that benefit shareholders, which lends support for the SEC’s proposal