To encourage long-term cooperation in social dilemmas such as common pool resources, the importance of sanctioning is often stressed. Economist Elinor Ostrom advocates graduated sanctioning: the severity of a defector’s punishment is related to the extent of criminal acts in the past. Graduated sanctioning is especially suggested because a society might contain ‘vengeful’ persons: people that do not adhere to the rules after receiving a punishment they feel to be disproportional compared to their misconduct. This study compares the effect of graduated and strict sanctioning on cooperation in commons on the micro- and macro-level. Theoretically, hypotheses are derived using game theoretic predictions of behaviour based on extensions of the standard model with vengeful actors. In addition, we distinguish whether the type of sanctions is determined exogenously or voted for by the actors in the game. A Common Pool Resource game is used in a laboratory experiment, integrating crucial elements of social structure and rule-making mechanisms within a common. The results confirm the hypothesis that more vengeful subjects behave more cooperatively under graduated sanctioning than under strict sanctioning. However, in a population without the vengeful type, strict sanctioning yields the highest level of cooperation. When looking at macro-level outcomes of cooperation, having a possibility to vote for a sanctioning mechanism influences the effect of graduated sanctioning positively, and strict sanctioning negatively. For micro-level outcomes, this has no effect.