SDR cost statistics for 2026: fully loaded seat cost, ramp, attrition and cost per held meeting for in-house, outsourced and AI SDRs, each number sourced.
A fully loaded US SDR seat is quoted at $110,000 to $173,000 a year (Glencoco, 2026), against a median OTE of $80,000 (Bridge Group, 2025). With ramp and turnover, our arithmetic puts it at roughly $1,100 to $2,000 per held meeting. Outsourced meetings run $150 to $600 and AI plans $250 to $2,500 a month, before data and review time.
Ask what an SDR costs and you'll get a salary. Ask what the seat costs and you'll get six figures. Every number below comes from a published source we read on 1 November 2026, and most of those sources sell something, so we say who they are. Where a figure is our own arithmetic, we say that too, and show the formula. This page is about the budget line. For the cost of the meetings themselves, see our appointment setting pricing guide, and for funnel numbers see appointment setting statistics.
Published estimates for a US in-house SDR run from $110,000 to $280,000 a year, with most clustering at $115,000 to $185,000. The median SDR earns $80,000 on target (Bridge Group, 2025), so the seat costs about 1.4 to 3.5 times the pay. Seven estimates are lined up below.
| Source (type) | Fully loaded cost a year | What it says it includes |
|---|---|---|
| Glencoco, 2026 report (SDR marketplace) | $110,000 to $173,000 | Base, OTE, benefits, tooling, recruiting, management and ramp |
| Stealth Agents, 3 June 2026 (outsourcing vendor) | $115,000 to $165,000 | Salary, benefits, tech stack, onboarding and ramp losses |
| Instantly, AI SDR pricing guide (cold email software vendor) | $116,500 to $154,800 | Base, benefits, tools, manager overhead, recruiting and ramp loss |
| Modern Inbound, 2026 (outbound agency) | $139,500 to $183,000 in year one | Seven lines including manager time and ramp; excludes turnover |
| Danish Lead Co (outbound agency) | $180,000 to $280,000 | Compensation, tooling, management "tax", turnover and ramp loss |
| Bitscale, SDR salary guide (data vendor) | $111,870 to $122,494 | OTE, benefits, two tools, recruiting; no manager time, dialer or sequencer |
| Our model below (arithmetic from the sources above) | $115,630 to $170,300 | OTE, benefits, tools, management, recruiting; ramp handled separately |
None of these is a neutral survey. The Bureau of Labor Statistics does not track SDRs as an occupation, and we found no independent study of the total. Read the table as a range of opinions from people with something to sell. The lowest figure (Bitscale's) leaves out manager time, and the highest (Danish Lead Co's) sits next to an outsourced service it prices at $3,000 to $6,000 a month.
The Bridge Group's 2025 survey of 351 B2B companies is the best primary dataset on SDR operations. It puts median OTE at $80,000, average ramp at 3.0 months, average tenure at 1.9 years and median annual attrition at 40%. Only 60% of SDRs hit quota, the lowest in the study's history.
| Metric | 2025 finding | Source and date |
|---|---|---|
| Median SDR on-target earnings | $80,000 ($55,000 base, $25,000 variable) | Bridge Group, 6 Feb 2025 |
| Average ramp time | 3.0 months | Bridge Group, 6 Feb 2025 |
| Average tenure | 1.9 years; 58% of companies report 12 to 23 months | Bridge Group, 6 Feb 2025 |
| Annual attrition (2024) | 40% median; middle half of companies 21% to 57% | Bridge Group, 6 Feb 2025 |
| Monthly quota, held first meetings | 10 median | Bridge Group, 6 Feb 2025 |
| SDRs at quota | 60% | Bridge Group, 6 Feb 2025 |
| Employer benefit share of total compensation, all private industry | 30.0% ($14.07 of $46.89 an hour) | BLS, June 2026, released 9 Sep 2026 |
Two things stand out. Pay has barely moved: Bridge Group reports OTE unchanged since 2022 and growing at 0.56% a year over a decade. And turnover is not mostly people quitting for better jobs. Of the 40%, 16 points are promotions, 13 involuntary exits and 11 voluntary exits. A promoted SDR is a good outcome for the rep, but you still pay to replace the seat.
Using Bridge Group inputs, our model puts an in-house SDR at about $1,110 to $2,040 per held meeting. The low case is a cheap tool stack and a rep who hits the 10-meeting median; the high case is a heavier stack and a rep at 8 meetings a month. We built this from published inputs, so treat it as a calculation, not a benchmark.
First, the annual cash cost. Compensation is the Bridge Group median at full OTE. The other lines come from the sources cited in the notes under the table.
| Cost line (a year) | Low | Mid | High | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| OTE paid at target | $80,000 | $80,000 | $80,000 | Bridge Group, 2025 |
| Benefits and payroll tax | $20,000 (25%) | $26,240 (32.8%) | $34,300 (42.9%) | 25% is Glencoco's assumption. 32.8% is the BLS sales-worker ratio as quoted by Bitscale. 42.9% is $14.07 over $32.82 from BLS, all private industry |
| Tools per seat | $2,748 | $9,000 | $18,000 | Low is two list-price tools (Bitscale); mid and high are Glencoco's $9,000 to $18,000 |
| Management overhead | $10,000 | $14,000 | $18,000 | Glencoco's $10,000 to $18,000; mid is the midpoint |
| Recruiting and replacement | $2,882 | $8,000 | $20,000 | Low is a $5,475 hire spread over 1.9 years (Bitscale, citing SHRM); mid and high are Glencoco's $8,000 to $20,000 |
| Annual cash cost | $115,630 | $137,240 | $170,300 | Sum of the lines above |
That lands almost exactly on Glencoco's published $110,000 to $173,000, which is reassuring but not independent proof, since two of our inputs come from its report. The step most estimates skip is ramp. We keep it out of the cash lines and charge it as lost output instead. A seat that lasts 1.9 years is 22.8 paid months, and 3.0 of them are ramp, so 19.8 months produce at the full rate.
The formula is annual cash cost times 1.9, divided by 19.8 months times meetings a month. We give no credit for the partial output a rep produces while ramping, and we ignore gaps between hires, so the numbers lean slightly generous to the in-house route.
| Case | Cost over 1.9 years | Per held meeting at 10 a month (198 meetings) | Per held meeting at 8 a month (158 meetings) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Low | $219,697 | $1,110 | $1,387 |
| Mid | $260,756 | $1,317 | $1,646 |
| High | $323,570 | $1,634 | $2,043 |
Glencoco publishes $1,500 to $2,500 for in-house cost per qualified meeting after adjusting for hiring gaps and a six-month ramp on replacements, and it counts qualified meetings, not simply held ones. Our range sits just below that. Different definitions explain the difference, so we'd budget for the top half of ours.
Not always. Glencoco lists base of $55,000 to $75,000, benefits of $20,000 to $28,000, tools of $9,000 to $18,000, recruiting of $8,000 to $20,000, management of $10,000 to $18,000 and ramp opportunity cost of $15,000 to $30,000. Adding those low and high ends gives $117,000 to $189,000, against a printed total of $110,000 to $173,000.
That sum is our arithmetic, and it uses the base-salary row only. The report also lists a "variable comp at quota" row of $80,000 to $110,000, which looks like total OTE with a mislabel, so we left it out. The point isn't that Glencoco is wrong. The point is that a published total can hide which lines were counted, and the lines are what you can check against your own payroll. Ask any vendor quoting a total for the line items before you put the number in a board deck.
Outsourced SDR work is priced per meeting, on a retainer or as a hybrid. Cleverly (updated July 2026) says mainstream B2B pay-per-meeting runs roughly $150 to $600, with held-appointment rates of $150 to $400. Revnew (March 2026) quotes retainers of $4,000 to $18,000 a month. Stealth Agents puts an offshore SDR equivalent at $35,000 to $65,000 a year.
| Route | Published price | Source and date |
|---|---|---|
| Pay per meeting | $150 to $600 mainstream B2B; above $900 for hard segments | Cleverly, 10 Jun 2026, updated 13 Jul 2026 |
| Pay per held appointment | $150 to $400 typical; $400 to $700 mid-market to enterprise | Cleverly, same page |
| Retainer | $4,000 to $18,000 a month | Revnew, 13 Mar 2026 |
| Outsourced or offshore SDR equivalent | $35,000 to $65,000 a year | Stealth Agents, 3 Jun 2026 |
| Agency, per seat equivalent | $36,000 to $300,000 a year; $300 to $1,700+ per qualified meeting | Glencoco, 2026 |
Every figure here is from a seller. Cleverly itself says per-appointment pricing under $100 almost always signals unverified, low-quality meetings. The in-house range above ($1,110 to $2,040) overlaps the top of the outsourced range, which is why the real choice often turns on how fast you need meetings and how much management time you have. Our guide to outsourcing sales covers that decision, and the cost per meeting calculator lets you run your own numbers.
AI SDR plans are priced per month, not per hire. Cleanlist AI's July 2026 index puts them at $250 to $2,500 or more a month, with some vendors (11x, Qualified) not publishing prices. Artisan's own price is not public, and third-party figures conflict, so we use none. Outbound Labs charges $149 a month for 5,000 emails and $499 for 25,000.
The plan fee is one cost, not the whole bill. Contact data is billed by the data provider, you still need sending domains and mailboxes, and someone has to review what goes out. In our AI SDR, you approve every campaign, which is a small time cost per week, not a salary. Our write-up on keeping a human in the loop covers what that review looks like, and AI SDR pricing lists the plans.
Cost per meeting is where the spread opens up. Belkins' 2025 data, updated June 2026, shows over 1,200 appointments from 7.5 million emails, about 0.16 booked meetings per 1,000 emails. At that rate a plan sending 5,000 emails a month books 0.8 meetings, so a $149 fee is about $186 per booked meeting (our arithmetic, plan fee only). If your rate were ten times Belkins', 1.6 per 1,000, the same plan books 8 meetings and the fee works out near $19 each. Nobody has published a neutral figure for which rate to expect, so run a small test first. Bridge Group's 2025 survey saw "AI SDRs" appear as a separate category for the first time, at 1% of respondents, which tells you how little operating data exists yet.
On published numbers, in-house costs the most per held meeting at about $1,100 to $2,000. Outsourced meetings are quoted at $150 to $600, and AI plan fees work out to roughly $19 to $190 per booked meeting before data and review time. The outsourced and AI figures mostly count booked meetings, so they understate the cost of a held one.
| Route | Unit cost (meeting basis) | Main risk |
|---|---|---|
| In-house SDR | $1,110 to $2,043 per held meeting (our model) | You carry ramp, attrition and management time |
| Outsourced, pay per meeting | $150 to $600 per meeting (Cleverly); held versions $150 to $400 | Meeting quality and the no-show gap |
| AI plan | About $19 to $186 per booked meeting, plan fee only (our arithmetic on Belkins' rate) | The booking rate is unproven for your market; data and domains cost extra |
Our view: don't hire an SDR until you've proven what a booked meeting is worth and the in-house cost per held meeting sits well under that number. Use the AI SDR ROI calculator to set the ceiling, and read how many meetings to expect before you set a target. If you want to see the AI route in practice, start a free trial (750 emails, no card).
Check who published it, which year the underlying data covers and which lines are in the total. Many pages quote Bridge Group's 2024 report, which had 14 to 17 month tenure in one retelling, while the 2025 edition reports 1.9 years. Vendors also quote their own prices as the benchmark. Three questions catch most problems:
We found no Reddit or community thread with cost data we could verify, so the practitioner side here rests on the Bridge Group survey. Sample and region matter too: 78% of its respondents are North American, and 83% are B2B SaaS, so a services business or a UK team will differ.
Belkins reviews from Clutch, Trustpilot and TrustRadius, its four published prices, cost per held meeting maths, and who should skip it. Checked Nov 2026.
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