Outsourced SDR vs In-House SDR vs AI Outbound: Costs

Short answer: Hire SDRs in-house when outbound is core to how you win and you can manage reps for years. Outsource when you need meetings within a month and can name someone on your team to own the agency. Use AI-run outbound with human review when your bottleneck is research and writing and your own sellers can take the calls. On published prices, one US-based outsourced SDR costs about the same per year as an in-house SDR’s pay, before the in-house benefits, tools and management.

A note on the sources. When we checked Google for “outsourced sdr” in October 2026, the top results were written by outsourced SDR agencies and staffing firms, and none of the top five published a price. We used three agencies’ own pricing pages, the Bridge Group’s 2025 SDR research for in-house costs, and our own published prices for the AI option.

The three models at a glance

	In-house SDR	Outsourced SDR agency	AI-run outbound with human review
Who does the work	Your hires, your manager	The agency’s reps and managers	AI researches and drafts; a person approves each message; your sellers take replies
Cost	$80,000 median OTE per SDR, plus benefits, tools and management (Bridge Group 2025)	Example published list: about $7,000 a month for one US SDR, plus bonus and setup (CIENCE pricing)	Example: Growigami outbound from $1,999 a month for 500 target accounts researched a month
Time to first activity	3.0-month average ramp (Bridge Group)	Setup quoted in weeks	Setup quoted in weeks
Phone calls	Yes	Yes	No, your sellers call
Control over message and brand	Full	Shared, through reviews and reporting	Full, every message is approved before sending
What happens when people leave	40% median annual attrition (Bridge Group)	The agency replaces the rep	Less exposure: the research and drafts are not held by one rep
Commitment	Employment	Varies: month to month, or a 3 to 4 month pilot	Growigami: 3-month minimum, then month to month

What does an in-house SDR cost?

The Bridge Group’s 2025 report on sales development, based on 351 B2B companies, gives the figures that matter for this decision:

• Pay: median on-target earnings of $80,000, unchanged since 2022, split about $55,000 base and $25,000 variable.
• Ramp: 3.0 months on average before a new SDR is productive, the lowest since 2010.
• Attrition: 40% median annual attrition, with the middle half of companies between 21% and 57%.
• Quota: 60% of SDRs at quota, the lowest in the study’s history.
• Output: $3.78 million of raw pipeline per SDR per year (pipeline created, not revenue closed).
• Ratio: 1 SDR for every 2.4 account executives, consistent since 2018.

Salary is the visible part. Benefits, the sales engagement and data tools each rep needs, recruiting, and the manager who coaches and replaces them all add to it. With 40% attrition, a team of five should expect to rehire about two people a year, and every new hire spends three months ramping.

What does an outsourced SDR agency cost?

Most outsourced SDR firms quote on a sales call. Three publish enough on their own pricing pages to compare, as read in October 2026:

Agency	What its pricing page says
CIENCE	Campaign team $2,000 a month, platform $499 a month, SDRs from $1,750 (offshore), $2,500 (Europe) or $4,500 (US) per SDR per month, a bonus when an SDR reaches 60% or more of a meeting target, a one-time setup fee, month to month
SalesHive	One flat monthly fee covering the SDR team, a strategist, platform, data and tools; custom quoted; month to month with no setup fees
Martal	A 3 or 4 month pilot campaign, then a monthly subscription; one plan adds a sales commission

The CIENCE list is the only one with numbers, so here is what one year looks like on it, using only the published figures:

One year, one SDR	US SDR	Europe SDR	Offshore SDR
SDR fee	$4,500 x 12 = $54,000	$2,500 x 12 = $30,000	$1,750 x 12 = $21,000
Campaign team and platform	($2,000 + $499) x 12 = $29,988	$29,988	$29,988
Total before bonus and setup	$83,988	$59,988	$50,988

The team and platform fees are flat, so the cost per SDR falls as you add reps. CIENCE’s own example of five offshore SDRs comes to $11,249 a month before bonuses.

Two things the price does not show. First, how well agency reps learn your product depends on how much time your team puts into briefing and reviewing them. Second, the contract decides who owns the lists, the sending domains and the reply history if you leave. Ask for both in writing.

Where does AI-run outbound fit?

A third model has appeared since the Bridge Group first tracked “AI SDRs” as a category in 2025, when they showed up in 1% of responses. Software researches each account, finds a reason to reach out and drafts the email and LinkedIn messages. In the version we recommend, a person reviews every draft before it is sent, and replies go straight to your sellers. Our AI BDR guide covers what the software can and cannot do, and the legal and deliverability rules that make the review step necessary.

This model does not make phone calls and does not run discovery. It replaces the research and writing hours, which is where most of an SDR’s week goes. It works best when you already have someone who can take meetings, such as a founder, an account executive, or an in-house SDR who now spends their time on calls instead of lists.

	What it replaces	What it does not replace
AI-run outbound with review	Account research, contact research, first-touch drafts, follow-up drafts, reply sorting	Cold calls, discovery calls, quota ownership

Which model should you choose?

Choose in-house SDRs if:

• Outbound is how you win most deals, and you plan to run it for years.
• You have, or will hire, a manager who can coach and replace reps.
• Your product needs deep context that takes months to learn.
• You want the SDR seat to be a hiring path into account executive roles.

Choose an outsourced SDR agency if:

• You need meetings within a month and cannot wait three months for a hire to ramp.
• You are testing a new market, segment or country before hiring for it.
• Your sales cycle relies on cold calling, and you do not want to build a calling team.
• You can name one person on your side who reviews the agency’s messaging and meetings every week.

Choose AI-run outbound with human review if:

• Your bottleneck is research and writing, not calling.
• You have sellers, or a founder, with time to take meetings but not to prospect.
• Brand control matters, and you want to approve every message before it goes out.
• You want to test outbound at a lower monthly cost before committing to headcount.

Where Growigami fits

We run the third model. Our ABM and outbound service starts at $1,999 a month for 500 target accounts researched a month, plus $500 in the first month while we build it. Each week AI researches new accounts and drafts a message for each contact, our team reviews the drafts before anything is sent, and replies reach your sellers the same day. If you have SDRs, they take the calls and run the meetings; if you do not, replies go to whoever sells. We are not a calling agency, so if your motion depends on cold calls, an outsourced SDR firm or an in-house team is the better fit. For how we compare with one outsourced BDR firm, see Growigami vs DemandZen.