Why the usual comparison is wrong
Most companies put a monthly retainer next to an SDR's base salary, see a smaller number on the salary side, and decide hiring is cheaper. Base salary is roughly half of what an SDR costs.
The table below lists every cost line. The notes reflect what is typical in the UK market, so put your own figures against each one.
| Cost line | Usually counted? | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Base salary | Yes | The only line most calculations include |
| Commission / OTE | Sometimes | Paid on performance, so it rises with results |
| Employer NI and pension | Rarely | A fixed percentage on top of total earnings |
| Tools, data and dialler | Rarely | Per-seat costs that stay the same for a single hire |
| Recruitment | Rarely | Agency fee or internal time, spread over how long they stay |
| Ramp time | Almost never | Months of full cost for partial output |
| Management time | Almost never | Regular coaching from someone senior, or the hire plateaus |
| Staff turnover | Almost never | SDRs rarely stay long, so the cycle repeats |
The two costs most calculations miss
Ramp time
A new SDR is not productive on day one. They have to learn your product, your market and your objections, and make enough calls to handle a real conversation. Until then you pay the full cost for partial output. An outsourced SDR arrives matched and trained, and campaigns go live in week three.
Management
An SDR without regular coaching plateaus quickly, and the coaching has to come from someone who is good at it. If your sales leader cannot spend several hours a week listening to recordings and correcting technique, an in-house hire will underperform for reasons that have little to do with the person.
This is usually what decides it. Most companies can afford to hire an SDR. Far fewer have a manager with the time to make one succeed.
Side by side
| In-house SDR | Outsourced SDR | |
|---|---|---|
| Time to first meeting | Months, after hiring and ramp | Usually week three |
| Management burden | Yours, every day | Ours, with coaching three times a week |
| If it is not working | Performance process, then rehire | We replace the rep at our cost |
| Product knowledge over time | Deeper, since they work inside your business | Good, built from working only on your account |
| Cultural fit | Full | Partial, since they sit outside your team |
| Long-term asset | Yes, and they can move into an AE role | No, the capability stays with the partner |
| Market intelligence | Depends on your reporting | Included, with recordings, notes and conversion by role and region |
When we tell people to hire instead
We are not the right fit for everyone, and it saves both of us time to work that out on the first call.
Hire in-house if you already have a proven, written playbook, a sales manager with time to coach, and a market you understand well enough to brief precisely. With all three in place, an in-house SDR will outperform an outsourced one over two years, and can move into your AE team.
Outsource if you need pipeline before any of that exists, if the market is unproven and you want to test it before committing to a permanent hire, or if nobody has the hours to manage an SDR.
Outsource first, hire later
Many companies do both, in that order. They outsource first to find out which segments respond, which messages convert and what a good pipeline looks like. Then they hire against a playbook that has already worked in real conversations.
That way the first hire follows a process that already works, and does not have to figure out your market from scratch.