Ramp
Three months, on average, and that is the fastest reading Bridge Group has recorded since 2010. You pay full salary through every week of it, before a single conversation lands. A pilot is producing conversations in week two.
Hiring an SDR vs. paying per conversation.
Every founder asks it. Here is the arithmetic, run on published industry benchmarks rather than on my own numbers.
A fully loaded in-house SDR seat costs $142,800 a year and produces about 1,030 quality conversations at the industry average, or roughly $138 per conversation. Cold Calling For You charges $100 per completed conversation, from week two, with no seat to fill and no ramp to pay for.
Start with numbers nobody here made up.
The Bridge Group has surveyed the sales development role every two years since 2007. This is the 2025 round: 351 B2B companies, $47M median revenue, $50K median deal size. Their averages, not mine.
Median SDR on-target earnings
$80K
Ramp to full productivity, in months
3.0
Median annual turnover
40%
Quality conversations, per rep per day
4.1
Reps who actually hit quota
60%
Source: 2025 SDR Metrics Report, The Bridge Group, Inc. A quality conversation is defined there as a connect or response where at least one piece of qualifying or disqualifying information is learned. CCFY has no affiliation with The Bridge Group.
What the seat costs, one line at a time.
Most founders budget the first five lines and stop. The sixth is the one that gets forgotten, so it is listed separately rather than folded into a single scary number.
| On-target earnings, median SDR $55K base plus $25K variable | $80,000 |
|---|---|
| Benefits and payroll tax About 25% on top of cash compensation | $20,000 |
| Tools and licences Dialer, contact data, sales engagement seat | $6,000 |
| Hiring Sourcing, interviewing, and the seat sitting empty while you look | $14,000 |
| The figure most founders budget | $120,000 |
| Management A first-line leader at $146,000, spread across the 6.4 reps one leader typically covers. With a single rep, that leader is you | $22,800 |
| Fully loaded, per year | $142,800 |
| Quality conversations per year, at full productivity 4.1 per day, 21 working days, 12 months | ~1,030 |
|---|---|
| Quality conversations in year one After the average three-month ramp, which you pay for in full | ~900 |
| In-house, per conversation, at full productivity | ~$138 |
| In-house, per conversation, year one | ~$158 |
| CCFY, per conversation, from week two Recorded, transcribed, and reviewed by you before it is invoiced | $100 |
Strip management back out and the in-house figure is roughly $116 per conversation, which is the number CCFY has always shown on this site. It is included above because the work does not disappear when there is nobody to delegate it to. Volume assumes 4.1 quality conversations per rep per day at 21 working days per month. What those conversations produced across two roles.
The cost is the easy part. The risk is not.
Everything above assumes you hire an average rep who ramps on schedule and stays. Four things sit underneath that assumption, and none of them show up on a budget line.
Turnover
Median annual turnover is 40%, and the middle half of companies sit between 21% and 57%. There is a real chance you run the hiring motion twice inside twelve months and start the ramp clock over the second time.
Attainment
60% of reps hit quota, the lowest attainment Bridge Group has ever reported. Every figure in the ledger describes an average rep. Hiring one is a bet that your first attempt lands at or above that average.
Your calendar
One first-line leader covers 6.4 reps. With one rep, that leader is you: coaching, call reviews, list hygiene, script rewrites, and the hiring motion again when it ends. That is the cost that never appears on the invoice.
The honest case
There is a version of this where you should hire, and I will tell you so.
A rep who ramps on schedule, clears quota, and stays two years is cheaper per conversation than any agency on the market. The market knowledge compounds inside your company instead of mine, they can pick up the phone the same afternoon you change the pitch, and by year two the ledger above stops being close. If you already know outbound works for your offer and your list, hire. That is the right answer and it is not the one I get paid for.
The problem is the order of operations. You find out which kind of rep you hired in month six, after roughly $70,000 has gone out the door and a quarter of the year is spent. A paid pilot answers the same question in thirty days for about the price of one month of that salary, and it answers it with recordings rather than with a dashboard.
So the sequence I actually recommend is not one or the other. Prove the channel first. Keep the list, the script, the objection map, and the playbook that came out of it. All of that is yours either way. Then hire against a motion that is already known to work, instead of asking someone you met three weeks ago to invent one.
FAQs
AHow much does an in-house SDR cost per conversation?+−
About $116 per quality conversation on a $120,000 fully-burdened seat, or about $138 once a share of first-line management is counted. In year one, after the average three-month ramp, it rises to roughly $158. Those figures assume the rep stays, ramps on schedule, and performs at the industry average of 4.1 quality conversations per day.
BIs an outsourced agency always cheaper than hiring?+−
No. A rep who ramps, stays two or more years, and clears quota is cheaper per conversation than any agency, and the market knowledge stays inside your company. The honest question is not which is cheaper in the best case. It is whether you already know outbound works for your offer and your list. If you do not, a hire is a six-figure way to find out and a pilot is a one-month way.
CCan I run both an agency and an in-house SDR?+−
Yes, and that is usually the endgame. The common sequence is to prove the channel with a paid pilot, keep the script, list, objection map and playbook that came out of it, then hire against a motion that is already known to work rather than asking a new hire to invent one.
DHow long before I know whether outbound works?+−
About thirty days, and the evidence is the transcripts rather than a dashboard. Roughly 10% of completed conversations convert to meetings. Well below that, and the recordings will show whether the problem is the offer, the list, or the market. With a hire, the same answer arrives in month six.
EWhy not use cold email or an AI SDR instead?+−
Email fills inboxes, it does not have conversations, and it cannot tell you why a buyer said no. You might warm domains for six months to learn what five live conversations tell you today. Run them together if you can. The phone is what validates fastest, and it is the only channel that produces a recording you can go back and listen to.
FWhat exactly am I buying at $100 a conversation?+−
A live, two-way phone conversation with a decision-maker who matches the ICP I agreed with you in writing, ending in a recorded outcome, and reviewed by you before it appears on an invoice. The billable and non-billable definitions are published in full.
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