Most inbound SDR cost conversations start and end with base salary, which is how teams end up surprised. The base is barely half of the employer's real number, and the real number buys 40 hours a week of coverage for a queue that fills around the clock.
What an inbound SDR earns
The US numbers first. Glassdoor's 2026 data puts the median SDR at roughly $57,000 base and $96,452 total pay including variable. The Bridge Group's B2B SaaS benchmark, the industry's standard reference, shows $55,000 average base and $80,000 OTE. In the UK, Glassdoor averages £39,677 base with around £9,400 in additional pay, and London runs about 7% above the national average.
Those are market rates for the people, and none of them are the cost of the function.
The fully loaded number
SalesHive maintains one of the few itemized public methodologies for the true employer cost of an SDR. The 2026 version, assuming a $65,000 base/OTE midpoint:
| Cost component | Basis | Annual |
|---|---|---|
| Base and variable pay | Market midpoint | $65,000 |
| Benefits and payroll taxes | ~25% loading | $16,250 |
| Sales tech and data | CRM seats, dialer, data subscriptions | $9,000 |
| Management overhead | 1 manager per ~8 reps, allocated | $18,000 |
| Recruiting and ramp | Amortized over ~16-month tenure | $20,250 |
| Turnover allowance | 35 to 40% annual attrition | $14,000 |
| Total | Range $110,000 to $175,000 | ~$142,500 |
One vendor's methodology, but the components are auditable and the 1.7 to 2.5x multiple over base matches standard HR loading conventions. Use your own inputs; the shape of the answer survives.
The three costs nobody budgets
Ramp. The Bridge Group has measured SDR ramp at 3.2 months on average since 2007, a figure that has barely moved. You pay full freight from day one and get full productivity from month four.
Tenure. Average SDR tenure is 1.4 years. Subtract the ramp and you get roughly a year of full productivity per hire, then the cycle restarts: recruiter fees, manager time, pipeline wobble during the gap.
Attrition. The Bridge Group's longitudinal norm is 40 to 50% annual SDR attrition in normal markets. It is not a possibility to insure against; at steady state it is a line item. Every departure also takes its accumulated judgment about your ICP with it.
And underneath all three sits the structural one: the working week. Inbound arrives 168 hours a week. One SDR covers about 40, minus meetings, training, and lunch. The audits in our metrics breakdown show what happens in the other 128 hours: mostly, silence.
The AI alternative, honestly
Gartner's 2025 research note on AI SDR agents marked the category shift: prebuilt agents are now "commercially available and viable" for repetitive inbound selling tasks at scale, against a North American human SDR cost Gartner puts around $75,000 a year before loading. Gartner's assertion is that the agents deliver comparable output on those tasks at a fraction of the cost; treat that as their claim rather than an audited universal, and test it against your own funnel.
The honest comparison has three parts. First, coverage: an AI inbound SDR answers in seconds, on web form, email, chat, and phone, at 3am on a Sunday, and never resigns mid-ramp. Second, price: most vendors quote on request; LUPO publishes its range, $3,000 to $15,000 a month depending on volume and channels, on the pricing page. Third, the limit: the AI does not attend the meeting. It qualifies, routes, and books; your reps still run the conversations that close. If someone sells you full inbound sales automation with no humans anywhere, walk.
The comparison that holds up is cost per qualified meeting: what you spend on inbound handling divided by what lands on calendars. Run it for your current function, then run it for the AI option. The ROI page has the working model.
Common questions
How much does an inbound SDR cost fully loaded?
Roughly $110,000 to $175,000 a year in the US, against a base around $55,000 to $65,000, once benefits, tools, management, recruiting, ramp, and turnover are counted.
How much does an AI inbound SDR cost?
Most vendors will not say without a sales cycle. LUPO's published range is $3,000 to $15,000 a month depending on volume and channels.
Is an AI inbound SDR cheaper than hiring?
Usually per qualified meeting, which is the comparison that matters. It is not a replacement for the people who close; it is the layer that makes sure they only meet real buyers.