Founders ask us this every week: "Why would I pay you when I could just hire an SDR for $80K?"

The math is wrong. Not because the salary is wrong, but because three other costs get missed every time. Here is the honest comparison.

The hire's true cost

A junior SDR in Australia runs about $80K-$100K all-in by the time you factor in super, payroll tax, equipment, and tools. In the US it is $100K-$130K with benefits. UK is similar to AU but with NI on top.

That is just salary. Add:

• Recruiter fee (if you use one): 15-20% of salary. Add $12K-$24K.
• Tools they need to do the job: Apollo or ZoomInfo ($7K/year), Outreach or Salesloft ($2K-$4K), dialler ($1K), CRM seat ($1.5K). Add $11K-$13K.
• Management time: a sales leader's time. If your CSO spends 5 hours a week managing one SDR (briefing, coaching, reviewing calls, performance reviews), and that CSO costs $300K all-in, that is roughly $40K a year of management overhead. Most founders do not count this.

So a first SDR is closer to $145K-$190K all-in for the first year.

The hidden cost: ramp time

Most SDRs take 3-6 months to hit quota. During that period you are paying full salary for partial output.

If we assume 4 months at 50% output, that is roughly 2 months of full salary equivalent that produced nothing. Call it $14K-$22K in ramp loss.

You can compress ramp with strong onboarding and a clear ICP, but you cannot eliminate it. Even great hires take a month before they are productive.

The bigger hidden cost: turnover

SDR turnover in B2B is brutal. Industry data puts it at 25-35% in year one. Bridge Group's 2024 survey put SDR average tenure at 1.4 years.

If 30% of your hires leave in year one, every hire has a 30% chance of producing 8 months of work then leaving, costing you another full recruit + ramp cycle.

Expected cost of turnover in year one, factored across hires: ~$30K-$50K per hire.

Doing the math fairly

Cost	First SDR (year one)
Salary + payroll costs	$90K
Recruiter	$18K
Tools	$12K
Management overhead	$40K
Ramp loss	$18K
Turnover risk (30% probability x $40K)	$12K
Total expected cost	$190K

That is for one SDR. With one SDR you typically get 4-6 qualified meetings a month after they ramp - call it 50 meetings in year one accounting for ramp.

So: ~$3,800 per meeting, year one.

The outsourced math

DealFlare's full suite is $10K-$15K a month. Call it $150K a year.

Target: 10+ qualified meetings a month. Call it 120 meetings in year one. (No ramp loss - we start booking in week 2-3.)

That is ~$1,250 per meeting.

What's wrong with this comparison

The comparison is unfair on both sides if you stop here.

For hiring: a great SDR who stays 3 years is the cheapest possible meeting source. Year 2 the math flips dramatically - same $130K cost but 120+ meetings a year. By year 2, in-house is $1,100/meeting and dropping. By year 3, it is $900/meeting.

For outsourced: an outsourced SDR cannot run your full CS handoff, cannot attend internal sales meetings, cannot get hired up to AE. They book meetings and run outbound. Period.

When each model wins

Hire when:

• You need pipeline for 2+ years
• Your ICP is stable and well-defined
• You have an experienced sales leader to manage them
• You can absorb the ramp loss and turnover risk

Outsource when:

• You need pipeline now (next 90 days matter more than next 24 months)
• You are still validating ICP and need to iterate fast
• You do not have someone to manage a junior SDR
• You want to test "does outbound work for our business" before committing to hiring

Most early-stage companies should outsource for the first 12-18 months. Use that window to validate ICP, prove outbound works, build the playbook. Then make the hire with a known-good motion in hand.

That is the honest version of the math.