Cost Calculator
If you are weighing whether to hire a sales development rep or outsource the work, the salary on the offer letter is the wrong number to compare against. This shows the real first-year cost once benefits, tooling, ramp time, and your own management hours are counted, so you can compare like for like.
Who it is for
Founders and operators at B2B service firms deciding between hiring an SDR, hiring a fractional one, or outsourcing outbound to a managed service.
What it tells you
The true fully-loaded first-year cost of one in-house SDR, so you can hold it against the cost of a done-for-you alternative on equal terms.
Fully-loaded first-year cost
$117,600
versus a base salary of $60,000. The difference is what the offer letter does not show.
In plain terms: at these numbers, one in-house SDR really costs you about $117,600 in year one, roughly 2.0x the base salary. That is the figure to compare a managed, done-for-you alternative against, not the salary alone.
| Base salary | $60,000 |
| Benefits & overhead | $16,800 |
| Tooling (annual) | $6,000 |
| Your management time (annual) | $15,600 |
| Ramp drag (paid, not yet productive) | $19,200 |
| True first-year cost | $117,600 |
A done-for-you operator carries its own tooling, sending infrastructure, and ramp, and it does not require management hours from you. Whether it costs less than the number above depends on your situation. The honest comparison, and when each model is the right call, is laid out on the outbound models page.
Assumptions & sources
The math is your inputs run through standard fully-loaded-cost arithmetic. The starting defaults are anchored to 2025 industry data, cited below. Adjust any of them to your own reality. Nothing you enter is stored unless you submit your email.
Base salary default ($60k) and fully-loaded range
US SDR base salary clusters at $55k-$60k; fully-loaded cost runs $110k-$160k once benefits, tooling, and management are included. RepVue / Martal 2025 SDR salary data
Benefits + overhead default (28%)
Fully-loaded models add roughly 25-30% over base for benefits, payroll taxes, and overhead. SalesHive, The True Cost of an SDR
Ramp time default (3 months)
Average SDR ramp to productivity is about 3.1-3.2 months; you pay salary and benefits before any pipeline appears. SalesHive / Martal 2025