The Headline Number, and Where It Actually Comes From
The figure that circulates most in SaaS hiring conversations is $98,000 to $173,000 a year for a fully loaded SDR. That number is attributed to Bridge Group's 2025 SDR Metrics and Compensation Report, but the primary report sits behind a lead-capture form, so what most founders actually read is a secondary citation of it, via aggregators like martal.ca and salesso.com. That doesn't make the range wrong, Bridge Group is the standard-setting research house in this category, but it means you're reading a number about a number, and it's worth treating the specific dollar figure as an industry estimate rather than a fact you can plug straight into a spreadsheet.
What Sits Inside a Base-Plus-Variable Comp Package
The more commonly cited base comp figure for an SMB or mid-market SDR is roughly $55,000 base plus $30,000 variable, landing around $80,000 to $85,000 OTE, per visdum.com's 2026 salary guide. That OTE is the floor, not the ceiling, of what the role actually costs. Recruiting time, onboarding, a manager's attention during the first several months, and the tooling a rep needs to do the job all sit on top of the comp number, which is part of why the fully loaded range runs so much wider than the base salary alone.
What Agencies Actually Charge, When They Publish It
Almost nobody in the outsourced-SDR category publishes real pricing. CIENCE is the exception: its own pricing page lists a $5,000 one-time GTM System Setup, a $2,000 monthly strategic team fee, a $499 monthly platform license covering 75,000 credits, and an optional SDR marketplace add-on running $1,500 to $5,500 a month depending on tier and geography, on top of a $1,000 one-time SDR onboarding fee. AiSDR, an AI-SDR tool rather than a staffed agency, publishes its own tier starting at $900 a month for 1,200 messages, billed quarterly, scaling past $2,500 a month. Both are real, checkable numbers in a category where most competitors hide behind a book-a-call button.
What a Pay-Per-Meeting Model Costs Instead
VA Horizon runs SaaS appointment setting at a flat $350 to $600 per booked, double-confirmed demo, with a $300 one-time setup and no monthly retainer behind it. Human + AI SDRs run the SMS conversations that book each demo, and a meeting only bills if it was held and matched your stated criteria, so the number you're comparing isn't a headcount cost, it's a per-result price with no ramp period, no OTE risk, and no turnover to replace.
Two Numbers, Two Different Questions
Cost-per-SQL and cost-per-MQL benchmarks help frame what a meeting is worth once it happens. Directive Consulting's 2024 data, as reported by The Starr Conspiracy's 2025 benchmark page, puts median cost-per-SQL at $762 across B2B SaaS and median cost-per-MQL at $198, with cost-per-closed-won-deal at $11,640 from marketing-sourced pipeline. Held against those figures, a $350 to $600 demo that converts into pipeline is competitive with what companies already spend to generate a qualified lead through other channels, before a single meeting is even booked.
How to Run This Math for Your Own Team
Take the OTE range that fits your market ($80,000 to $85,000 is the commonly cited floor), divide by twelve for a monthly figure, and compare it against how many demos a pay-per-meeting engine would need to book at $350 to $600 each to equal that spend. If the answer is a number smaller than what one rep could realistically produce once fully ramped, hiring may pencil out. If it's a number you'd hit in the first month or two, a per-meeting model is very likely cheaper before you even account for ramp time or turnover risk, both covered in the two guides linked below.
What this means for you
- The widely quoted $98,000 to $173,000 fully loaded SDR figure traces back to Bridge Group's 2025 report through secondary citations, since the primary report is gated. Treat it as an industry estimate.
- Only CIENCE among researched agencies publishes real dollar pricing on its own site: a $5,000 setup, $2,000 a month, $499 a month platform, plus an SDR marketplace add-on.
- VA Horizon's SaaS rate is $350 to $600 per held, double-confirmed demo with a $300 setup and no retainer, a per-result price rather than a headcount cost.
Sources
The external data in this guide draws on the sources below. Figures described in the text as estimates or industry triangulations are directional and are not attributed to a single dataset.
- martal.ca, SDR salary and compensation benchmarks (cites Bridge Group 2025)
- salesso.com, SDR compensation statistics
- visdum.com, 2026 SDR salary guide
- CIENCE, published pricing page
- G2, AiSDR pricing
- The Starr Conspiracy, B2B lead generation platform benchmarks 2025