An outsourced SDR team for SaaS, without the hire, the ramp, or the AI-SDR trust gap.
VA Horizon replaces an in-house SDR hire, or a fully automated 'AI SDR' tool, with Human + AI SDRs who run real SMS conversations with your prospects, for a $300 one-time setup plus $350 to $600 per held meeting. You get qualified, double-confirmed demos without a salary, a multi-month ramp, or the turnover risk that comes with hiring your own SDR.
Pay per booked meeting. No retainer.
Hiring your first SaaS SDR is a bigger bet than the job post makes it look.
None of the figures below are VA Horizon's numbers. They are industry estimates from secondary sources tracking the SDR labor market, worth knowing before you write a job description.
The fully-loaded cost is six figures before a meeting is booked
Secondary sources tracking Bridge Group's 2025 compensation research put a fully-loaded SDR at roughly $98,000 to $173,000 a year once salary, variable pay, tools, and management overhead are counted. Treat it as an industry estimate, not a quote for any specific hire, but it is the right order of magnitude to plan against.
Ramp time is getting longer, not shorter
The same research chain estimates SDR ramp time rose from about 4.3 months in 2020 to 5.7 months in 2025, a roughly 32 percent increase. During that stretch, a new SDR is typically producing at a fraction of full quota while you are already paying full salary.
Turnover resets the clock
SDR turnover is estimated at around 34 percent annually, roughly three times the rate of other industries, with median tenure landing around 14 to 18 months. Every SDR who leaves during or shortly after ramp takes months of pipeline knowledge with them.
Software is the hardest segment to hit quota in
RepVue-sourced data cited by industry trackers puts SDR quota attainment at 41.2 percent for software specifically, the lowest of any segment measured, against 57.3 percent industry-wide. Even a fully ramped, retained SDR in SaaS is more likely than not to miss quota in a given period.
Human + AI SDRs, running the exact motion an in-house hire would.
Same job, different structure. No req to open, no desk to set up.
List built to your ICP
We source and qualify your prospect list to the firmographic and buying-stage criteria you set at kickoff, the same targeting work an in-house SDR would start with.
SMS conversation, run by a real person
Human + AI SDRs open a two-way text conversation with each prospect, checking ICP fit and interest against your written criteria. A trained VA is behind every conversation, not an unsupervised bot.
Double-confirmed booking
The prospect confirms once when they pick a time, and again as the demo approaches. Only meetings that clear both checkpoints land on your calendar.
Transcript ships with every meeting
Every held meeting arrives with the SMS transcript and confirmation log, so you can audit exactly how the conversation went, something a headcount hire never hands you.
Pay per held meeting. No salary, no benefits, no recruiter fee.
$300 one-time setup, then typically $350 to $600 per held meeting, exact rate quoted after a fit call.
The $300 setup covers your ICP definition, list build, and calendar integration. After that, $350 to $600 per held, double-confirmed meeting, exact rate set on a fit call. Compare that against an estimated $98,000 to $173,000 fully-loaded annual SDR cost, an estimated 5.7-month ramp, and roughly a one-in-three estimated chance the hire leaves within 18 months, and the per-meeting math changes fast.
Double-confirmed
Every meeting is confirmed twice before it counts toward billing: once when it is booked, once as it approaches.
Pay per held meeting
You pay when a qualified, double-confirmed meeting actually happens on your calendar.
No retainer
No monthly minimums and nothing owed between held meetings.
Small one-time setup
Covers your list build, campaign, and calendar integration, quoted on a fit call.
The same bar you would hold an in-house SDR to.
Written down before the first text goes out, not negotiated after a bad meeting.
ICP fit
Company size, industry, and technographic signals matching who you actually sell to.
Decision-maker or champion reached
The meeting is with someone who can evaluate or advocate for the purchase, not an inbox screener.
Active interest confirmed
A real, current reason to look at your category, checked live in the SMS conversation before a time is ever offered.
Budget or timeline context
Where it applies, the conversation surfaces enough context that your AE is not starting the call from zero.
Why this beats a hire, and beats a fully automated AI SDR tool.
The AI SDR category has real, documented trust problems at the top. VA Horizon is neither a hire nor a bot.
No hire, no ramp, no turnover risk
You are not carrying a salary, benefits, or a multi-month ramp period. If the arrangement is not working, you are not managing an exit, you are just stopping.
Not a black box
TechCrunch reported in March 2025 that 11x used company logos, including ZoomInfo's, that were not actual customers, and that ZoomInfo's own lawyers said 11x's product performed significantly worse than their SDR employees during a pilot. Every VA Horizon conversation is run by a real, trained VA, and you get the transcript to prove it.
The AI SDR category is not uniformly bad, and that is not our argument
AiSDR, for example, holds a strong G2 reputation (4.7 out of 5 across 76 reviews). Our differentiator is not that automated tools are bad. It is that a human runs every conversation here, AI supports the system behind them, and you can read exactly what was said before you are billed.
Double-confirmed, no-show never billed
Two checkpoints before a meeting counts toward billing, and a no-show is replaced free, not invoiced.
Outsourced SDR for SaaS, answered.
How much does an outsourced SDR cost for a SaaS company?
Is this an AI SDR?
How is this different from hiring my own SDR?
How is this different from a tool like 11x or Artisan?
Do you cold call prospects?
What if a prospect does not show up to the demo?
Skip the hire. See your rate this week.
Book a 15-minute call. We map your ICP, confirm your exact per-meeting rate inside the $350 to $600 range, and give you a launch date inside the week.
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