What a domestic SDR actually costs you

Most companies budget an SDR at salary plus commission. That is the smallest part of the number.

Once you include benefits, management time, recruiting, tools, and turnover, companies commonly spend $80,000 to $120,000 per year per U.S. SDR. Plenty of those teams still do not generate enough qualified pipeline to justify the spend.

The side by side

• Fully loaded annual cost: about $84K domestic, about $40K nearshore with us.
• Cost savings: 40 to 60%.
• Meetings per month: 5 domestic, 10 nearshore.
• Net contribution per rep: negative $51K domestic, positive $32K nearshore.
• Time to ramp: about three months domestic, about three weeks with us.

Net swing per rep: $83K.

One client took that model across 45 roles: $2.7M in annualized savings and $650K in new profit.

Why ramp time is the hidden cost

A three month ramp is a quarter of salary spent before the first consistent meeting lands. Multiply that by turnover and you are paying for ramp over and over. Compress ramp to three weeks and the same headcount produces two more productive months a year.

That is why onboarding is structured, not improvised: systems provisioned before day one, three days of mindset and tactical training, heavy time on the script, live and dialing by the end of it.

Read the number the right way

Cost is not the reason to do this. It is the supporting fact.

If a cheaper rep books fewer meetings and represents your brand poorly on the first call a prospect ever gets from you, you did not save anything. The reason the economics work here is that the quality and management layer is included: recruiting, onboarding, coaching, KPI tracking, fractional leadership, payroll and HR burden, and replacement if someone is not working out.

Run your own version of this math before you hire anyone, domestic or nearshore. If it does not pencil out, that is an answer too.