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What does an SDR really cost?

The salary is the small part. See the fully-loaded annual cost of an in-house SDR — base, employer on-costs, tooling, management, ramp, and attrition — for the US, UK, and UAE. Get the true monthly cost and the effective cost per booked meeting.

TL;DR

An SDR's salary is only the headline. The fully-loaded cost — employer on-costs, tooling and data, and a share of management and enablement — typically runs 1.4–1.8× the base salary (a ~$60k US base SDR → roughly $85k–$105k; a ~£32k UK base → near £45k–£55k). Add the lost productivity of a multi-month ramp and the annualized cost of attrition and the true cost climbs toward ~2× base (~$120k–$133k in the US). This calculator shows both — from your own inputs.

This is the fixed overhead an in-house SDR carries before a single meeting is booked — paid whether or not the pipeline shows up. Division50's done-for-you model turns that fixed cost into a variable, quota-based program: senior operators, no ramp, no attrition risk, no tooling spend. Every default below is an editable market estimate — adjust them to your reality, and nothing you type leaves your browser.

Defaults are typical editable estimates for the United States market — adjust every field to your own numbers.

How many in-house SDRs you're costing.
Typical estimate — adjust to your market.
Payroll tax, benefits, insurance.
CRM seat, dialer, data/enrichment, email tools.
Manager time, coaching, QA — on loaded comp.
Months paid before the rep produces fully.
SDR turnover is high — recruit + re-ramp costs add up.
Enter to get effective cost per booked meeting.
SDR Cost Calculator → Division50

That's a lot of fixed cost. Make it variable.

A calculator shows the overhead — Division50 removes it. Our done-for-you SDR model turns that fixed in-house cost into a variable, quota-based program: senior operators booking qualified meetings on your calendar, with no recruiting, ramp, attrition risk, or tooling spend on your side. Bring your numbers to a call and we'll quote against your real targets.

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How the math works — every component, shown transparently

The fully-loaded annual cost per SDR is the sum of six components. Base salary is your input. Employer on-costs= base × on-costs % (payroll tax, benefits, insurance — and in the UAE, end-of-service gratuity, visa, and medical). We treat the sum of these two as “loaded comp.” Tooling & data is a flat per-SDR-per-year figure (CRM seat, dialer, data/enrichment, email tools).

Management & enablement overhead = loaded comp × management % (manager time, coaching, QA spread across the rep). Ramp cost = (ramp months ÷ 12) × loaded comp — the salary you pay during the months before the rep is fully productive, booked as lost-productivity cost in year one. Attrition cost = annual attrition rate × (≈ 0.5 × loaded comp) — replacing one SDR (recruit + onboard + re-ramp) costs about half a fully-loaded base, weighted by how often it happens. So a 35% attrition rate adds roughly 0.175 × loaded comp of annualized churn drag per seat.

Total team cost multiplies the per-SDR figure by your headcount; true monthly cost divides the per-SDR annual by 12. If you enter meetings booked per SDR per month, the effective cost per booked meeting= fully-loaded annual cost ÷ (meetings/month × 12). The stacked bar shows each component's share so the hidden cost — everything beyond the base salary — is visible at a glance.

Region defaults (US ~$60k base / ~25% on-costs, UK ~£32k / ~18%, UAE ~AED 120k / ~12%, plus ~$4,800-equivalent tooling) are conservative, directional market estimates — not measured figures or a Division50 quote. Every field is editable; adjust them to your market. This calculator runs entirely in your browser and stores nothing you type; the optional email step only sends an address if you ask for the breakdown.

Frequently asked questions

How much does an SDR really cost?
Far more than the salary line. An in-house sales development rep carries base salary plus a stack of fixed overheads: employer on-costs (payroll tax, benefits, insurance), tooling and data (CRM seat, dialer, enrichment, email tools), a share of management and enablement time (coaching, QA, the manager who runs the team), the lost productivity of a multi-month ramp, and the annualized cost of attrition — recruiting and re-ramping a replacement. The fully-loaded cost — on-costs, tooling, and a share of management — is typically 1.4–1.8× the base salary: in the US a ~$60k base SDR runs roughly $85k–$105k, in the UK a ~£32k base lands near £45k–£55k. Once you add the lost productivity of ramp and the annualized cost of attrition, the true cost climbs toward ~2× base. This calculator builds both numbers from your own inputs so you see the real figure, not just the offer letter.
What's the fully-loaded cost of an SDR?
Fully-loaded cost (the figure usually quoted, ~1.4–1.8× base) = base salary + employer on-costs + tooling & data + management & enablement overhead. The true first-year cost adds amortized ramp and amortized attrition on top, pushing the number toward ~2× base. On-costs run roughly 12–25% of base depending on country. Tooling and data for a single SDR (CRM, dialer, lead data, email/sequencing) commonly runs the equivalent of $3,500–$6,000 a year. Management and enablement overhead — the manager's time, coaching, and QA spread across the rep — adds another ~20%. Ramp adds the salary you pay during the months before the rep is fully productive, and attrition adds the annualized cost of replacing reps who leave. Together these turn the headline salary into a substantially larger fixed commitment, which is exactly what this tool quantifies and breaks down.
Is it cheaper to outsource SDRs than to hire in-house?
It depends on your targets, geography, and how long it takes you to ramp and retain reps — which is precisely why we don't quote a number on this page. What the calculator does show honestly is the fixed overhead an in-house SDR carries before a single meeting is booked: salary, on-costs, tooling, management, ramp, and attrition, paid whether or not pipeline shows up. A done-for-you, quota-based program turns that fixed cost into a variable one tied to output — no recruiting, onboarding, management, tooling spend, or attrition risk on your side. Whether that's cheaper for you specifically is a question worth pressure-testing against your real numbers on a call.
What's a typical SDR base salary in the US, UK, and UAE?
As an editable starting estimate: in the United States a typical SDR base salary is around $60,000 (often $50k–$70k before commission, higher in major tech hubs); in the United Kingdom it's around £32,000 (commonly £28k–£40k); and in the UAE/GCC it's around AED 120,000 per year. These are directional market estimates, not measured figures — real comp shifts with seniority, location, industry, and the base-vs-commission split. The calculator pre-fills these by region so you have a sane starting point, then lets you override every field to match your actual market.
Why is SDR attrition so expensive?
SDR roles have notoriously high turnover — annual attrition of 30–40% is common because the work is demanding, early-career, and a stepping-stone to AE roles. Every departure restarts an expensive cycle: recruiting and interviewing, onboarding, and a multi-month re-ramp during which you pay full salary for a fraction of full output. A reasonable benchmark for the cost of replacing one SDR is roughly half their fully-loaded base once you account for hiring effort and lost productivity. Weighted by a 35% annual attrition rate, that churn drag quietly adds thousands per seat per year on top of salary — a cost most teams never put on the spreadsheet. This calculator makes it visible.
What's a good cost per booked meeting?
There's no universal number — it scales with deal size, market, and how senior the meeting needs to be — but the way to judge it is to compare it against the value of a meeting in your pipeline. If you enter meetings booked per SDR per month, the calculator divides the fully-loaded annual cost by annual meetings to give an effective cost per booked meeting. For many B2B teams that lands somewhere in the low hundreds to over a thousand per qualified meeting; the right question isn't the absolute figure but whether each meeting reliably produces enough pipeline and revenue to justify it. A high cost per meeting usually points to a ramp, targeting, or productivity problem — not just a salary one.
Is this SDR cost calculator free?
Yes — completely free, no signup required. Everything runs in your browser; the numbers you type never leave your device. The only optional step is entering an email if you want the full cost breakdown and benchmark ranges sent to you. Every default is a clearly-labelled, editable market estimate — adjust them to your reality. Want a human to model your real SDR economics and quote a done-for-you program against your targets? Book a free strategy call.