Four markets · free · no signup · sourced benchmarks

What an SDR costs, country by country

Employer on-costs across these four markets are not the same charge at different rates. They are different charges entirely — and the shape of the bill changes what a cheap hire even means.

TL;DR

Employer on-costs run about 22% in the US, 16% in the UK, 10% in Saudi Arabia and 7% in the UAE — but they fund completely different things. The US number is mostly the employer health premium nobody else pays. The UK number is almost all employer National Insurance at 15% above a £5,000 threshold. The Gulf charges no payroll tax on expatriates at all, and bills you instead through gratuity accrual, labour levies and the visa cycle.

The counter-intuitive one is Saudi Arabia, where the flat expatriate levy and proportional GOSI cross at about SAR 145,000. Below that — where most SDR packages sit — a Saudi national is the cheaper hire.

MarketEmployer on-costsWhat drives itSalary benchmark
United States22%on top of payFICA (Social Security + Medicare) · Federal unemployment (FUTA) · Employer share of health premium · Employer 401(k) match$55,000 baseBridge Group 2025 SDR Metrics Report (n=351); RepVue (8,462 verified salaries)
United Kingdom16%on top of payEmployer National Insurance · Auto-enrolment pension (employer minimum)£41,527 baseRepVue United Kingdom, August 2026 — median base and median OTE
United Arab Emirates7%on top of payEnd-of-service gratuity accrual · Mandatory health insurance · Visa, work permit, Emirates ID and medical, annualisedNo credible published median — we say so rather than invent one
Saudi Arabia10%on top of payGOSI — occupational hazards · Expatriate labour levy · Work permit service fee · End-of-service award accrualNo credible published median — we say so rather than invent one

Percentages are computed live from the same dataset each calculator uses, at each market's starting salary. Change the salary on any calculator and the percentage moves — the Gulf figures in particular are sensitive to it, because flat charges weigh more on lower pay.

Run your own numbers

United StatesBenefits are a third of total compensationOpen the United States calculator →22% employer on-costs · USDUnited KingdomEmployment Allowance is not a per-hire discountOpen the United Kingdom calculator →16% employer on-costs · GBPUnited Arab EmiratesThere is no payroll tax on expatriate staffOpen the United Arab Emirates calculator →7% employer on-costs · AEDSaudi ArabiaSaudisation is the real constraint, not the rateOpen the Saudi Arabia calculator →10% employer on-costs · SAR
SDR Cost Calculator · by country → Division50

One rate per market, because the work is different in each.

$3,500–$5,500/mo depending on market; $5,500/mo ($16,500/quarter) for a US-market dedicated SDR. We have run campaigns in every market on this page — the US, the UK, the UAE and Saudi Arabia, plus Canada, Australia, South Africa and Mexico. Bring your numbers and we'll pressure-test them against the market you actually sell into.

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What these numbers do and do not cover

Each figure is a statutory floor: the employer contributions, accruals and government fees you cannot avoid, built from primary sources — HMRC and The Pensions Regulator for the UK, IRS, KFF and BLS for the US, UAE Federal Decree-Law 33 of 2021 for the Emirates, and the GOSI schedule with the Ministry of Human Resources levy tables for Saudi Arabia.

They exclude tooling, data, recruitment, onboarding and management overhead, all of which are real and all of which push the number up. They also exclude ramp and attrition from the headline, though each calculator lets you price them in — roughly three months to productivity and 40% annual attrition, which together mean a rep-year buys about nine productive months.

Two of these four markets have no salary benchmark we are willing to publish. For the UAE the only public figure we found rests on five self-reported salaries; for Saudi Arabia the public aggregators are visibly broken on this role, and the regional guides that would settle it are gated. Saying so is more useful than filling the gap with a number that would describe nobody.

Verified 5 August 2026; statutory rates move and we re-verify quarterly. The cross-market write-up is in What an SDR actually costs in 2026. If you find a figure that has changed, tell us and we'll correct it.

Frequently asked questions

Which country is cheapest to hire an SDR in?
On employer on-costs alone the Gulf wins comfortably: the UAE adds about 7% on top of pay and Saudi Arabia about 10%, against roughly 16% in the UK and 22% in the US. But on-cost percentage is the wrong question on its own, because it says nothing about the package you have to pay to attract someone who can sell into your market in your buyers' language and time zone. The structural saving in the Gulf is the absence of payroll tax, not cheap labour.
Why do employer costs differ so much between these markets?
Because they are funding different things. US employers fund health insurance — $7,885 a year for single cover — which nobody else does, and that alone is most of the gap. The UK funds a state system through employer National Insurance at 15% of everything above a £5,000 threshold, with no upper limit. The UAE levies no payroll tax on expatriates at all, so its cost is an end-of-service gratuity liability plus mandatory medical cover and the visa cycle. Saudi Arabia charges expatriates 2% GOSI plus a flat annual labour levy, and nationals 11.75% GOSI with no levy. These are not the same line item at different rates; they are different line items.
Is an offshore SDR really cheaper once everything is counted?
Sometimes, and by less than the headline suggests. Employer on-costs are only one input — ramp is about three months and annual attrition around 40% wherever the seat sits, so roughly a quarter of the first year produces nothing and there is a four-in-ten chance of repeating that inside twelve months. Then there is the part a cost model cannot price: whether the rep can actually hold a conversation with your buyer in their time zone. Separate capability from geography. If a vendor's only lever is a cheaper country, ask what changed about the work.
Where does Division50 place SDRs?
We price by the market the SDR sells into rather than by where they sit, which is why our rate is a range: $3,500–$5,500 per month, $5,500 for a US-market dedicated SDR, billed quarterly. That covers the rep, the management, the tooling and the data. The reason we can quote different rates for different markets honestly is that we have run campaigns in all of them — the US, the UK, Canada, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Australia, South Africa and Mexico.