The first year, itemised
These are typical US figures for a first or second year SDR at a small B2B firm in 2026. Your market may sit higher or lower. The point is the shape: the salary is roughly half the real number.
| Line | Low | High | Assumption |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base salary | $55,000 | $70,000 | First or second year rep, US, non coastal to coastal |
| Variable, at target | $20,000 | $25,000 | Roughly 70/30 base to variable split |
| Benefits and payroll taxes | $15,000 | $22,000 | 20 to 25 percent of cash compensation |
| Tools | $6,000 | $12,000 | Sequencer, dialer, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, CRM seat |
| Data | $3,000 | $10,000 | Contact data, enrichment, intent signals |
| Recruiting | $4,000 | $15,000 | Job ads and time, or an agency fee at 15 to 20 percent |
| Management time | $8,000 | $20,000 | Two to four hours a week of a senior person's time, priced at their rate |
| Ramp | $12,000 | $25,000 | Three to six months at partial output, paid at full cost |
Total first year
Roughly $123,000 on the low end and $199,000 on the high end, for a rep whose base salary was $55,000 to $70,000. A planning number of $130,000 to $140,000 is reasonable for a firm that does the hiring well and gets a bit lucky.
That is before turnover. If the rep leaves at month fourteen, which is inside the typical tenure range, most of the recruiting, ramp and management cost is spent again on the replacement, and the account knowledge the first rep built leaves with them.
The costs that do not show up on the invoice
- The list. An SDR needs somebody to define who to call. At a firm without a sales leader, the founder builds the list, which means the founder is now doing prospecting research on top of everything else.
- The playbook. Sequences, talk tracks, objection handling and qualification criteria have to exist before the rep can use them. Writing them well is a senior task.
- The manager. An unmanaged SDR does not fail loudly. They drift to easy activity, the numbers look busy, and three months later nobody can say what the pipeline contribution was.
- The reputation. A new rep at high volume with a thin angle sends the first impression of your firm to several hundred companies a month. At an expert led firm, that impression is the product.
When the hire is still right
None of this argues against hiring SDRs in general. It argues against hiring one as the first sales investment at a firm that has never run outbound. The hire is right when a repeatable motion already exists and needs more hands, when there is a manager who will coach every week, and when the addressable market is large enough that a full time person will never run out of qualified accounts.
For most consulting, advisory, agency and fractional practices, none of those three conditions is true yet. The motion has to be built first, and building it is the expensive part. The comparison guide walks through the alternatives.
How ExpertLayer compares
ExpertLayer replaces the labour lines and supplies the judgment lines.
The account selection, the angle, the sequencing infrastructure, the data and the reply reading are all included. There is no ramp, because the operator has run this motion before, and there is no turnover risk, because the target map and the history are delivered to you as documents throughout. The 10 target review is free, so the first thing you see is the account selection itself, which is the line an SDR hire cannot show you until month four. Current pricing is on the home page.
Questions we get on this
What does an SDR earn in the US in 2026?+
Base salary for a first or second year SDR typically runs $55K to $70K, with on target earnings of $75K to $95K once variable is included. Coastal tech markets sit at the top of that range and above it. Use your own market's number in the arithmetic below; the structure of the cost does not change.
How long does an SDR take to ramp?+
Three months to first consistent output is the common planning figure, and it assumes a manager, a list and a playbook are already in place. At a firm that has none of those, the rep is building the motion while learning it, and six months is more realistic.
How long do SDRs stay?+
Average tenure in the role is commonly cited at fourteen to eighteen months. That is not a flaw in the people; the role is designed as a stepping stone. It does mean a firm hiring one SDR should plan to hire again within two years and to lose the first one's account knowledge when they go.
Is a fractional or offshore SDR cheaper?+
Cheaper in salary, not always cheaper in outcome. The cost that matters for an expert led firm is not the hours, it is the quality of the account selection and the angle. A cheaper rep working a bad list at high volume can cost more in reputation than a good one costs in salary.