You're six months into seed-stage hell. Investors want traction. Product needs work. And you're pretty sure hiring an SDR would solve at least one of those problems. So you look at job boards, see base salaries around $50K-$55K, and think: "I can probably swing that."
Here's the problem: that number is a lie. Not intentionally, but a lie nonetheless.
The real, fully loaded cost of an in-house SDR isn't $50K. It's $110K to $160K annually. That's 2-3x what you thought you were signing up for. And most founders don't realize it until they're drowning in bills they didn't budget for.
The Line Items Nobody Mentions
Let's break down what you're actually paying when you hire an SDR: not just what shows up on the offer letter.
Cash compensation: Base salary is $45K-$60K for most markets. Add variable comp (commissions, bonuses), and you're at $75K-$85K in on-target earnings (OTE). That assumes they hit quota, which: spoiler: takes 3-6 months minimum.
Benefits and payroll taxes: This is the silent killer. Health insurance, 401(k) matching, FICA, unemployment insurance: it adds up to 25-30% on top of cash comp. That's another $19K-$26K annually.
Sales tech and data: Your SDR needs tools to actually do their job. CRM (Salesforce, HubSpot), outreach platforms (Outreach, Salesloft), data providers (ZoomInfo, Apollo), LinkedIn Sales Navigator. Budget $2K-$8.4K+ per SDR per year. And if you're running a team of 4 SDRs with a manager? That tech stack can hit $4,500+ just for Salesforce alone.
Management overhead: SDRs don't manage themselves. You need a sales manager or director, who costs $130K-$150K annually. Split that across a team of 8-10 SDRs, and you're allocating $15K-$18K per SDR just for supervision, coaching, and enablement.
Recruiting, ramp, and turnover: This is where most founder budgets collapse. SDR turnover is 30-39% annually: nearly 4x the average employee turnover rate. Every time someone leaves, you're eating $100K-$150K in costs: recruiter fees (15-20% of salary), lost productivity during the search, onboarding and training the replacement, and 3-6 months of ramp time before they're productive again. Annualized, that's $10K-$30K+ per SDR.
Add it all up, and you're looking at $110K-$160K per year for a single SDR. On a monthly basis, that's $8K-$15K: not the $4,600/month you calculated from base salary.
The Hidden Costs That Kill Founder Budgets
The line items above are the obvious ones. Here are the costs that blindside you three months in.
Tool sprawl: Your SDR asks for LinkedIn Sales Navigator. Then they need Apollo because ZoomInfo is too expensive. Then they want a meeting scheduler. Then an email warm-up service. Each "small ask" is another $50-$200/month, and suddenly you're running 12 tools when you budgeted for 3.
Domain and IP health management: If your SDR burns your domain with aggressive outreach (and they will), you're not just paying to fix it: you're losing weeks of pipeline while you warm up a new domain. That's lost opportunity cost that doesn't show up on a P&L.
Ramp time drag: Most founders assume SDRs are productive from day one. Reality? It takes 3-6 months before they're hitting quota. During that time, you're paying full salary for partial output. If you're pre-revenue or running on fumes, that's a brutal burn rate with no return.
Context switching tax: You're the founder. You have 47 things on your plate. Now add "managing an SDR" to that list: reviewing their emails, coaching on messaging, fixing their CRM hygiene, handling their questions about ICP fit. That's 5-10 hours per week you're not building product or talking to investors.
The Unit Economics Nobody Calculates
Here's the metric that matters: cost per held qualified meeting.
If your SDR costs $12K/month (fully loaded) and books 10 qualified meetings, you're paying $1,200 per meeting. If half of those no-show or turn out to be unqualified, you're actually at $2,400 per real meeting.
Now compare that to what you thought you were paying. Most founders mentally calculate SDR cost as base salary divided by meetings booked: maybe $300-$500 per meeting. The real number is 4-8x higher.
And if your SDR churns after 9 months (well within the average turnover window), you're eating all those costs again to replace them. The math gets ugly fast.
The Comparison Trap Founders Fall Into
Here's where the budgeting error gets dangerous.
You see outsourced SDR services at $7K-$10K/month. You compare that to the $55K annual base salary (about $4,600/month) and think: "Why would I pay double for outsourcing?"
Because you're comparing apples to fully loaded oranges.
That $7K-$10K outsourced rate includes the person, the tools, the management, the training, and the infrastructure. The $4,600/month in-house number doesn't include any of that. When you actually compare fully loaded in-house ($8K-$15K/month) to outsourced ($7K-$10K/month), the math flips.
And outsourced teams launch in 2-3 weeks, not 2-3 months.
Why This Matters For Early-Stage Founders
If you're pre-seed or seed-stage, you probably have 12-18 months of runway. Spending $110K-$160K on a single SDR: who takes 3-6 months to ramp and might churn in under a year: is a massive bet.
You're not just paying their salary. You're paying for:
- The recruiter to find them
- The tools they need to operate
- The management time to keep them on track
- The risk they'll leave and you'll start over
And all of that is happening while you're trying to ship product, close your next round, and not run out of money.
The founders who survive early-stage aren't the ones who hire the fastest. They're the ones who make every dollar count.
The Alternative Most Founders Miss
You don't need to choose between doing outbound yourself (and burning Sundays) or hiring a $120K SDR you can't afford.
AI SDR platforms like Ramen are built for exactly this gap. You bring your own API keys (so you control costs), approve every email before it sends (so you stay in the loop), and avoid the recruiter-training-turnover treadmill entirely. No onboarding. No ramp time. No paying benefits on someone who might quit in six months.
It's not about replacing human judgment: it's about removing the parts of SDR work that don't require a $120K hire. Research, sequencing, follow-ups, CRM updates. Let AI handle the grunt work. You handle the strategy.
If you're trying to build pipeline without blowing your runway, this is the math that actually works. See how Ramen works.