AI SDR vs human SDR: what does a meeting cost, and when does each win?
A ramped human SDR costs about $12,500 a month once you load The Bridge Group's $80K median OTE with the benefits share BLS reports and add a slice of the manager, which is roughly $1,570 per held meeting at 8 held meetings a month (our math, assumption on output). AI SDR plans with published prices run from $250 to $2,500 a month (AiSDR, Artisan, Reply.io, Salesforge, read 2026-10-06), and no vendor publishes meetings per contact, so the AI side of any cost-per-meeting comparison is a model you build, not a number you look up. In our invented example the AI setup needs to book fewer than 2 held meetings a month to tie the human on cost, which is why the real contest is not price but ceiling, meeting quality and the phone.
How we research this: facts come from each vendor’s public pages and named studies, dated where shown; the math is ours and labeled. Vendor prices and limits are as of October 9, 2026.
Updated
What does a human SDR actually cost per month?
Human SDR cost stack, monthly (our math)
| Line | Input | Source or label | Monthly |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pay plus benefits | $80K median SDR OTE (68:32 split) ÷ 0.70, since benefits are 30.0% of compensation, wages 70.0% (private industry, June 2026) | The Bridge Group 2025; BLS ECEC, released Sept 9, 2026; our method | $9,524 |
| Manager slice | $146K SDR manager OTE ÷ 6.4 SDRs per leader, loaded the same way | The Bridge Group 2025; our math | $2,716 |
| Tools and data | Sequencer, data, dialer | Our assumption; see the cheapest cold email stack and the tools an SDR needs | $300 |
| Total | about $12,540 |
Caveats: the BLS split covers all private industry, not SDRs, so 30% is a placeholder until HR gives you your rate. The Bridge Group surveyed 351 B2B companies (78% North America-based, 83% B2B SaaS). Recruiting and office are left out, so this is a floor. OTE pays in full only at quota, and only 60% of SDRs were at quota; we keep OTE for simplicity.
What does an AI SDR actually cost per month?
Published AI SDR prices (each vendor's own pricing page, billing toggles checked, read 2026-10-06)
| Vendor and plan | Price | Billing | What the page says it includes |
|---|---|---|---|
| AiSDR Solo | $250/mo | Billed monthly, cancel anytime | 200 AI-researched contacts a month, 3 mailboxes |
| AiSDR Explore / Scale | $900/mo / $2,500/mo | Billed monthly, quarterly contract, payment in advance | 800 / 2,500 contacts a month |
| Artisan Intern | $280/mo monthly; $250/mo annual | Toggle | 10K credits, about 500 leads contacted a month (Artisan's estimate) |
| Reply.io AI SDR Starter | From $800/mo monthly; from $500/mo annual | Toggle | 1,000 active contacts, unlimited mailboxes and warm-ups |
| Salesforge Agent Frank | $599/mo quarterly; $499/mo annual | Toggle | 2,000+ contacts a month |
| Amplemarket Startup | $600/mo | Annual term | 2 users; lists Duo Copilot |
| Artisan Team, Scale, Enterprise; 11x | Quote only | n/a | No price shown; sales call or demo |
What the price card leaves off (our guidance):
- A human still reads every warm reply and runs every call.
- Sending infrastructure may cost extra. Artisan's FAQ says mailboxes and phone numbers are "billed separately in dollars." Salesforge sells an email infrastructure add-on at $499/mo billed quarterly or $417/mo billed annually (up to 1,000 active contacts).
- List verification.
- The AI has a ramp too. AiSDR's page says teams see their strongest results after about 6 weeks, and that getting multiple inboxes ready takes 30+ days. See how long to warm up a domain.
Tool-by-tool picks live in the best AI SDR tools.
How do you build a cost-per-meeting model for both?
One formula for both sides (our math):
Cost per held meeting = (software + data + sending infrastructure + human hours × loaded hourly rate + manager slice) ÷ meetings held
Loaded hourly rate for a human: $80,000 ÷ 0.70 = $114,286 a year ÷ 2,080 hours, about $55 an hour.
Count meetings held, not booked (see SDR meetings per month), add a qualified line only if AEs grade meetings, and never divide by emails or contacts. Bring your own positive-reply, booking and show rates; we trust no public benchmark for them.
The one email input we cite is Instantly's 3.43% reply rate, counted per email sent with replies to follow-ups in the count, on Instantly's platform, Jan 1 to Dec 18, 2025. Vendor data, not a market average. For activity math, use the calculator, which estimates sends, replies and meetings, and quota math and daily activity.
Worked example: what does each cost per meeting?
Invented example: every number is made up or assumed, except the sourced inputs named.
Column A: one ramped human SDR, email plus phone
- Cost: $9,524 + $2,716 + $300 = $12,540 a month
- 8 held meetings a month (assumption, under the median monthly quota of 10): $12,540 ÷ 8 = about $1,568 each
- 75% qualified (invented): 6, so $2,090 each
Column B: one AI SDR plan, email only
- Cost: Reply.io AI SDR Starter at $800 billed monthly (1,000 active contacts, read 2026-10-06), $100 list verification (assumption), 20 hours of human reply handling × $55 = $1,100. Total $2,000 a month
- 1,000 contacts × 5 touches (our house sequence) = 5,000 emails × 3.43% = about 172 replies
- 30% positive (invented) = about 51; 50% booked (invented) = about 26; 80% show (invented) = 20.6 held
- $2,000 ÷ 20.6 = about $97 per held meeting
- 60% qualified (invented): about 12, so about $162 each
Cost per meeting, our invented example
| Human | AI | Hybrid | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly cost | $12,540 | $2,000 | $13,440 |
| Held meetings | 8 | about 21 | 23 |
| Cost per held meeting | about $1,568 | about $97 | about $584 |
| Qualified meetings | 6 | about 12 | 15 |
| Cost per qualified meeting | $2,090 | about $162 | about $896 |
How many meetings does the AI need to book to beat the human?
Embarrassingly few (our math). $2,000 ÷ $1,568 is about 1.3, so the AI setup beats the human on cost per held meeting from 2 held meetings a month. Almost any working setup clears that bar, so cost per meeting is the wrong fight.
One input at a time, against a baseline of about $97:
What moves the AI number (invented example)
| Change | Cost per held meeting |
|---|---|
| Positive-reply share halved to 15% | about $194 |
| Show rate 60%, not 80% | about $130 |
| Human hours doubled to 40 ($3,100 total) | about $151 |
| Qualified share 40%, not 60% | about $243 per qualified meeting |
Every row still crushes the human line. The real question is the ceiling. The example tops out near 21 held meetings from 1,000 contacts; more contacts means more domains, mailboxes and replies for the same human. A human SDR is asked for about 10: that is The Bridge Group's median monthly quota of meetings held (Stage 0), a target rather than output, and only 60% of SDRs were at quota. Cost per meeting is a ratio. Pipeline is a count.
When does the AI SDR win, and when does the human win?
Who wins where (our guidance)
| Situation | Lean toward | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Email-first segment, lookalike buyers | AI SDR | Repeatable message, big list |
| The phone books the meeting | Human SDR | None of the priced plans above pitches itself as the cold caller: AiSDR lists AI call steps with the Aircall dialer; Artisan sells a dialer for your reps |
| High ACV, long cycle | Human SDR | Each touch carries your brand |
| New motion, no proof yet | Human SDR first | Learn what works, then automate |
| Proven motion, capacity is the bottleneck | AI SDR | You know the message; you need sends |
| Founder, no sales hire budget | AI SDR, with you on replies | The alternative is no outbound |
What does a hybrid cost, and why is it usually the answer?
Invented example: one human SDR plus one AI plan. The human keeps the phone, tier-one accounts and every warm reply; the AI runs research, drafts and touches 2 to 5 on tier-two accounts. Cost: $12,540 + $800 + $100 = $13,440. Output: the human's 8 held plus 15 AI-sourced (lower than solo AI, because the human's reply time is split) = 23, about $584 each (qualified: 6 + 9 at 60%). No extra human-hours line, since it is the same person; the risk is that person's own output dipping.
Pilot steps: what an AI SDR is.
When should you skip each option?
Vendor-page facts only:
- AiSDR Solo: outgrown past 200 contacts a month, and the next tier ($900) carries a quarterly contract.
- Artisan Intern: wrong pick if your budget line must cover mailboxes; its FAQ bills sending infrastructure on top.
- Reply.io Starter: a poor month-to-month trial at $800; the $500 rate needs an annual commitment.
- Salesforge Agent Frank: no monthly option, only quarterly or annual billing.
- Amplemarket Startup: an annual term and Duo Copilot, so not for a short test of an AI that sends on its own.
- 11x and Artisan Team, Scale, Enterprise: no published price, so they cannot go in this model until sales quotes you.
How do you run the comparison on your own team?
Pull 90 days of held meetings per ramped rep. Get your real OTE and benefits rate from HR. Price one AI plan at list plus mailboxes, verification and human hours, run both through the formula, and judge after 6 to 8 weeks. Pick the stack covers the data and sending layers; a good cold email reply rate covers the reply input.
The sending days, sends per inbox, inboxes per rep and touches per contact on this page are our house assumptions, with one line on why we use each.
Sources
Research and vendor pages accessed October 6, 2026.