What Is an SDR?
An SDR, or sales development representative, is the person who starts sales conversations. They research target accounts, contact the right decision-makers, and book qualified meetings for account executives (AEs) to close. They do not close deals themselves.
If a company's pipeline is a funnel, the SDR owns the top of it.
What does an SDR do day to day?
The job is to turn a list of target accounts into booked conversations, so closers can spend their time on live deals instead of prospecting.
A typical SDR day is mostly outreach and replies, with research blocked in before and after. Most of the skill is in the first line of a message, the follow-up cadence and staying calm with a "not interested".
SDR vs BDR vs AE
The titles are used differently from company to company, so read the job description rather than the label.
SDR
Main job: Qualify leads and book meetings. Typical focus: Often inbound leads and smaller accounts, plus outbound.
BDR
Main job: Open new accounts through outbound prospecting. Typical focus: Often larger target accounts.
AE
Main job: Run the sales process and close. Typical focus: Demos, proposals, negotiation.
A common split is that SDRs work inbound and smaller accounts while BDRs run outbound into larger ones. In many teams the two roles overlap completely.
SDR vs inside sales vs lead generation
Inside sales
Reps usually run the whole sale remotely, from first call to close. SDRs stop at the booked meeting.
Lead generation
The wider activity of creating interest. An SDR is one way to do it. Others include content, ads and events.
Appointment setting
The narrowest term: booking meetings only, often with less research and qualification than an SDR does.
Key SDR skills and tools
Skills that matter most: clear writing, curiosity about the buyer's world, resilience, discipline with follow-up, and listening well enough to qualify honestly.
A typical stack covers a CRM, a prospecting database, an email sending platform with deliverability monitoring, a LinkedIn tool, and a dialler. The tools matter less than the list quality and the message.
How SDR performance is measured
Measure what leads to pipeline, not activity for its own sake.
Activity numbers (emails sent, calls made) are useful as a diagnostic, but a rep can hit every activity target and still book nothing.
Quotas vary widely with the market, deal size and channel mix, so benchmark against your own funnel first. As a rough guide, published benchmarks put an outbound SDR at around 12 to 15 booked meetings a month, with top performers at 20 or more and inbound reps higher because the leads are warmer. One often-cited figure is a median of about 14.6 meetings set per SDR per month from the Bridge Group. Not every booked meeting is held, so plan on a show rate below 100%.
SDR salary and cost
Compensation is usually a base salary plus variable pay tied to meetings or pipeline, so the total ("on-target earnings", or OTE) is higher than the base.
In the US, published 2026 salary guides cluster around these figures:
Sources: the Trellus SDR salary guide (which cites RepVue's median of $60,000 base and $85,000 OTE) and the job-posting data at sdr.careers (median $58,000 base, $82,000 OTE). Pay is higher in tech hubs such as the San Francisco Bay Area and varies by sector. OTE assumes the rep hits quota, so real earnings are often lower.
The salary is only part of the cost of an in-house SDR. Add:
In-house vs outsourced SDRs
Product knowledge
In-house SDR: Deep, sits inside your team. Outsourced SDR team: Learns from your brief, needs a clear offer and ICP.
Time to start
In-house SDR: Recruit, hire, then ramp. Outsourced SDR team: Trained team with tooling in place.
Management
In-house SDR: You manage them. Outsourced SDR team: The provider manages them.
Cost shape
In-house SDR: Salary, benefits, tools, management. Outsourced SDR team: Typically a monthly fee.
Flexibility
In-house SDR: Slower to scale up or down. Outsourced SDR team: Easier to adjust.
Control
In-house SDR: Full. Outsourced SDR team: Shared, so reporting and communication matter.
Neither is better in general. It depends on your stage, deal size and how much management capacity you have.
When outsourcing makes sense
Outsourcing tends to fit when:
In-house tends to fit when your sales cycle is long and complex, your product needs deep domain knowledge, or you already have a manager and process to build on.
What to ask before hiring an outsourced SDR provider
How AllBound Leads works with SDR teams
AllBound Leads runs outsourced SDR work as a managed service: we build the list, set up the outreach, handle replies and book qualified meetings into your calendar. Results vary by ICP, market and offer, so we start by agreeing who you want to reach and what a qualified meeting means for you.
If you want a dedicated rep without the hiring and management overhead, see our outsourced SDR service. For the wider picture, see our B2B lead generation services and our guide to B2B lead generation strategies.
Frequently asked questions
What does SDR stand for?
Sales development representative.
Is an SDR the same as a salesperson?
Not quite. An SDR starts and qualifies conversations. An account executive closes them.
Is SDR a good entry-level sales job?
It is a common first step into B2B sales because it teaches prospecting, objection handling and qualification, and often leads to an AE role.
What is the difference between an SDR and a BDR?
Usage varies. Often SDRs work inbound and smaller accounts and BDRs run outbound into larger ones. Check the job description.
Can you outsource SDRs?
Yes. Many B2B companies use an outsourced SDR team to book meetings without hiring in-house.