Quick answer
Published AI SDR prices start at $250 a month (AiSDR's Solo plan, 200 contacts) and go up to $3,750 a month billed annually (11x's Growth plan, 2,000 prospects). In between sit Salesforge's Agent Frank at $499 a month billed quarterly, Reply.io's Jason from $500 a month and AiSDR Explore at $900 a month on a quarterly contract. Artisan quotes only after a call. A US in-house SDR at The Bridge Group's median $80,000 on-target earnings costs about $8,300 a month on my assumptions and takes 3 months to ramp. The licence is the smaller part of an AI SDR's cost, because someone still sets it up, approves messages and answers replies. With that time priced in, the setups below cost $2,400 to $5,500 a month and need about 3 to 7 held meetings a month to match a human SDR at quota. Prices checked on 15 October 2026.
What AI SDR tools charge on their own pricing pages
I build outbound with B2B teams as a consultant, and I price an AI SDR the way I'd price a hire: what it costs a month, all in, against the meetings it books. Start with the licence. Here's what six vendors publish:
| Vendor and product | Price on its own page | What the plan covers | Per contact | Term |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11x, Alice | Growth from $3,750 a month, billed annually. Pro and Enterprise: custom | Up to 5 users, 2,000 new prospects a month, managed Gmail mailboxes, domain setup and warmup | About $1.88 | Annual by default |
| Artisan, Ava | Not published: "Pricing scoped on your plan" | Team plan about 2,500 leads contacted a month, Scale about 6,000 | Not published | Set on a sales call |
| AiSDR | Solo $250, Explore $900, Scale $2,500 a month | 200, 800 or 2,500 AI-researched contacts a month, with domains, mailboxes and LinkedIn accounts included | $1.25, $1.13, $1.00 | Solo month to month, Explore and Scale quarterly. Annual is 20% cheaper |
| Reply.io, Jason AI SDR | From $500 a month | From 1,000 active contacts | About $0.50 | Through a sales call |
| Salesforge, Agent Frank | $499 a month, billed quarterly | 2,000+ contacts a month. Email infrastructure is a separate add-on at $416 a month | $0.25, as stated | Demo first, then quarterly billing |
| Amplemarket, Duo Copilot (a tool for human reps) | Startup plan $600 a month, annual term | 2 users, 27,000 contacts, multichannel sequences | Not comparable | Annual |
Sources, checked 15 October 2026: 11x, Artisan, AiSDR, Reply.io, Salesforge, Amplemarket. Per contact is my division of the monthly price by the contact allowance.
Two things to watch when you compare. "Contacts" isn't one unit: AiSDR counts AI-researched contacts, Reply.io active contacts, 11x new prospects and Artisan leads contacted. Ask each vendor how many new people get a first message per month and how many follow-ups each one gets. And 11x's page gives two numbers for the same plan: from $3,750 a month billed annually in the table, from $36,000 a year in its FAQ. Get the figure in writing.
Most vendors sell a monthly contact allowance. Artisan sizes plans on a call, by lead volume, mailboxes and dialer seats. Amplemarket sells seats: its $600 a month gives 2 users a copilot, and your reps still do the work, so compare it with sales tools, not with a hire.
Disclosure. I run Salesforge for clients' sending, and I've written guest articles for Salesforge's blog. No vendor in this article pays me and none of the links are affiliate links. Agent Frank is in the table on the same terms as the others: the price from its own page.
What a human SDR costs a month
The Bridge Group's 2025 SDR report covers 351 B2B companies, most of them in North America. Median on-target earnings for an SDR are $80,000: $55,000 base and $25,000 variable. I add 20% for employer taxes and benefits and $300 a month for tools. That comes to about $8,300 a month.
The rest of the report matters as much as the salary:
- Average ramp is 3.0 months, so the first quarter's $24,900 buys mostly learning.
- The median quota is 10 held first meetings a month, and 60% of SDRs hit it.
- Median annual attrition is 40%, so plan on hiring again.
At quota, that's $830 per held meeting. A rep at half of quota costs $1,660 per meeting. For in-house costs in Europe and for agency and fractional options, see fractional SDR vs agency vs in-house SDR.
A break-even model with stated assumptions
An AI SDR doesn't run itself. Somebody decides who to target, writes the rules, approves messages in the first weeks, answers the replies that need a person and reports on results. My assumptions, so swap in yours:
- Human time: 8 hours a week, about 35 hours a month, at $50 an hour. $50 is what the median US SDR above costs per working hour with employer costs. That's $1,750 a month, and it's a floor: more contacts bring more replies.
- Sending setup: $150 a month for your own domains and mailboxes when the plan doesn't include them. AiSDR and 11x list domains and mailboxes in their plans. Reply.io's and Salesforge's pricing pages don't, and Salesforge sells email infrastructure as a $416 add-on.
- The bar to beat: a human SDR at quota, $830 per held meeting.
| Setup | Licence | Sending setup | Human time | All in, per month | Held meetings a month to match $830 each | Held meetings per 1,000 contacts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reply.io Jason, 1,000 contacts | $500 | $150 | $1,750 | $2,400 | About 3 | 2.9 |
| Salesforge Agent Frank, 2,000 contacts | $499 | $150 | $1,750 | $2,399 | About 3 | 1.5 |
| AiSDR Explore, 800 contacts | $900 | Included | $1,750 | $2,650 | About 3 | 4.0 |
| AiSDR Scale, 2,500 contacts | $2,500 | Included | $1,750 | $4,250 | About 5 | 2.0 |
| 11x Growth, 2,000 prospects | $3,750 | Included | $1,750 | $5,500 | About 7 | 3.3 |
| Human SDR, US median pay | About $8,300 | 10 at quota |
The last column is the one to use: how many held meetings each 1,000 contacts must produce for the AI SDR to cost no more per meeting than a human at quota. Hold it against what 1,000 contacts give you today when a person writes the emails. If you're well below it, a cheaper sender won't fix that. The list or the offer is the problem.
Two more things the table hides. If your human SDR books half of quota, the bar drops to $1,660 a meeting, and every setup above clears it at 1.5 to 3.3 meetings a month. And a human SDR also picks up the phone, works LinkedIn and gets better with time, while an AI SDR is only as good as the inputs someone keeps feeding it.
The first three months look different
A human SDR's risk is the ramp. An AI SDR's risk is the contract and what it sends when nobody is reading.
- Human SDR. Hiring time, then about $24,900 over a 3-month average ramp before full output. If the rep leaves, and 40% a year do, you pay part of that again.
- AI SDR. New sending domains need 3 to 4 weeks of warmup before real volume, unless the plan includes it (11x lists domain setup and warmup). Human time peaks in month one, when a person should approve every message. And you commit up front: a quarter of AiSDR Explore is $2,700, a quarter of Agent Frank $1,497 before infrastructure, a year of 11x Growth $45,000 at its table price.
So the cheapest way to find out is the shortest commitment you can get, on one segment. How to roll one out without risking your main domain or your name is in how to deploy an AI SDR. How to check a vendor's results before you sign is in how to vet an AI SDR vendor's claims.
How many AI SDRs per human rep?
I couldn't find a published ratio that holds up (more on that below), so work it out from hours rather than from a benchmark:
- Give every AI SDR one human owner. Somebody approves, answers and reports. In my model that's 8 hours a week per AI SDR, more as replies grow.
- Count the owner's spare hours. A rep or founder with 8 free hours a week can own one AI SDR. Two means about two days a week, which is a part-time job.
- Count who takes the meetings. The account executive's calendar is the other limit. For reference, The Bridge Group's median is one SDR for every 2.4 AEs.
- Add a second AI SDR only when the first one pays. That means two months above the break-even line in the table, with the owner's hours still inside budget.
Split by segment, not one ratio for the company. Keep a person on accounts where one deal pays for the year, and put the AI SDR on the long list of similar companies.
Rule of thumb. One AI SDR per human owner to start. If you can't name the owner and their 8 hours a week, you're not ready for the first one.
The 2026 "hybrid pod" numbers, checked
An earlier version of this page built its ratio on a 2026 roundup by Digital Applied: $2,591 per qualified opportunity for a pod of 4 human SDRs, $1,015 for 4 AI seats and $755 for 1 human plus 2 AI seats, credited to a RevOps Co-op benchmark of 380 companies and Bridge Group data for 2026. When I checked on 15 October 2026:
- The roundup doesn't link any of the sources it names.
- The same page gives other figures for the same setups: $487 per opportunity for human-only and $224 for hybrid.
- The Bridge Group's latest SDR report is the 2025 edition used above. The 2026 report I found covers account executives.
- I couldn't find the RevOps Co-op benchmark on RevOps Co-op's own site.
So I took the numbers out. The idea behind them, AI on volume and a person on judgment, still makes sense to me. The figures can't be traced, so keep them out of your budget.
AI SDR, human SDR or both
Pick an AI SDR if
- an offer already books meetings when a person sends it;
- you sell to many similar companies, so coverage matters;
- someone has 8 hours a week to own it;
- you can start on a quarter or less.
Hire a human SDR if
- your accounts are few and large, and one wrong message costs real money;
- conversations need judgment from the first reply;
- you have a manager and outbound will be permanent.
The first-hire decision is in done-for-you outbound vs hiring an SDR.
Run both if
- you have a top-account list and a long tail. The person takes the top accounts, the AI SDR covers the tail and the same person owns both.
Wait on both if
- you can't yet say in two sentences who buys and why. Faster sending only gets you to the wrong answer sooner.
Key takeaways
- Published AI SDR prices run from $250 a month (AiSDR Solo) to $3,750 a month billed annually (11x Growth). Artisan doesn't publish prices.
- Per contact, the published plans range from $0.25 (Agent Frank) to about $1.88 (11x Growth at its table price).
- A US SDR at median pay costs about $8,300 a month on my assumptions, ramps for 3 months and costs $830 per held meeting at quota.
- With a person's time priced in, the AI SDR setups here cost $2,400 to $5,500 a month and need about 3 to 7 held meetings a month to match that.
- Set the ratio by the owner's hours: one AI SDR per human owner to start, and a second only once the first beats break-even.
FAQ
How much does an AI SDR cost?
On vendors' own pages in October 2026: AiSDR $250 to $2,500 a month, Salesforge's Agent Frank $499 a month billed quarterly, Reply.io's Jason from $500 a month and 11x from $3,750 a month billed annually. Artisan quotes after a call. Add the time of the person who runs it.
Is an AI SDR cheaper than a human SDR?
On the invoice, yes: the licences here are $250 to $3,750 a month against about $8,300 for a US SDR at median pay. Per held meeting it depends on results. With a person's time included, the setups here need about 3 to 7 held meetings a month to match a human SDR at quota.
How many AI SDRs can one person manage?
Budget about 8 hours a week per AI SDR for approvals, replies and reporting, more as replies grow. Start with one per owner and add a second when the first has beaten break-even for two months.
Do AI SDR tools need an annual contract?
Some do. 11x bills annually by default and Amplemarket's Startup plan has an annual term. AiSDR's Explore and Scale plans are quarterly, its Solo plan is month to month and Salesforge bills Agent Frank quarterly.
What isn't included in AI SDR pricing?
Usually the time of the person who owns it, and sometimes the sending domains and mailboxes. Check how the plan counts contacts, how many mailboxes it includes and who keeps those domains if you cancel.