The Real Cost of DIY Outbound (It's Not What You Think)

Hey there,

Kevin here with edition 16.

Most founders look at building an in-house outbound team and see one number: salary. An SDR costs $50K-$92K base salary, depending on experience and location. A GTM engineer runs $95K-$176K.

But that's just the beginning. The real cost is what most people miss entirely.

The Hidden Costs Nobody Talks About

Beyond base salary:

Total compensation for SDRs typically reaches $44K-$81K when including bonus, commission, and benefits. Add employer taxes, health insurance, 401k matching, and perks, and you're looking at 25-40% on top of base salary.

Hiring costs: Recruiting fees average 15-20% of first-year salary. For a $75K SDR, that's $11K-$15K just to find someone qualified.

Technology stack: CRM subscriptions, email platforms, data tools, automation software. Budget $1,500-$2,000 monthly in tools alone.

Management overhead: Someone needs to train, manage, and monitor performance. That's leadership time diverted from revenue-generating activities.

The Experience Problem

Here's what kills most in-house attempts: finding truly experienced SDRs is expensive and rare.

Experienced SDRs in competitive markets can command $117K+ total compensation. The talented ones with proven track records? They're not job hunting. They're already crushing it somewhere else.

So you end up hiring someone learning on your dime. They're testing messages, figuring out infrastructure, and experimenting with approaches you're funding.

The Timeline Reality

In-house teams typically need 3-6 months before seeing consistent results. Three months of salary, benefits, tools, and management time before your first qualified meeting.

We’ve started generating conversations for partners by week 3 because we've already run thousands of campaigns. We know what infrastructure works, what messaging resonates, and how to identify the signals that predict buying readiness.

The Replacement Risk

What happens when it doesn't work out? You start over. Another 3-6 months of ramp time. More hiring costs. More wasted opportunity.

SDR turnover is notoriously high, with many companies cycling through reps every 12-18 months. Each replacement costs you 6-9 months of lost productivity.

The Cost of Inaction

Here's the number that really matters: opportunity cost.

If it takes you 6 months to get your in-house team producing results, and you could have partnered with specialists seeing results in month one, you just lost 5 months of qualified conversations and pipeline.

In a competitive market, 5 months of inaction means prospects are talking to your competitors instead of you. Deals are closing for someone else. Market share is shifting.

What Expert Partners Actually Deliver

This isn't about cost. It's about speed to results and expertise concentration.

At Astris Partners, you get:

Immediate infrastructure that works (500+ mailboxes, optimized deliverability, proven frameworks)

Campaigns informed by thousands of successful outreach sequences across dozens of industries

Data engineering that finds signals standard databases miss

Strategic testing that identifies message-market fit in weeks, not months

Reply management and meeting coordination are handled completely

Beyond standard outreach: re-engagement campaigns, website visitor targeting, conference outbound

The output of 2 SDRs + 1 GTME for the cost of less than 1 US-based SDR. No benefits, no hiring costs, no management overhead, no replacement risk.

We only work with one new partner monthly because we treat each partnership like an in-house team buildout. You get dedicated attention, not agency volume treatment.

The Bottom Line

Growing companies trying to scale lean can't afford 6-month experiments. You need qualified conversations flowing while you focus on closing deals and building product.

The question isn't whether you can afford expert help. It's whether you can afford to spend 6 months learning what specialists already know.

Talk soon,

Kevin

P.S. If you're considering building in-house outbound but want to understand the real math on costs and timeline, book a strategy call with me. I'll show you precisely what it takes to build successful outbound (whether you do it yourself or work with us) so you can make an informed decision.