[Guides](https://defrostmail.com/blog) # What it costs to hire a salesperson to find new clients Updated November 9, 2026 A salesperson hired to find new clients, usually called a sales development rep or SDR, is paid a median of $80,000 a year at target in the US: $55,000 base and $25,000 variable, according to The Bridge Group’s 2025 report on 351 B2B companies. That is pay only. Benefits, tools, recruiting and management come on top, and no primary source that was found publishes a single all-in figure. ## What is a salesperson who finds new clients paid? | Source | Who it covers | What it reports | | The Bridge Group, 2025 SDR Models, Metrics and Compensation report (10th edition, February 2025) | 351 B2B companies | Median pay at target $80,000: $55,000 base and $25,000 variable. 60% of reps at quota. Average 3.0 months to get up to speed. Average 1.9 years in the job. | | RepVue | 8,133 verified submissions. Data updated November 8, 2026. | Median base $60,000. Median pay at target $90,000. 57.7% attain quota. | | Betts Recruiting, 2026 Compensation Guide (article of April 28, 2026) | Sample not described | New graduates: base $60,000, $80,000 to $85,000 at target. With six months’ experience: base $65,000 to $70,000, $90,000 to $95,000 at target. | | US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, June 2026 | Private-industry workers in all occupations | Benefits are 30.0% of total compensation cost. Wages are 70.0%. | Each row is from the publisher’s own page, read on November 9, 2026. The first three report pay for sales development reps. The Bureau of Labor Statistics figure covers every occupation. Links are under Sources. “At target” means base salary plus the variable pay a rep earns for reaching their goals. The three pay sources sit between $80,000 and $95,000 at target. Not every rep gets there: 60% were at quota in The Bridge Group’s report, the lowest in the study’s history, and RepVue shows 57.7%. These figures describe the market you would be hiring from. None of them is a survey of small service firms. ## What comes on top of pay? - **Benefits and employer costs.** For US private-industry workers in June 2026, benefits were 30.0% of total compensation cost and wages 70.0%. That is about $30 of benefits for every $70 of wages, across all occupations and not sales roles alone. - **Tools and data.** A rep needs contact details and software to work with. - **Recruiting and training.** Finding the person, then the months before they are up to speed. - **Management.** Someone has to decide who the rep contacts, check what they say and keep them going. No primary source that was found adds these into one total. The Bridge Group, RepVue and Betts publish pay, not total cost. One vendor, SalesHive, publishes a first-year worksheet that comes to $130,000: $60,000 base, $20,000 variable, $20,000 employer taxes and benefits, $8,000 tools and data, $15,000 management, and $7,000 recruiting and onboarding. Its page says these are planning assumptions, not a market average. Use it as a list of the lines to budget for, with your own numbers in them. ## What should a small firm weigh? - **Pay starts on day one.** A new rep takes 3.0 months on average to get up to speed, the shortest The Bridge Group has recorded since 2010. You pay through those months. - **Someone has to manage them.** A new rep needs to be told who to contact and what to say, and needs their work checked. In a small firm that is the founder. - **The role turns over.** Reps stay 1.9 years on average. Plan to recruit and train again. - **Results vary.** About four in ten reps are below quota in both sources that report it. - **The cost is fixed.** A salary is the same in a month with five new conversations and a month with none. ## When is hiring the right choice? Hiring is the right choice when you have enough steady demand to keep a full-time person busy, someone with the time and skill to manage them, and a plan to keep selling this way for years. A good rep learns your clients, picks up the phone, follows up in person and gets better with time, and all of that stays in your firm. If your sale depends on calls, or on long conversations before anyone signs, a person on your own team can do things a service can’t. It fits less well when you need a few more clients a year, your months are uneven, and nobody has hours to manage a new role. ## What are the other ways to pay? An agency retainer rents a team by the month. A per-meeting provider charges for each meeting. A service paid per result charges only when the result happens: with Defrost, the only fee is $300 when a new company replies wanting to talk, and [the pricing page](https://defrostmail.com/pricing) says exactly what counts. [How lead generation is priced](https://defrostmail.com/blog/how-lead-generation-is-priced) compares all four, [What a lead generation agency costs in 2026](https://defrostmail.com/blog/what-a-lead-generation-agency-costs) has the agencies’ published prices, and [Defrost vs hiring a salesperson](https://defrostmail.com/compare/defrost-vs-hiring-a-salesperson) puts the two side by side. ## Questions people ask ### What is the fully loaded cost of an SDR? No primary source that was found publishes one. The Bridge Group, RepVue and Betts report pay, not total cost. One vendor, SalesHive, publishes a first-year worksheet that comes to $130,000, and its page says the figures are planning assumptions, not a market average. ### How long does a new salesperson take to become productive? The Bridge Group’s 2025 report puts the average at 3.0 months for a sales development rep, the shortest it has recorded since 2010. Pay runs through those months. ### How long do sales development reps stay in the job? An average of 1.9 years, according to The Bridge Group’s 2025 report on 351 B2B companies. A firm that hires for this role should expect to recruit and train for it again. ## Sources - [The Bridge Group, 2025 SDR Models, Metrics and Compensation report](https://www.bridgegroupinc.com/research/2025-sdr-models-metrics-report-the-bridge-group), February 6, 2025, read November 9, 2026. - [The Bridge Group, SDR tenure and ramp time](https://www.bridgegroupinc.com/research/sdr-tenure-and-ramp-time), read November 9, 2026. - [RepVue, sales development representative salaries](https://www.repvue.com/salaries/sales-development-representative), data updated November 8, 2026, read November 9, 2026. - [Betts Recruiting, 2026 Compensation Guide article](https://bettsrecruiting.com/blog/top-sdr-compensation-trends-in-tech-for-2026/), April 28, 2026, read November 9, 2026. - [US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, June 2026](https://www.bls.gov/news.release/ecec.nr0.htm), released September 9, 2026, read November 9, 2026. - [SalesHive, first-year cost worksheet for a sales development rep](https://saleshive.com/blog/true-cost-sdr-sales-development-rep), read November 9, 2026. A vendor’s planning assumptions. ## Short on time for this? Tell us what you do. It takes about three minutes and no card. If you’re a fit, we’ll tell you where we’d start. [Apply to Defrost](https://defrostmail.com/apply)