Comparison
Hire an SDR, or own the whole system?
Hiring your first SDR means 6 to 12 months of ramp, a six-figure loaded cost, and a rep who still needs infrastructure, data and deliverability expertise built around them. We deliver the entire system in 90 days, for less than one SDR's annual cost, and your team owns it. We are the engine behind your closers, not another headcount to manage.
Sound familiar?
If any of this rings true, you’re who we build for.
“Sales isn’t my background, I’m an engineer.”You are great at the product. Pipeline keeps slipping because it is not your zone.
“We’re a small team, we can’t message people all day.”Manual outreach is eating the hours you should spend building.
“The tools were too simple or too complex.”Instantly felt thin, Apollo’s data was terrible, and nothing stuck.
“An SDR is a six-figure bet before we know it works.”And a new rep still needs the infrastructure, data and deliverability built around them.
“I’d rather own it than rent it forever.”You want the capability in-house, not a permanent dependency.
“I just want my time back.”One focused hour a week, not fifteen to twenty.
Head to head
One SDR hire versus an owned system.
| In-house SDR hire | LongRun | |
|---|---|---|
| Time to first meetings | 6 to 12 months to hire, ramp and build | First meetings by the end of month one |
| Loaded annual cost | $80,000 to $120,000+ per rep, plus tools | Less than one SDR salary, full stack included |
| Infrastructure & deliverability | Learned the hard way, often in spam | Built and monitored by specialists, 98.5% placement |
| Data & tooling | You buy and wire up Clay, Apollo, sequencer | All included, configured and running in week 3 |
| If the person leaves | Knowledge and pipeline walk out the door | The system stays, documented and yours |
| Strategy | One junior rep guessing in isolation | A senior operator plus a delivery team |
| What you own at day 90 | A rep you still have to build a system for | Domains, data, workflows and a documented playbook |
90
Days to a working system
6–12 mo
To ramp a single SDR instead
8–12+
Qualified meetings per month, targeted
98.5%
Inbox placement, monitored
$80K+
Loaded cost of one SDR, per year
100%
Of the system is yours at day 90
Beyond the lead
A lead is not the finish line. A closed deal is.
Most providers hand you a reply and call it a win. We build the part of the system that turns that reply into revenue, because a meeting nobody closes is a cost, not a result.
Speed to lead
Answered in minutes, not next business day
Every reply lands in your Slack in seconds with an AI-drafted response ready to approve and send. The first hour is where deals are won or lost, and the system protects it.
- Real-time reply routing on every positive response
- AI-drafted reply matched to the prospect and your offer
- The only manual step is the one that should be human
Nothing leaks
Every lead lands in your pipeline automatically
A positive reply creates a deal in your CRM with full context attached, in the right stage. No lead dies in an inbox or falls between two tools.
- Auto-deal creation in HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, Attio or Monday
- Full activity and reply history synced to the contact
- One source of truth your team actually works from
Built to close
We optimize for deals, not vanity meeting counts
We define a qualified lead with you before launch and write it into the agreement. The whole system is tuned for conversations that become customers, not a meeting tally that looks good on a dashboard.
- Qualified-lead definition agreed up front, in writing
- ICP screening before a single email goes out
- Re-engagement cadences that revive deals, not pad numbers
ROI you can see
Measured on pipeline, not "leads delivered"
Reporting connects sends to replies to meetings to pipeline, so you judge the system on revenue it influenced, not activity it generated. Model it yourself before we even talk.
- Looker Studio dashboard across the full funnel
- Monthly strategy call run on real numbers
- Project your own ROI and compare to live benchmarks
The honest version
An SDR is a great hire, after the system exists.
We are not anti-headcount. The best outcome is a sharp in-house closer working a system that already produces qualified conversations. The mistake is asking your first junior hire to simultaneously learn cold email infrastructure, build Clay enrichment, write copy that lands, manage deliverability, and hit a number, all in their first two quarters. That is four specialist jobs, and it is why most in-house outbound stalls.
We do the engineering, hand it over documented, and train your operator to run it. You get the system in 90 days instead of 12 months, and your people spend their time closing, not building plumbing.
FAQ
In-house versus agency, answered.
Is an outbound agency cheaper than hiring an SDR?
Usually, yes, and the comparison is not close once you load it fully. One SDR costs $80,000 to $120,000+ a year in salary, benefits and tools, takes 6 to 12 months to ramp, and still needs someone to build the infrastructure, data and deliverability around them. Our 3-month pilot delivers a working system, with the stack included, for less than a single SDR's annual cost, and your team owns it at day 90.
What happens if we want to bring it in-house later?
That is the plan, and we build for it from day one. Everything lives in your accounts, documented as we go. At day 90 you can take the entire system in-house with a trained operator, or keep us running it month to month. Either way you are not starting from a blank Clay workspace; you inherit a working machine.
Won't an in-house rep understand our product better?
Over time, yes, which is exactly why we make the system theirs. We bring the outbound engineering your rep would take a year to learn, and we document and transfer it so your in-house team layers their product knowledge on top of a system that already works, instead of spending their first year building plumbing.
Do we still need a salesperson to close?
Yes, and you should keep that in-house. We build and run the engine that fills the top of the funnel and routes every qualified reply to your closer in seconds, with the deal already created in your CRM. We are the system behind your salesperson, not a replacement for them.
Keep comparing
See how we stack up against the alternatives.
Cheaper than a hire, faster than a ramp.
Book a strategy call and we'll model the real cost of building this in-house versus owning our system at day 90.