What Is a Sales Development Representative (SDR)?

An SDR is a salesperson focused exclusively on the top of the funnel -- prospecting, qualifying, and booking meetings for account executives. They do not close deals. They do not run demos. They do not negotiate contracts. They open conversations that AEs convert into revenue.

What Is the Difference Between an SDR, BDR, and AE?

These titles overlap and vary by company, but the functional differences are consistent. The SDR feeds the AE. The AE closes what the SDR opens. The BDR label is used inconsistently -- some companies use it interchangeably with SDR, others use it to mean outbound-only prospecting.

The SDR-AE split exists because prospecting and closing are fundamentally different skills. Prospecting requires volume, resilience, and pattern recognition. Closing requires discovery, negotiation, and relationship management. Asking one person to do both means they do neither well -- they either neglect prospecting when deals heat up or neglect deals when pipeline is thin.

What Do SDRs Actually Do Every Day?

The daily reality of SDR work is unglamorous. It is research, writing, calling, and rejection -- repeated 200+ times per week. Here is how a typical SDR day breaks down.

• Account research (30-40% of time): Identifying target accounts, researching the company, finding the right contact, and building a reason to reach out. This is where most SDRs underinvest.
• Cold email (50-200 sends per day): Writing and sending personalized outbound emails. Volume varies wildly -- high-volume shops send 200+ per day with light personalization. Quality shops send 50-80 with deeper research per contact.
• Cold calling (30-80 dials per day): Phone remains the highest-converting outbound channel for reaching senior decision-makers. Most calls go to voicemail. Connect rates average 3-5%.
• Inbound qualification: Responding to demo requests, website chat, and marketing-generated leads. Qualifying whether they match the ICP and booking them with the right AE.
• CRM updates: Logging activity, updating contact records, moving leads through stages. SDRs spend 15-20% of their day on administrative CRM work.
• Meeting booking: Scheduling qualified prospects on AE calendars, sending confirmation emails, and preparing handoff notes.

What Metrics Define SDR Performance?

SDRs are measured on activity inputs and meeting outputs. The specific targets vary by company, industry, and whether the SDR handles inbound, outbound, or both.

• Meetings booked per month: 8-15 is typical. 20+ is elite. This is the primary metric -- everything else is an input.
• Emails sent per day: 50-200 depending on strategy. Higher volume usually means lower personalization.
• Calls per day: 30-80 dials. Connect rate of 3-5% means 1-4 actual conversations per day.
• Reply rate: 3-8% on cold email. Above 8% indicates strong targeting and copy. Below 3% indicates a problem.
• Pipeline generated: total dollar value of opportunities created from SDR-sourced meetings. This is the metric leadership cares about most.
• Meeting show rate: percentage of booked meetings where the prospect actually shows up. Below 70% means qualification is weak.

What Is the SDR Career Path?

SDR is the most common entry point into B2B sales. The standard progression is well-established, though the timeline and options vary by company size and performance.

1. 1SDR (12-18 months): Learn prospecting, handle rejection, understand your product and market. Hit quota consistently for 2-3 quarters to earn promotion consideration.
2. 2Account Executive (2-3 years): Run full sales cycles from discovery through close. Build pipeline management skills. Work toward enterprise or strategic accounts.
3. 3Senior AE or Team Lead (2+ years): Close larger deals, mentor junior AEs, or take on management responsibilities. Fork in the road: individual contributor track or management track.
4. 4Management: SDR Manager (manage a team of 5-10 SDRs), Sales Manager (manage AEs), or Director of Sales. Requires proving you can coach others, not just sell yourself.
5. 5Individual Contributor: Enterprise AE, Strategic Account Executive, or VP of Sales for a startup. Some of the highest-paid salespeople never manage anyone.

How Are SDRs Compensated?

SDR compensation follows a base-plus-variable structure. The split is typically 60-70% base and 30-40% variable, with the variable component tied to meetings booked and sometimes pipeline generated.

• Entry-level SDR: $45K-55K base, $65K-75K OTE. Common at mid-market SaaS companies outside major metros.
• Mid-market SDR: $55K-65K base, $75K-90K OTE. Standard at Series A-C startups in competitive markets.
• Enterprise SDR: $65K-80K base, $90K-120K OTE. Targeting Fortune 500 accounts at well-funded companies. Longer research cycles, fewer but larger meetings.
• Top performer accelerators: The best SDR comp plans include accelerators above quota -- 1.5x-2x payout on meetings beyond target. Top performers at good companies clear $100K+ total comp.
• Fully loaded cost to employer: Add 20-30% for benefits, tools, management overhead, and office space. A $75K OTE SDR costs the company $95K-105K annually.

How Is the GTM Engineer Disrupting the SDR Role?

AI and GTM engineering are automating 60-80% of what SDRs traditionally do. Account research, list building, email personalization, CRM updates, and first-draft copy are all being handled by automated pipelines. The SDR role is not disappearing, but it is fundamentally changing.

A 2-person team of 1 GTM engineer and 1 SDR can now outproduce a traditional 5-person SDR team. The GTM engineer builds the prospecting systems, enrichment pipelines, and automated outbound infrastructure. The SDR handles what automation cannot: live conversations, objection handling, relationship building, and the human judgment calls that determine whether a prospect is genuinely qualified.

The SDRs who thrive in this environment are the ones who lean into the human skills: reading between the lines of a prospect's reply, knowing when to push and when to back off, asking the right discovery questions on a cold call, and making the prospect feel like they are talking to a person who understands their problem -- not a person reading a script.