Growth Economics
Nov 30, 2025
The SDR is Dead: Why Smart Founders Are Switching to "Infrastructure-as-a-Service" for Lead Gen
Thinking of hiring a Sales Development Rep? Read this first. We break down the math of "Building vs. Buying" your outreach team.
The traditional B2B playbook is broken.
For the last decade, if you wanted more clients, you hired a Sales Development Rep (SDR). You paid them a base salary, gave them a laptop, and told them to "go find leads."
In 2025, that is a wildly inefficient use of capital.
The True Cost of an Internal Hire
Let's look at the math for a standard UK-based Junior SDR.
Base Salary: £35,000
Commission: £15,000 (OTE)
Tech Stack: £3,600 (Salesforce, ZoomInfo, Outreach.io)
Tax & NI: £4,500
Recruitment Fee: £5,000 (One-off)
Management Time: 10 hours/week (Your time).
Total First Year Cost: ~£65,000+
And the worst part? It takes 3 months to ramp them up. If they quit after 6 months (which is common), you lose all that momentum and start over.
The "Infrastructure" Alternative
Automation and AI have changed the game. You no longer need a human to type emails manually. You need a System.
For a fraction of the cost of a full-time hire, you can rent a "Client Acquisition Infrastructure."
What you get:
Data: 1,000s of verified leads (better than a junior rep can find).
Deliverability: Managed domains and DNS (technical stuff reps don't understand).
Copywriting: A/B tested scripts written by experts, not juniors.
Volume: A machine can send 500 emails a day perfectly. A human burns out after 50.
The Verdict
The role of the SDR isn't disappearing, but it is moving up the funnel.
Humans should not be doing data entry and cold outreach. Humans should be doing Discovery Calls and Closing Deals.
Let the machines handle the grunt work. Let your founders handle the strategy.
Stop hiring headcount. Start building infrastructure.
Ready to build your engine? We install the entire outbound infrastructure for your agency in 14 days. See the Pricing