Spent some time recently breaking down what in-house SDR hiring actually costs vs what most companies budget for, specifically in the Indian B2B context.

The salary is the easy part. It's everything else that quietly kills your runway.

**The stuff people underestimate:**

**1. Ramp time is real pipeline loss**  
Most SDRs take 8–14 weeks from hire date to first qualified meeting. That's not a criticism  it's just the reality of learning a product, a market, and an outreach motion from scratch. But 3 months of zero pipeline has a real cost that never shows up in the hiring budget.

**2. Tools are a second salary**  
A proper outbound stack  CRM, sequencer, data enrichment, intent signals  runs ₹12–20K/month minimum. Most early-stage companies discover this after they've already made the hire.

**3. Management overhead is underpriced**  
A junior SDR needs 5–10 hours a week of active coaching to actually improve. For a founder or early sales lead already stretched thin, that's not a small ask.

**4. Turnover resets the clock entirely**  
SDR churn in India is high. If they leave at month 6, you don't just lose a rep  you lose the ramp investment, absorb a pipeline gap, and pay placement fees again.

None of this means in-house is wrong. For companies with validated messaging and a clear ICP, building internal sales capability is absolutely the right long-term move.

But for early-stage teams still testing their outbound motion the case for starting lean and validating first is stronger than most people admit.

What's been your experience with this? Would genuinely like to hear from people who've gone both routes.

When does it actually make sense to hire an in-house SDR vs outsource outbound? Here's how we think about it.