Should You Hire SDRs In-House or Partner with an Agency?

Every founder hits this crossroad sooner or later. You know you need pipeline. You know someone has to be consistently reaching out, booking meetings, and keeping the top of the funnel alive. The big question is:

👉 Do you hire SDRs in-house, or do you partner with an outbound sales agency?

At first glance, both options seem like they’ll do the same thing, bring in leads. But the reality is, they come with different trade-offs in cost, speed, risk, and long-term scalability. And if you make the wrong call for your stage, you can burn a lot of time and money.

Let’s break it down.

The Case for In-House SDRs

Hiring your own SDRs gives you ownership. These reps wear your logo, sit in your Slack, and live your product every day. Over time, they can grow into AEs or even sales leaders, making in-house hires feel like long-term assets.

Strengths of in-house SDRs:

• Deep product knowledge. They learn your product, your ICP, and your nuances — and can deliver a pitch in a way no outsourced rep ever will.
• Tighter alignment. They’re in the same meetings as marketing, product, and customer success. Feedback loops are shorter.
• Cultural fit. You shape their habits, tone, and selling style from day one.

But there are drawbacks.

Weaknesses of in-house SDRs:

• Cost. A single SDR can easily cost $100K+ annually when you factor in salary, benefits, training, tools, and management overhead.
• Slow ramp time. Even good SDRs take 3–6 months before they’re reliably booking meetings. That’s a long time to wait if you need pipeline now.
• High churn. The SDR role has one of the highest turnover rates in sales. Many burn out or leave for AE roles. If they quit, you’re starting from scratch.

👉 Bottom line: In-house SDRs are best if you’re well-funded, have a repeatable sales motion, and are playing the long game of building a sales org.

The Case for Partnering with an Agency

Outbound agencies bring speed and flexibility. Instead of spending months hiring, onboarding, and training, you get an SDR function that can be switched on in weeks.

Strengths of agencies:

• Speed to market. Campaigns can launch in 2–4 weeks vs. 3–6 months for a new hire.
• Proven systems. Good agencies already have the data, tech stack, and workflows in place. You’re not reinventing the wheel.
• Scalability. Need 200 more leads this quarter? Scale up. Need to cut back? No painful layoffs.
• Lower risk. If an agency underperforms, you replace them. Firing an SDR means lost recruiting costs and months wasted.

But again, there are trade-offs.

Weaknesses of agencies:

• Not fully embedded. No matter how good they are, they’ll never know your product as well as your own team.
• Variable quality. Some agencies care about volume, not quality. You’ll need to vet carefully.
• Dependency risk. If you rely 100% on them and turn off the engagement, your pipeline could dry up fast.

👉 Bottom line: Agencies are best if you need to test outbound fast, validate markets, or add pipeline without the overhead of a full team.

The Hybrid Model (What Most Winners Do)

Here’s the truth most blogs don’t tell you: the best companies don’t pick one or the other. They combine both.

• Early stage (Seed – Series A): Start with an agency. You don’t know yet if your outbound messaging works. You don’t even know if your ICP is right. An agency gives you speed and data without locking you into fixed costs.
• Growth stage (Series B+): Once you know outbound works, hire SDRs to own the process internally. But keep the agency for overflow work, events, or new market entry.
• Enterprise stage: Run a large in-house team for control and brand consistency, but still use agencies for specialized projects (like international expansion or event-based outreach).

This hybrid approach gives you the best of both worlds: speed, flexibility, and ownership.

Key Questions to Ask Yourself

Before deciding, founders should ask:

1. What stage are we in? (Testing outbound? Scaling? Expanding globally?)
2. What’s our budget tolerance? (Can we afford $100K+ per SDR, or do we need flexible costs?)
3. Do we have the expertise to manage SDRs? Hiring SDRs without a strong sales leader usually ends badly.
4. How quickly do we need results? If pipeline is urgent, agencies almost always win on speed.

Final Thought

The biggest mistake isn’t hiring SDRs too early or using an agency too long. The mistake is thinking you can only do one.

Outbound in 2025 is about flexibility. Agencies give you speed and scalability. In-house SDRs give you control and long-term leverage. The smartest founders use both, layering agencies in when they need pipeline fast, and building in-house when they’re ready to scale.

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