AI SDR vs human SDR: the honest breakdown
Where AI reps genuinely outperform humans, where they don't, and the cost math nobody wants to publish.
A full-time SDR in India costs 6-9 lakh loaded. In the US, $70-100k. They send 40-80 personalized touches a day, book 8-15 meetings a month at a well-defined ICP, and quit in 14 months on average.
An AI SDR sends 200-500 touches a day at similar personalization quality, books 6-12 meetings a month, and doesn't quit. But it can't handle nuanced objections in a reply, doesn't build the internal champion relationship, and won't tell you the ICP is wrong.
The honest answer: AI SDRs win the top of the funnel decisively. Human SDRs win the middle. The teams doing this well use AI for research, list-building, and first-touch, then hand qualified conversations to a human closer at reply #2.
The failure mode is treating AI as a replacement instead of a layer. If your AI SDR is having 6-message negotiations with prospects, something is wrong. If it's booking the meeting so a human can take the call, it's doing the job.