SDR vs BDR: what is the difference?

An SDR, or sales development representative, finds companies likely to buy, starts conversations with the right people there, and books qualified meetings for an account executive.

Gartner’s sales glossary (archived January 2026) defines the role as someone who identifies prospective buyers by reaching out to new prospects and by qualifying incoming leads. So the SDR, in Gartner’s wording, does both: outbound outreach and inbound follow-up.

The day is mostly outreach. The Bridge Group’s 2025 report on 351 B2B companies found a median of 112 activities a day per SDR: 44 calls, 41 emails, 19 social touches and 8 texts or other. Around that sits the work that decides whether the outreach lands: researching accounts, finding the people who own the problem, writing a reason to talk, and qualifying the replies. The job ends at a qualified meeting. The account executive takes it from there. Our guide to outbound sales covers how that motion is run.

A BDR, or business development representative, generates new sales opportunities by prospecting into target accounts and qualifying leads, which in practice is the same core job as an SDR.

Gartner’s glossary (archived September 2025) describes the BDR as responsible for creating new business opportunities by qualifying leads and prospecting into existing business accounts to reach potential buyers. Next to the SDR entry, the two overlap far more than they differ, and neither is limited to inbound or outbound.

Survey publishers treat them as one role. Salesforce’s 2026 State of Sales, vendor research based on 4,050 sales professionals, groups SDRs and BDRs together as specialists who prospect and qualify leads to fill the pipeline. The Bridge Group’s 2025 report uses SDR for the whole function and does not define BDR separately.

Where companies do separate the titles, some use BDR for the rep who prospects outbound and SDR for the rep who follows up inbound leads. Others use them the other way around, or for the same job. The title tells you less than the job description: which leads the rep works, who the rep hands meetings to, and what counts toward quota.

Side by side, the two roles share the same goal and most of the same work, and differ mainly in how each company chooses to use the titles.

The reporting line is not fixed by the title either. In the Bridge Group’s 2025 data, sales development reported to sales in 60% of cases, to marketing in 26% and to an executive in 10%.

SDRs and BDRs own the first conversation and the qualified meeting; account executives own the deal from that meeting to signed contract.

The split exists so that the people who close are not also spending their week finding who to talk to. An account executive runs discovery, builds the case with the buying committee, handles pricing and terms, and closes. An SDR or BDR finds and qualifies the account, reaches the right person, and hands over a meeting with notes on why now.

The Bridge Group’s 2025 report shows the scale of that handoff: a median monthly quota of 10 first meetings held, and $3.78 million in pipeline per SDR, up from $2.83 million in 2022. The role is also a route to promotion. In 2024, a median 40% of SDRs left the role in a year: 13% involuntarily, 11% voluntarily and 16% through promotion. A clear lead qualification standard keeps the handoff honest, because both sides agree on what a qualified meeting is.

Median SDR on-target earnings are $80,000 a year, according to the Bridge Group’s 2025 report on 351 B2B companies.

That figure has been unchanged since 2022. It splits about 68:32 between base and variable pay, or roughly $55,000 base and $25,000 variable. For the employer, pay is not the whole cost. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that in June 2026 benefits made up 30.0% of private-industry employer compensation costs. Dividing $80,000 by 0.70 gives about $114,000 a year in pay and benefits. That is our own calculation from the two sources, which do not publish it, and it comes before tools, data, management time and recruiting.

We found no separate BDR pay benchmark with a published method and sample, and the BLS publishes no SDR or BDR occupation. Because the two titles often cover the same job, expect pay to follow the duties and the local market. For the cost of outside options, see how much an outsourced SDR costs.

Hire for the gap you have: someone to qualify incoming leads if inbound is outrunning your account executives, or someone to prospect if it is not.

If inbound leads wait days for a reply, the first hire is a rep who answers and qualifies them quickly. If inbound is thin and your market is a defined set of companies, the first hire is a rep who prospects into it. Call the role whatever your market calls it, and write the lead source into the job description.

Before either hire, have three things ready: an ideal customer profile written as rules, a list of accounts worth working, and a message a founder or account executive has already tested. A new rep needs time to become productive; the Bridge Group’s 2025 report found an average ramp of 3.0 months and average tenure of 1.9 years. If that timeline does not fit, compare the options in in-house vs outsourced SDR vs AI SDR, or read how SDR as a service works.

SDRs and BDRs are usually measured on qualified meetings held and the pipeline those meetings create, with activity counts as a leading indicator.

• Meetings held that meet the agreed qualification standard, not only meetings booked.
• Pipeline created from those meetings, and how much of it the account executive accepts.
• Accounts researched and qualified, with a reason kept for each one turned down.
• Replies and positive replies per account contacted.
• Activity: calls, emails and social touches, as a check on effort rather than a goal.

Quotas are getting harder to hit. In the Bridge Group’s 2025 report, 60% of SDRs were at quota, the lowest share in the study’s history, even with a median of 112 activities a day. When effort is that high and attainment is falling, the problem is usually upstream: the accounts chosen and the reason given to them, which our guide to B2B sales prospecting covers.

AI is taking on the research and drafting in both roles, while the judgment, the live calls and the relationships stay with people.

Gartner predicted in November 2025, and repeated in July 2026, that by 2028 AI agents will outnumber sellers ten to one, yet fewer than 40% of sellers will say agents improved their productivity. More automated activity does not by itself mean a better pipeline. AI SDRs have also started to appear in the Bridge Group’s data as a category of their own, still a small one.

The job is likely to change shape. Fewer hours go to building lists, switching between sources and writing first drafts. More go to checking that an account really fits, choosing who to contact first, editing messages and talking to buyers. S1 agents do the homework. Your team builds the relationship. For each account S1 delivers, its agents run about 30 searches, open the pages that matter, and turn down about three other companies. For the trade-offs in detail, see AI SDR vs human SDR.

An AI SDR, which some vendors call an AI BDR, is software that does parts of the sales development job: finding companies, researching them, drafting outreach, following up and booking meetings.

The two names describe the same kind of product; the choice between them is mostly marketing. What differs between tools is how much they research before they write, and who approves what is sent. Some send on their own once set up. Others draft for a person to approve. Our guide to what an AI SDR is explains how they work and where they fall short, and the 11x alternatives comparison covers one well-known AI SDR and its rivals.

In SalesOne, S1 deep research agents study and qualify each account, map the buying committee and draft the outreach, and a person on your team approves every message before it is sent. When your team is short of time, a SalesOne SDR is an outsourced SDR inside your workspace, and the SDR’s sequence emails wait for approval.