What Is an SDR in Sales? Role, Metrics and Daily Reality

An SDR — sales development representative — is the person who starts the conversation. They don't close deals. They find accounts worth talking to, reach out cold, handle the first objection, and hand a qualified meeting to an account executive. It's the entry point into most B2B sales careers and the first seat most companies fill when they decide to grow outbound. Here's what the job actually involves, how it's measured, and what AI has and hasn't changed about it.

What an SDR is measured on

The role is unusually quantified, which is both its appeal and its pressure. Five numbers show up on nearly every SDR scorecard:

• Meetings booked — the headline number, usually 8–15 per month for outbound-heavy roles, higher for inbound.
• Meetings held — booked minus no-shows. The gap between these two is where sloppy qualification shows up.
• Qualified opportunities accepted — how many of those meetings the account executive agreed were real. This is the number that actually protects an SDR's job.
• Activity — calls, emails and social touches per day. Increasingly de-emphasised, because it measures effort rather than outcome.
• Pipeline sourced — the dollar value of opportunities traced back to the SDR, and the metric that decides promotions.

Quota is typically set so that a competent SDR hits it about 70% of months. If everyone on the team is at 130%, the quota is wrong; if nobody clears 60%, the targeting is wrong, not the people.

SDR vs AE: where the handoff happens

The clearest way to understand the role is by what it stops before. An SDR owns the top of the funnel — research, first contact, qualification. An account executive owns everything after the first meeting: discovery, demo, pricing, negotiation, close. The handoff is the meeting itself.

That split exists because the two jobs need different temperaments. Prospecting is a volume game with a high rejection rate; closing is a relationship game with a long memory. Companies that ask one person to do both usually find the closing work crowds out the prospecting, because closing has deadlines and prospecting never does.

What AI actually changed about the SDR job

Not the job. The ratio. Research that used to take fifteen minutes per account takes seconds, first-draft personalisation is automatic, and follow-up sequencing no longer depends on someone remembering. What hasn't changed is that a human still decides which accounts are worth the effort and still handles the conversation once someone replies.

The practical result is fewer SDRs covering more accounts, with the surviving roles skewing toward judgment rather than throughput. If you're evaluating tools for that shift, we compared the current options in our AI SDR software guide.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does an SDR do in sales?

An SDR (sales development representative) finds and qualifies new prospects, then hands qualified meetings to an account executive who owns the deal from there. The job is research, cold outreach across email and phone, handling the first objection, and booking a meeting the AE agrees is worth taking. SDRs do not close deals and are not compensated on closed revenue.

What is the difference between an SDR and an account executive?

The SDR owns everything up to the first meeting: building the account list, making first contact, and qualifying. The account executive owns everything after it: discovery, demo, pricing, negotiation and close. The handoff is the booked meeting itself. The split exists because prospecting is a high-rejection volume activity and closing is a longer relationship activity, and most people are better at one than the other.

What is a realistic SDR quota?

For outbound-heavy roles, 8–15 qualified meetings per month is typical; inbound-facing roles carry higher numbers because the leads arrive warm. Quota is usually calibrated so a competent rep hits it roughly 70% of months. What matters more than meetings booked is meetings held and opportunities the account executive accepts, since those filter out loose qualification.

Is the SDR role being replaced by AI?

The task mix has changed more than the headcount logic. Research, list building, first-draft personalisation and follow-up timing are now largely automated, so each rep covers more accounts. What has not been automated is deciding which accounts deserve the effort and handling a live conversation once a prospect replies. The roles that have shrunk are the ones that were purely throughput.