SaaS SDR metrics and benchmarking
The Bridge Group is a SaaS sales consulting firm that we hold in high regard. They release outstanding sales data which can be found at their site, bridgegroupinc.com. We reviewed a report regarding SDR’s entitled the “Sales Development Metrics and Compensation Research Report.” The report compiled data from 365 SaaS companies about their SDR teams. The with median revenue of those reporting was $45mm and the median ACV was $52k. Below is a summary.
Reporting to sales. 64% of SDR’s report to the head of sales as opposed to marketing. However, “60% of inboundteams report to Marketing. This makes inbound groups 2.1 times as likely to report to Marketing as hybrid groups and 4.0x as likely as outbound groups.”
2.3 to 1. One SDR generally supports 2.3 AE’s. “High-Growth companies report similar SDR-to-AE ratios as laggards”
Remote heavy. “In 2018, 48% of companies reported reps in the same role working in different locations. Due to COVID/remote/WFH, that number increased to 64% in 2020. Today, the vast majority of groups (90% !!) are either fully or partially remote. That was nearly unthinkable just four years ago.”
The quality of meeting. “As a rule of thumb, you should deploy an introductory meeting charter when the market for your product is immature and/or when your Account Executives are suffering from “empty calendar syndrome.” If your sales team is screaming for more “at-bats,” then break glass and set meetings. Conversion rates, qualification criteria, and cost per meeting all go out the window when AEs calendars are anemic. On the other extreme, if your AEs are drowning in pipeline, then a fully qualified opportunity charter is appropriate to ensure each new opportunity has been vetted for qualification.”
Experience at hire. SDR’s hired today have only 1.0 year of experience. In 2010 it was 2.5 years.
Ramp time and tenure. The average ramp time is 3.2 months and the average rep lasts 1.4 years. That means you have about 15 months of productivity. Interestingly, “Companies hiring the least experienced reps experience significantly lower average tenure. This point is critical and needs to be baked into your overall strategy.”
Promotion programs are ubiquitous. “The overwhelming majority (96%) of companies offer at least one form of SDR career path. More than half (64%) offer two or more.” Reps spend a median of 16 months in the SDR role before promotion.
SDR salaries. SDR’s total comp is $80k of which $55k is base salary.
Activity. SDR’s do 104 total activities of which 40 are calls, 40 are emails, and 16 are Linkedin. This activity results in 3.6 quality conversations per day. This is way down over time, when there were 8 QC’s per day in 2014. Those SDR teams that are phone-centric versus email report 1.4x more quality conversations per day. The typical rep makes 11.3 attempts at contacting a lead before giving up; this is up from 7.3 in 2014, and “this figure has been on the rise for a decade. As buyers have become harder to reach, reps have increased their persistence in lock step.”
Quota attainment. “On average, 63% of reps in a given group achieve quota. There has been remarkable consistency around this metric over the years. Two-thirds of reps achieving quota seems to be the natural equilibrium.” The median pipeline generated is $2.8mm, but this varies widely by company, the 25th and 75th percentiles are $1.7mm and $4.2mm respectively.
Rep to leader ratio. The number of SDRs reporting to a manager is 8 on average. The leader comp is $137k on average.
The full reports are well worth the read and has charts and graphs for every metric. Again visit bridgegroupinc.com to get them.
Sammy is the Managing Partner and Co-Founder of Blossom Street Ventures. Visit us at blossomstreetventures.com and email directly at sammy@blossomstreetventures.com. We invest in companies with run rate revenue of $3mm to $30mm, with year over year growth of 20% to 100%+ depending on revenue. We lead or follow in growth rounds and special situations like inside rounds, small rounds, rushed rounds, corralling investors with our term sheet, cap table clean up, and extensions. We can commit in 3 weeks and our check is $1mm to $4mm. Also visit https://blossomstreetventures.com/metrics/ for always up-to-date SaaS metrics.
