The short answer: the cheapest AI SDR that still sends outreach and books meetings is a flat monthly plan, not a per-contact or annual-quote tool. Sdrs starts at $49 a month with 500 verified leads a day, 7-step sequences and no annual contract. Salesforge's Agent Frank is $499 a month, Reply.io's Jason AI starts at $500 a month on annual billing, AiSDR charges $1.50 per person prospected, and 11x starts at $3,750 a month on an annual contract. For a startup, the right question is cost per booked meeting at your real volume, not the sticker price.
What is the cheapest AI SDR for a startup?
Here are the entry prices each vendor publishes, with the billing term that decides how risky the first purchase is. Where a vendor publishes no price, the table says so instead of guessing.
| AI SDR | Entry price | Term | What the entry price covers | Fit for a startup |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sdrs | $49/mo, $24/mo billed annually | Monthly or annual | 500 verified leads a day, 7-step sequences, A/B testing, warm-up, 3 users | Founder-led outbound from day one |
| AiSDR | $1.50 per person prospected | Pay as you go, charged daily | Per-contact billing; team plans for 1,000+ contacts a month | Cheap at 100 contacts, steep at 5,000 |
| Salesforge (Agent Frank) | $499/mo | Quarterly or annual | 1,000 active contacts, contact search, autopilot; mailboxes extra | Needs a quarter of commitment |
| Reply.io (Jason AI) | $500/mo annual, $800 monthly | Annual or monthly | 1,000 active contacts, multichannel sequences | Better once a rep owns it |
| 11x (Alice) | $3,750/mo | Annual | Up to 5 users, 2,000 new prospects a month | Funded teams only |
| Artisan (Ava) | Quote only | Annual, paid in advance (reported) | Not published | Ask for the term before the demo |
These are the figures from each vendor's pricing page when we last checked, and they change. Our AI SDR pricing comparison has the longer breakdown, including contract data for the quote-only tools.
Why the cheapest price per month is not the cheapest per meeting
A $49 plan and a $500 plan can cost the same per meeting if the second one books ten times as many. What matters is the number of qualified conversations you can get from the volume the plan allows, and how much of the work you still do by hand.
Take a startup selling a $15,000 a year product to operations leaders. If 1,000 prospects get a sequence and 1 percent turn into meetings, that is 10 meetings. On a flat plan the bill stays at $49 to $499. On per-contact pricing at $1.50, the same 1,000 prospects cost $1,500. At 5,000 prospects the per-contact bill is $7,500 a month, which is more than a junior SDR's salary in many cities. Reply rate varies a lot by list quality and offer, so use your own number, not ours.
The hidden costs usually come from four places: mailboxes and sending domains billed separately, data or credits that expire, seats you must add when a second person joins, and annual terms that turn a test into a $6,000 to $45,000 commitment.
What should a startup check before choosing a low-cost AI SDR?
- Term. Month-to-month lets you stop after one bad month. Annual and quarterly terms make the first campaign a bet.
- Volume cap. Ask how many new prospects a month are included, and what the next step costs.
- Data included. Some plans ship with a contact database, others expect you to bring a list or pay for credits.
- Mailboxes. Sending from your own mailboxes with warm-up and bounce protection protects your main domain.
- Approval. You should see every message before it goes out until you trust the output.
- Booking. A tool that stops at "interested" still leaves you the scheduling back and forth.
Is an AI SDR cheaper than hiring an SDR?
Yes, by a wide margin on cash cost. A full-time SDR carries base pay, variable pay, tools, management time and a ramp of a few months, and our breakdown of what an SDR really costs puts year one well above $100,000. An AI SDR at $49 to $499 a month is $588 to $5,988 a year. It does not replace a closer or a phone call with a complicated buyer, but it removes the list building, first emails and follow-ups that eat most of an SDR's week.
Where a cheaper tool is the wrong choice
If your buyers only answer calls, if your deal needs a multi-threaded account plan across ten contacts, or if you want a vendor to carry the performance risk, an agency or a higher tier may fit better. Agencies commonly quote $7,000 to $12,000 a month, which is the comparison in our outsourced SDR pricing guide. A startup with a clear ICP and email-reachable buyers rarely needs that to learn whether outbound works.
How to test an AI SDR for one month
- Pick one narrow segment, for example operations leaders at logistics firms with 50 to 500 employees in the Midwest.
- Write one offer in a sentence, such as a 20 minute audit or a pilot at a fixed price.
- Launch with a few hundred contacts, approve the drafts, and let the sequence run its full length.
- Count replies, positive replies and booked meetings, then divide the monthly cost by meetings.
- Keep the plan if that number is below what a meeting is worth to you. Otherwise change the segment or the offer before changing the tool.
Expect to spend a little on supporting tools as well. Keeping those subscriptions in one place with an expense tracker that categorizes recurring tool charges shows the real monthly cost of your outbound stack. For a flat-fee option built for this test, see the AI appointment setter page or the Sdrs plans.
Cheap AI SDR questions
Is there a free AI SDR?
Not one that does the whole job. Free tiers usually cap contacts or strip sending. The practical test is a paid monthly plan you can cancel, which limits the downside to one month.
What is the cheapest AI BDR that still books meetings?
A flat monthly plan that includes data, sequences, mailboxes and scheduling. Sdrs at $49 a month fits that description. Compare cost per booked meeting after one month rather than the list price.
Can a one-person startup use an AI SDR?
Yes, and it is the typical user. The founder describes the buyer and the offer, approves drafts, and only joins the calls that get booked.
Do cheap AI SDRs hurt email deliverability?
Only if they send too fast from a cold domain. Look for warm-up, daily sending limits and bounce protection, and use a secondary domain for outreach rather than your main one.