AI sales agent software › What is an AI SDR
What is an AI SDR? What it does on its own, and what it can't
An AI SDR is software that does an outbound sales development rep's job: it picks people who fit your customer profile, researches each one, writes and sends the first email or LinkedIn message, follows up, sorts the replies and books meetings for a human. It replaces the list building and first drafts. It doesn't replace knowing your market, and it can burn your sending domain if nobody watches it.
What an AI SDR does, step by step
Every product in this category runs roughly the same loop. The differences are in which steps it does alone and which wait for you.
- Learns what you sell. You give it your website or a brief. Moab, for example, builds a customer profile and its first campaign agents from your product's URL; AiSDR's agent, Ami, sets up a campaign from a chat.
- Finds people. It searches a contact database by title, company size, industry and signals such as funding, hiring or a job change. AiSDR says it draws on more than 2 billion profiles, Artisan on 250 million contacts, Salesforge on 500 million. HubSpot's agent watches companies for news and research on your topics and suggests contacts there.
- Researches each one. It reads the person's company site, news and profile to find a reason to write. This is the step that separates an agent from a mail merge.
- Writes the message. One email or LinkedIn message per person, plus follow-ups. Some show the reason next to the draft so you can judge it.
- Sends, or waits. Here products split. HubSpot's agent has a "review emails" or "send without review" switch per play; Artisan runs each campaign in approval mode or lets Ava send; Salesforge's Agent Frank has autopilot and co-pilot modes. Moab's docs say a draft sends only once approved, though its home page says that after the first batch it sends and follows up on its own.
- Handles replies. It sorts answers into interested, not now, wrong person and unsubscribe, replies to simple questions and books a meeting on a calendar. AiSDR says replies go out in 5 to 10 minutes unless co-pilot mode is on.
- Learns. Many products shift effort toward what works. AiSDR says its agent "sharpens" a campaign "as replies come in", Artisan says Ava "doubles down on what converts", and Moab's daily planner moves send volume to the campaign agents doing best.
What an AI SDR can't do
- Choose your market for you. It works from the profile you give it. A vague profile gets you a large, polite list of the wrong people.
- Make the call that closes. The outbound agents here hand the meeting to a person. Phone agents such as SalesCloser and 11x's inbound agent talk to leads who came to you, which is a different product (see voice and inbound agents).
- Guarantee results. AiSDR's own rule of thumb is 1 to 3 booked meetings per 100 people contacted, and it calls that a directional benchmark. In March 2025 TechCrunch reported, citing current and former employees, that most of 11x's early customers used break clauses to leave, and that ZoomInfo, after a one-month pilot, said 11x "performed significantly worse than our SDR employees". 11x told TechCrunch its highest churn was in its first cohorts in late 2023 and that its retention rate was 79%; the reporting is well over a year old.
- Protect your domain by itself. Gmail asks every sender to keep the spam rate in Postmaster Tools below 0.1% and never reach 0.3%, and senders of more than 5,000 messages a day to Gmail have stricter rules. An agent sending a few hundred mediocre emails a day from your main domain can get it filtered. Most tools sell or set up separate sending domains and mailboxes; AiSDR charges $33 for a warmed-up mailbox.
- Make LinkedIn automation safe. LinkedIn's user agreement bans bots or other unauthorized automated methods to send messages or add contacts. Agents that send LinkedIn messages (AiSDR, Artisan, Agent Frank, and Moab through HeyReach) put the sending account at that risk. Email is the safer channel to automate.
AI SDR, AI BDR and AI sales agent: the same thing?
Mostly. SDR (sales development representative) and BDR (business development representative) are both entry-level outbound jobs; companies use the two titles loosely. Artisan calls Ava "the AI BDR", Salesforge calls Agent Frank an "AI SDR", and Qualified calls Piper an "AI SDR Agent" although Piper works inbound leads on a website. "AI sales agent" is the wider term: it also covers phone agents, website chat agents and agents inside a CRM that update deals. When you read a list, check which job each product actually does.
Who sells one, and how
| Product | Sends without you? | Data included | How it's sold |
|---|---|---|---|
| 11x | Not stated publicly | Yes | Demo and contract |
| AiSDR | Yes; co-pilot mode for replies | Yes | $1.50 per person, self-serve |
| Artisan | Your choice per campaign | Yes | From $280 a month, or a quote |
| HubSpot Prospecting Agent | Your choice per play | Sources contacts | Inside HubSpot, 100 credits a lead |
| Moab | No; you approve (per draft in its docs) | No; your Prospeo and Enrow keys | Free, $49 or $149 a month |
| Salesforge (Agent Frank) | Autopilot or co-pilot | Yes | $499 to $599 a month per 1,000 active contacts, after a demo |
Is an AI SDR worth it?
Run the sum with the vendor's own numbers before a demo. At AiSDR's $1.50 a person and its 1 to 3 meetings per 100 people, a meeting costs $50 to $150 in software. At 500 people a month that's $750 for 5 to 15 meetings, if your offer performs at its average. A cheaper tool that waits for approval (Moab is about $66 a month at that volume with your own data) moves the cost from money to your time: you approve the outreach, which takes minutes a day at founder volume and doesn't scale to a team sending thousands.
Three signs it will pay off: you already know who buys and why, you have a product people can try or a meeting worth taking, and you can afford a separate sending domain. Three signs to wait: you're still guessing the customer, your offer needs a long explanation, or one bad week of spam complaints would hurt your main domain.
For price at 250, 1,000 and 2,500 people a month, see AI SDR pricing. If you'd rather wire one together yourself, see how to build an AI sales agent.
Questions
What does an AI SDR do?
It finds people who fit your customer profile, researches them, writes and sends the first email or LinkedIn message, follows up, sorts replies and books meetings for a human seller. Products differ on whether it sends on its own or waits for your approval.
Is an AI SDR the same as an AI BDR?
In practice, yes. SDR and BDR are both outbound prospecting jobs, and vendors use the names loosely: Artisan calls Ava an AI BDR, Salesforge calls Agent Frank an AI SDR.
Do AI SDRs actually work?
They book meetings when the profile and offer are right, at rates vendors put around 1 to 3 meetings per 100 people contacted (AiSDR's figure). Reporting on 11x in 2025 described many early customers leaving after trials, which 11x disputed, so test on a small list with a separate domain first.
About this page
Published by Winding AI, Inc., the company that makes Moab, one of the products named here. Winding AI earns from Moab subscriptions, not from links to other products. Back to the AI sales agent software comparison.