AI SDR pricing in 2026

Q: Why do so few AI SDR companies publish pricing?

The motion is sales-led. An autonomous agent is priced against the SDR salary it claims to replace rather than against other software, a quote lets the number move per deal, and implementation is scoped per customer, which cannot sit on a pricing page. Six of the ten tools on this page publish no price at all. The practical consequence is that the public numbers that exist are procurement data and reviews, so treat them as directional and confirm on the call.

Q: What is the cheapest AI SDR for startups?

Artisan, at around $250 a month self-serve, is the cheapest autonomous agent entry we could verify, with the caveat that the figure is reported rather than published and usage is metered in credits. AiSDR follows at around $900 a month. driftwood's published floor is $1,000 a month. If the need is really volume email rather than an agent, Instantly starts at $47 a month, though it is a sending tool, not an AI SDR.

Q: What do published, reported, and quote-based mean on this page?

Published means the vendor lists the price where anyone can read it. Reported means the number comes from somewhere else, procurement data such as Vendr's or 2026 reviews, and the vendor has not confirmed it. Quote-based means the vendor names tiers but no dollar amounts, so a sales call decides. The labels matter because roundups blur them, and a reported number treated as published is how budgets get surprised.

By the driftwood team · July 2026

Updated July 2026. Prices checked 2026-07-21; this page gets a monthly fact-check.

Ask what an AI SDR costs and the usual answer is a sales call. Six of the ten tools on this page publish no price at all; the numbers that circulate instead come from procurement data and reviews. This page collects every entry price we could verify for the category and labels each one published, reported, or quote-based, so you know which numbers to trust and which to confirm before signing.

We build driftwood (driftwood.sh), one of three tools below with a published price; judge accordingly. Reported figures are labeled as such and linked where a public source exists.

The pricing table

Ten tools, sorted by entry price, cheapest first. A per-seat price is not an agent price; the pricing model column says which is which.

Rows sort by entry price, cheapest first; vendors with no number we could verify sort last, alphabetically. Published means the vendor lists the number, reported means it comes from procurement data or reviews, quote-based means a sales call decides.
Tool	Entry price (as of July 2026)	Pricing model	Published?	What is included
Apollo	Free tier; paid from $49 per user per month billed annually	Per seat, with a yearly credit pool per seat	Yes	Database access, sequencing, a dialer, light CRM; your reps run it, nothing is autonomous
Artisan (Ava)	Around $250 a month, self-serve, reported	Autonomous agent, usage metered in credits; volume tiers quoted through sales	Partly: the public tiers are quote-based; the entry figure is reported. Our Artisan page has the detail	Ava, an autonomous AI BDR covering lead discovery through follow-up
AiSDR	Around $900 a month	Monthly subscription	Yes, verified at the July check	An autonomous agent pitched on lead quality and fast setup
driftwoodour tool	$1,000 to $5,000 a month	Monthly subscription, priced by send volume and channels	Yes: the whole range, floor to ceiling, on our FAQ	The agent: prospect research, a working demo of your product built per prospect, drafting, and sending from your own accounts
11x	Reported near $5,000 a month per digital worker, annual contract, plus implementation fees	Per digital worker, sales-led, annual contracts	No. Reported: Vendr puts the median contract at about $55,050 a year	One digital worker running outbound end to end; Julian covers the phone
Amplemarket	None published that we could verify	Unpublished; priced through sales	No	All-in-one platform: data, engagement, deliverability, an AI copilot (Duo) for reps
Autobound	None published that we could verify	Unpublished; priced through sales	No	Signal data layer: buying signals and generated copy, delivered by API
Regie.ai	None published that we could verify	Unpublished; priced through sales	No	AI sales engagement platform pairing agents with human reps
Topo	None published that we could verify	Unpublished; priced through sales	No	AI outbound agent trained on your playbook, working beside your reps
Unify	None published that we could verify	Unpublished; priced through sales	No	Signal-driven outbound: intent triggers decide who gets contacted

Clay and Instantly are not in the table: both publish pricing (Clay from $185 a month, Instantly from $47) but sell a data workbench and email sending rather than an AI SDR. Work at any of these companies and see something wrong or missing? Email aayush@driftwood.sh and we will fix it.

Prices answer one question; fit answers the rest. For what each of these tools actually does, we keep a ranked comparison of the category, and if the terms are new, what an AI SDR is covers them.

What drives the price

Three pricing models, and what each one makes you pay for.

Per seat: the price tracks your headcount

How it works. Apollo is the clean example: $49 per user per month billed annually buys each rep database access, sequencing, and a dialer. The software is cheap because the motion is yours; every list built and every send is a person's time.

What to watch. Per-seat stickers assume you have the seats. A founder doing their own outbound pays for one seat; a team of five pays five times that, plus the time of whoever manages deliverability.

Per volume: the price hides in the meter

How it works. Credit systems price usage, not access. Apollo's paid plans carry a yearly credit pool per seat, 30,000 on the entry tier, spent on contact reveals and exports; Artisan meters every enrichment and send in credits; Instantly's $47 sending plan bills the lead database, CRM, and AI agents separately through a credit subscription.

What to watch. The sticker is the floor. When the pool runs out, the choice is overage credits or a tier upgrade, and unused credits expire.

Per agent: the price argues with a salary

How it works. Autonomous agents price against the SDR they claim to replace. 11x is reported near $5,000 a month per digital worker on an annual contract, and for an org replacing headcount the salary comparison holds. AiSDR's entry around $900 a month and Artisan's reported $250 make the same argument at smaller scale.

Where driftwood sits. driftwood's published range, $1,000 to $5,000 a month, is priced by send volume and channels rather than against a salary. What the money buys is demo-led outbound: a working demo of your product, built for the specific prospect receiving it, in every message, sent from your own LinkedIn or email account.

The hidden costs

What the sticker leaves out, from the vendors' own pages and the reporting on them.

Implementation fees. The sticker is not the first-year total. 11x's reported near $5,000 a month becomes a first-year total commonly between $50,000 and $60,000 once implementation fees are included, per the procurement data Vendr reports. Quote-based vendors scope implementation per customer, which is exactly why it never appears on a pricing page.

Annual lock-ins. Advertised prices are often the annual rate. Apollo's $49, $79, and $119 seats are billed-annually prices, and paying month to month costs more; 2026 reviews describe Artisan's named self-serve tiers as annually billed; 11x contracts have historically run 12 months, sometimes with a break clause at three months, and a break clause is a negotiation item, not a given. The detail lives on our Apollo page and our 11x page.

Credit meters. Credits move cost from the sticker to the usage. Apollo's credits cover contact reveals and exports, phone numbers cost several times an email, and unused credits expire; Artisan meters every enrichment and send; Clay reviews describe hundreds of dollars of credits burned during the learning period, which is why our Clay page treats the operator, not the plan, as the real cost.

The sales cycle itself. Quote-based pricing costs time before it costs money: a demo call, a scoped proposal, and a negotiation, and for six of the ten tools above that is the only way to learn the number. Budget the weeks, and get any break clause in writing.

The cheapest path, by stage

Four situations, four answers, including two that are not us.

Testing the autonomous model on a small budget

Artisan, and we say so plainly. Around $250 a month self-serve, reported at the July check, with no sales call required, is the cheapest autonomous agent entry on this page. driftwood's floor is $1,000, four times that, and we do not claim to be the cheaper start. Our Artisan page covers the credit metering and the reviews before you commit.

If the need is really sending. Instantly starts at $47 a month. It is a cold email tool, not an AI SDR, and for plain volume email that is the point.

A team with reps already running outbound

Apollo. A free tier to start, then $49 per user per month billed annually for database access, sequencing, and a dialer. For most teams at this stage the per-seat platform is the right first buy, not an agent: the motion already has owners, and they need tooling, not a replacement.

A founder whose constraint is replies

driftwood. The floor is $1,000 a month, published. The price buys the agent researching each prospect, building a working demo of your product for their business, and drafting the message, with a person approving each send from your own account. Against 11x's reported $5,000 a month plus implementation, driftwood is cheaper to start; against Artisan's $250, it is not.

Reply rate before

under 1%

Reply rate, week one

over 14%

What the price is judged against: on the same lead list, replies went from under 1% to over 14% in week one at Autosana (YC S25).

An org replacing SDR headcount

11x. Reported near $5,000 a month per digital worker, and at that scale the salary comparison is the honest frame: one worker costs less than one hire. Reference-check current customers and negotiate the break clause on the way in; our 11x page has the 2025 record, dated and sourced.

FAQ

Four short answers.

Why do so few AI SDR companies publish pricing?

The motion is sales-led. An autonomous agent is priced against the SDR salary it claims to replace rather than against other software, a quote lets the number move per deal, and implementation is scoped per customer, which cannot sit on a pricing page. Six of the ten tools on this page publish no price at all.

The practical consequence. The public numbers that exist are procurement data and reviews, so treat them as directional and confirm on the call.

What is the cheapest AI SDR for startups?

Artisan. At around $250 a month self-serve, it is the cheapest autonomous agent entry we could verify, with the caveat that the figure is reported rather than published and usage is metered in credits. AiSDR follows at around $900 a month. driftwood's published floor is $1,000 a month.

If the need is really volume email. Instantly starts at $47 a month, though it is a sending tool, not an AI SDR.

How much does an AI SDR cost in 2026?

The agent range. Autonomous agents run from around $250 a month reported (Artisan) through around $900 (AiSDR) and $1,000 to $5,000 published (driftwood) to near $5,000 a month reported plus implementation fees (11x).

Below the agents. Platforms your reps run start lower: Apollo from $49 per user per month billed annually. Six vendors in the category publish no number at all.

What do published, reported, and quote-based mean on this page?

Published means the vendor lists the price where anyone can read it. Reported means the number comes from somewhere else, procurement data such as Vendr's or 2026 reviews, and the vendor has not confirmed it. Quote-based means the vendor names tiers but no dollar amounts, so a sales call decides.

Why the labels matter. Roundups blur them, and a reported number treated as published is how budgets get surprised.

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