What an AI SDR does in 2026, and what it costs per week

The work an agent does end to end on LinkedIn, the work a person keeps, and one week of one sending profile with the volume and the rates measured on our own engine. Figures recomputed 30 August 2026.

The nine jobs inside one sending week

An SDR seat is one job title covering nine separate jobs. An agent takes seven of them and hands two back.

JobWho does itWhat it looks like in practice
Pick the signal for the weekOperatorA hiring page, a funding filing, a launch, a post where someone names the problem out loud
Source the list against that signalAgentSearch, filter, deduplicate against everyone already touched
Check one fact per personAgentA specific posting, a specific post, a specific product change, with its source stored
Drop the people with no factAgentOn some signals a third of a sourced list is dropped here
Write the first touchAgentUnder 400 characters, the product named in the first line
Pace the sendingAgentSpread across the working window, at most one cold touch per profile per minute
Handle the repliesAgent, with an operator gateSlots, links, factual questions answered directly; price and judgment go to a person
Book the callAgentInto the calendar the client already uses
Read the week and change one thingOperatorOne change per week, on at least 30 sends and 3 replies

One week of one sending profile, measured

In the week of 24 August 2026 our 14 active profiles sent 458 invitations, an average of 32.7 per profile. The busiest single profile in a single calendar week has sent 80. Across the engine's life, 27 July to 28 August 2026, the total is 1,562 invitations, 576 direct messages, 71 InMails and 316 post likes.

Two measured rates turn that volume into conversations. The accept rate is 21.5%, from 158 accepts on 734 invitations sent 10 to 23 August with at least seven days each to be answered. The reply rate after a first direct message is 20.3%, from 38 replies among 187 people. Both definitions and both counts sit on the benchmarks page.

The arithmetic, spelled out

The three lines below are arithmetic on the two measured rates, applied to one profile at the fleet average. They are a planning shape, and the rates that feed them are the ones published above.

  • 33 invitations in a week at 21.5% returns about 7 new connections.
  • 7 connections messaged at 20.3% returns about 1.4 replies.
  • The operated worker is $2,000 a month, which is about $460 a week for that profile's output, so roughly $330 per reply at those rates.

The chain stops there on purpose. Turning replies into booked calls is decided by the two messages after the first reply, and our own sample of that step is still small enough that publishing a rate for it would be a guess wearing a decimal point. Use your own reply-to-call ratio for the last step; most teams already know theirs.

What scales, and what stays flat

The engine is linear in profiles. Two warmed senders produce roughly twice the invitations of one. Turning the volume knob up on a single account moves the refusal rate, which is what the limits page measures. Which signal earns the volume is its own question, worked through with denominators in the piece on buying signals.

So the growth levers, in the order they pay: a better signal, a second warmed profile, a better first line. The volume knob comes last and it has a ceiling written by the platform.

What it costs, at each level

LevelPriceWhat runs
MCP accessFrom $199 a monthYou connect your own assistant to the stack and run the sourcing and the queue yourself. $199 for one LinkedIn account, $100 more for each account after that, up to four
The operated worker$2,000 a monthThe agent runs the whole cycle on one sender, the operator sets it up and watches it daily
Team on top$5,000 a monthA team works the account daily, more channels, more volume, a named manager
Fractional CRO$10,000 a monthAll of the above plus Dmitry personally on your calls and deal reviews

Every level is month to month with no setup fee, and everything built stays with you. The comparison against a hired seat, line by line, is on the SDR cost page.

Questions

Should I hire an AI SDR?

It fits when your buyers are reachable on LinkedIn, you have a reason to write to them this week, and you want the sending, the replies and the weekly read handled. Put the monthly price against a loaded seat at $9,000 to $12,000 and the arithmetic answers itself.

What does an AI SDR actually do?

Sources a list against a live signal, checks one fact per person, writes and paces the first touch, runs the follow-ups, answers replies inside safe classes, books the call, and reports the week. A person picks the signal and makes the judgment calls.

How much does an AI SDR cost per week?

The operated worker is $2,000 a month, about $460 a week, with infrastructure, accounts, sourcing, copy, replies and reporting included. At our measured rates one profile at fleet average returns roughly 1.4 replies a week, so about $330 per reply.

How many messages a week does one profile send?

Our fleet averaged 32.7 invitations per profile in the week of 24 August 2026, plus follow-up messages to people who connected. The busiest single profile has sent 80 in a week. The platform allowance and our own rolling ceiling both sit above that.

Who answers when someone replies?

The agent answers slots, links and factual questions the same day. Price, negotiation, anything ambiguous and anything about your product roadmap goes to a person first, as a draft, and the person sends it.

How fast do the first replies come?

Weeks one and two go to the profile, infrastructure and warm-up. Sending starts week three, and first replies usually land in week three or four. The week by week shape is on the how it works page.

Want this running on your own pipeline?

Book a 30-minute call. Tell me who you need to reach and I will say plainly whether this is a fit.