Should I hire an SDR or outsource outbound?

It depends on whether you already have a proven playbook. If you do not yet know what good prospecting looks like in your market, hiring a junior SDR to figure it out is an expensive bet — they will prospect the wrong companies for weeks before you notice.

Outsourcing to a specialist gives you sourcing, enrichment, infrastructure, copywriting, and reply handling without the recruitment risk, the 5–6 month ramp, or the management overhead. The economics typically favour outsourcing for the first 12–18 months.

Once you have documented, repeatable plays and more qualified conversations than you can hold, bringing it in-house starts to make sense — and you will onboard faster because the system already exists.