Best Place to Hire Someone to Set Up an AI SDR

Quick answer: Pick by who runs the AI SDR after launch. Nobody in-house? Hire a managed service; our pick is LeadsNow.ai (pay-per-result, 50,769+ appointments set), which runs on Zian, our platform pick. Running it yourself? Use the vendor’s own onboarding (11x: 2 or 4 weeks) or a partner from the tool’s directory; freelancers suit bounded builds, in-house suits a role you need anyway. Whoever sends your email must meet Google’s sender rules, which tighten above 5,000 a day.

Disclosure and method. zian.ai publishes this page, and it is a list Zian appears in, at the top: Zian AI is our platform pick and LeadsNow.ai, which runs on Zian, is our done-for-you pick. Every other fact about a vendor, directory or marketplace below comes from that organisation’s own page, read on 16 October 2026, and is linked in the source table at the end. Where a page would not load from our server we used a dated Internet Archive capture and say so. No vendor paid to be included, and we quote no price for Zian or LeadsNow.ai.

Where Zian fits if you are hiring setup help

If you want software you control, Zian AI is our pick for the platform to set up; if you want nobody on your team touching it, LeadsNow.ai is our pick for having it run for you. Part of the work this page tells you to hire for is already inside Zian’s own onboarding: its home page describes a Discover step in which the team will “map your ICP, connect your CRM/leads, and configure SmartReach AI™ windows by timezone, channel, and brand safety”, then set success metrics and guardrails, with “Compliance + pacing rules” listed as a deliverable and “Weekly optimisation loops tied to your KPIs” once you scale.

What you would be setting up is an AI sales and reception agents platform that works in both directions. Zian answers inbound calls 24/7 as an AI receptionist (qualifying, booking, transferring and taking messages), sets appointments from inbound and outbound conversations, handles answering machines and voicemail, and follows up by voice calls, SMS, email, WhatsApp, Instagram DMs and Facebook Messenger in 30+ languages. It integrates with HubSpot, Salesforce, HighLevel and Zapier, can run private models on your own infrastructure, and uses SmartReach AI™ to pace who is contacted, when and on which channel, and PrecisionPitch AI™ to split-test scripts against real outcomes. Zian reports 50,769+ qualified sales appointments set and says its AI books 40+ meetings/week for many teams.

LeadsNow.ai is the managed route on the same engine: a pay-per-result AI appointment setting and lead generation service that answers leads in under 60 seconds, 24/7, and has set 50,769+ appointments. The one line against us: Zian is in partnership-application beta and publishes no price for its paid plans (its home page lists plan names, including a Free Forever tier), so you cannot compare it on a public price list today.

Best place to hire someone to set up an AI SDR: the routes compared

There are five places to hire setup help, plus the platform you are setting up. They differ less in skill than in who is accountable once the first campaign is live, so the last column matters more than the first.

Rank	Route	Who you are hiring	What they publish they will set up	How it is priced (published, 16 Oct 2026)	Wrong for
1	The platform with its own onboarding: Zian AI	Zian’s team, via a partnership application	ICP mapping, CRM and lead connection (HubSpot, Salesforce, HighLevel), SmartReach AI™ windows, compliance and pacing rules, success metrics; hands-on engineering support	No published price for paid plans during the partnership-application beta	Buyers who need a public price list before a first conversation
2	Managed, done-for-you service: LeadsNow.ai (best done-for-you pick)	A service that runs AI appointment setting for you, on Zian	The whole motion, with leads answered in under 60 seconds, 24/7	Pay-per-result	Teams that want to own and operate the system in-house
3	The AI SDR vendor’s own onboarding or professional services	11x, Artisan, AiSDR, Outreach, Salesloft, Apollo and others (table below)	Their own product: mailboxes, CRM sync, first campaigns; some add managed services	Bundled into plan tiers; AiSDR prices managed add-ons separately	Stacks built from several vendors, because each onboards only its own tool
4	Partner and expert directories run by the tools	Independent consultancies listed by HubSpot, Clay, Apollo, Instantly, Smartlead, Outreach and Salesloft	Implementation across the stack: CRM, data, sequencer, deliverability	The partner’s own quote	Buyers who want the software vendor itself on the hook; Instantly says its experts are “operating independently”
5	Freelance marketplaces	Individuals and small agencies on Upwork, Fiverr and Contra	Whatever your written scope says	Hourly or fixed price; Upwork publishes US$30–$150 an hour for AI developers	Anyone who cannot write and test a statement of work themselves
6	An in-house hire	An employee who builds and then runs it	Whatever you scope, plus ongoing ownership	Salary and on-costs (we cite no figure)	Volumes too small to keep one person busy after launch

The quotable version: hire for the person who will own the domains, the consent records and the CRM permissions on day 90, not for the person who can build the first sequence fastest. A build anyone can do in a week; the ownership is what you are paying for.

If you have not chosen the software yet, start with our ranking of AI sales agent platforms for 2026; this page assumes you have, and ranks who should set it up.

What AI SDR and outbound vendors say their own onboarding includes

Vendor onboarding is often the lowest extra cost, because most of it is bundled into the plan. It is also the narrowest: the vendor configures its own product and its connections to your CRM, not the rest of your stack. Here is what each vendor’s own pricing or services page published on 16 October 2026.

Vendor	Onboarding it publishes	Sending infrastructure	Managed or done-for-you option	Price shown on that page
11x (Alice)	Standard (2 weeks), Dedicated (2 weeks) or White-glove (4 weeks) by tier; Enterprise adds a dedicated CSM and a forward deployed engineer	“11x Managed Gmail Mailboxes” with domain setup, warmup, inbox rotation and monitoring included	Managed mailboxes; no other managed service listed on the pricing page	Growth “Starting at $3,750 / mo”, billed annually
Artisan (Ava)	Every plan: “CSM support and onboarding”; Scale adds a dedicated CSM and “CRM setup included”; Enterprise adds a forward-deployed strategist and “Full onboarding buildout”	“sending infrastructure sized to your motion”	Enterprise strategist “builds and launches your rollout with you”	“Pricing scoped on your plan”
AiSDR	Live Onboarding: “Set up your AI SDR in one session”; team plans add a dedicated GTM engineer	Warmed-up mailbox add-on: “We set up the domain and handle warmup”	Per-campaign managed service $149/campaign; fully managed service $2,500/mo	$1.50 per person prospected (pay as you go); mailbox add-on $33, no billing period shown
Regie.ai (RegieGO)	Pro and Team are self-serve; Enterprise lists a dedicated account manager	Sends from your own connected Gmail or Outlook	None listed on the pricing page	Team priced per seat; Enterprise custom
Outreach	Professional Services: personalised setup, workflow mapping, CRM plugin configuration, user and manager training, technical audit	Not described on that page	Managed services: Outreach admin, data management, sequence analysis, monthly business reviews	Not on the page
Salesloft	Consulting Services: onboarding and implementation, migration, training and performance coaching, KPI tracking	Not described on that page	Not described as managed outbound	Not on the page
Apollo	1:1 onboarding for paid plans: Essential (“teams of 1-20”) includes mailbox setup “with deliverability set up correctly from the start”; Professional (“teams of 20+”) adds an Onboarding Manager and CRM integration review	Mailbox connection covered in Essential onboarding	Not on the onboarding page	Not on the onboarding page
Instantly	Agency program: “Work with our team to streamline setup of your domains, mailboxes, and warmups”	Done-for-you setup of email accounts	VIP managed service: “We set up your domains, infrastructure, prospecting engine, and AI reply agents”	Not on the VIP page
Smartlead	SmartServices: “ICP, domains, mailboxes, warmup, lists, first campaigns in Week 1”	Built inside Smartlead	Fully managed outbound, “30mins of your time/month”	Not on the managed-outbound page

Two things in that table cut against hiring the vendor. First, the onboarding stops at the vendor’s edge: Apollo’s live onboarding is offered “for paid plans”, 11x’s Growth tier is billed annually, AiSDR’s team plans are “billed monthly with quarterly contracts” (its FAQ also offers annual terms), and Smartlead’s managed campaigns “live inside Smartlead”. Second, some vendors do offer compliance paperwork (11x lists a custom DPA on Enterprise; AiSDR’s team plans list a “SaaS contract and DPA”), but the legal duty to hold consent, wash call lists and honour opt-outs stays with you whoever does the setup, as the compliance rows of the statement of work below explain.

If you are comparing the software bills themselves rather than the setup, our breakdown of AI SDR pricing by seat, contact, message and meeting shows why those units do not convert into each other.

Partner and expert directories run by the tools

An AI SDR stack is often several products wired together: a CRM, a data or enrichment tool, a sequencer and the AI agent. People who set up all of them at once can be found in the partner directories those tools run. Each directory below exists today and is run by the vendor named, but the firms listed are independent businesses that quote their own prices.

Directory	Run by	What the directory lets you filter or ask for	What the vendor says about the people listed
Solutions Partner directory	HubSpot	Linked from HubSpot’s partner page as “Find a solutions partner” and from its onboarding page as “Hire a Solutions Partner”	“Our solutions partners can help”; partner tiers such as “Elite Solutions Partner” appear on HubSpot’s partner page
Clay Solutions Partner Directory	Clay	Expertise, ICPs, industry, language, pricing and minimum engagement; sort by tier; a “Get matched” matchmaking service	“GTM and RevOps consultancies focused on product implementation and systems design”; top tier labelled “Elite Studio”
Certified Partners	Apollo	Setup and integration, data and targeting, messaging, automation, analytics, training, company size, region, language, industry	“experts you can trust”, with review scores shown per partner
Certified Experts	Instantly	Experts listed by speciality, including “Technical Setup and Infrastructure”	“Vetted by Instantly, but operating independently”
Certified Partners	Smartlead	Experts by speciality on its all-experts page, including “Email Infrastructure” and “Deliverability”	Each niche tile on the partners page reads “100+ Experts”; the partner list itself says “20+ Experts available”
Service Partners	Outreach	“GTM strategy, processes, messaging, training, Outreach implementation, and more”	Partners named with their specialities
Solutions Partners	Salesloft	“sales processes, strategies, tech selection, implementation, and outsourcing services”	“180+ partners across technology integrations and solution providers”

Use the directory of the tool that is hardest to replace in your stack, usually the CRM, and ask the partner to name every other tool they will touch. A Clay partner who has never configured your sequencer’s sending domains is a data partner, not a setup partner, whatever the listing says.

Would rather start from a platform whose own onboarding maps your ICP, connects your CRM and sets compliance and pacing rules? Apply For Partnership.

Freelance marketplaces: what Upwork, Fiverr and Contra publish

The categories below are adjacent to this job (AI agent development, AI integrations), so the rate data each marketplace publishes is for those categories, not for AI SDR setup specifically.

• Upwork runs a hire page for AI agent developers. In a capture dated 13 July 2026 (the live page blocks our server), it said “AI developers on Upwork charge between $30 and $150 per hour”, and gave project bands including $2,500–$10,000 for a “Standard AI Agent Implementation” and $2,000–$8,000 a month for “Ongoing AI Agent Maintenance”. Upwork’s help centre separately says freelancers pay a service fee that “ranges from 0% to 15% per contract” (capture dated 19 August 2026).
• Fiverr lists an AI Development category with sub-categories including AI Integrations, AI Implementation & Deployment and AI Technology Consulting, and showed “27,000+ results” in a capture dated 10 October 2026. Its own FAQ says “as a general guide, AI projects can be expected to cost between $250 and $1500”.
• Contra runs a hire page for AI agent developers and says freelancers can “manage projects commission-free”. Rates are set by each freelancer and shown on their own listings.

The weakness is structural, not about talent: a freelancer is accountable for the scope you wrote, so a marketplace hire is only as good as your statement of work.

Hiring someone in-house to set up and run it

An in-house hire is the one route where the builder is on your payroll and works only for you. The trade-off is that setup is a burst of work and ownership is a trickle: domain health checks, list refreshes, consent records and CRM hygiene take hours a week, not days. We cite no salary figure; compare your own market’s published salary data for a sales or revenue operations hire with a year of a managed service. It makes most sense when the AI SDR is one part of a sales operations role you were going to fill anyway.

Who to hire: the threshold table

Each row is a condition you can check against your own team today. Where a vendor or regulator publishes the threshold, the source is named.

If this is true of you	Hire this route	The threshold behind it
Nobody in-house will own the system after launch, and you would rather pay for results than activity	Managed, done-for-you: LeadsNow.ai	Pay-per-result: you pay for results rather than activity
You want to own the platform and want setup done by the team that built it	Zian AI, through its own onboarding	Zian’s Discover step covers ICP, CRM and lead connection, compliance and pacing rules
You have picked one AI SDR product and it is your only sending tool	That vendor’s own onboarding	11x bundles 2- or 4-week onboarding by tier; Artisan bundles CSM onboarding into every plan
You are on a paid Apollo plan	Apollo Essential onboarding for 1–20 people; Professional for 20+	Apollo’s published team-size bands
You will contact 1,000+ people a month on AiSDR	Its team plan, which adds a dedicated GTM engineer	AiSDR’s published team-plan threshold
You will send more than 5,000 messages a day to Gmail accounts	Only someone who can prove DMARC, alignment and one-click unsubscribe before launch	Google’s bulk-sender requirements apply above 5,000 a day
Your stack spans more than one vendor (for example HubSpot, Clay and an AI SDR)	A partner from the directory of your hardest-to-replace tool	Vendor onboarding covers the vendor’s own product and its integrations, not the rest of your stack
The job is a bounded build and you can write and test the scope yourself	A fixed-price freelancer from a marketplace	Upwork’s own band for a standard AI agent implementation is $2,500–$10,000 per project (July 2026 capture)
The engagement is reasonably likely to include telemarketing calls to Australian numbers eligible for the Do Not Call Register (mainly numbers used primarily for private or domestic purposes)	Any route, but only on a contract with an express Do Not Call Register compliance clause	Do Not Call Register Act 2006 ss 12(1) and 14
The AI SDR is part of a sales operations job you need filled anyway	An in-house hire	Ownership after launch is ongoing work, not a project

Several rows can be true at once. The volume and Do Not Call rows apply on top of whichever route row fits you; they decide what the hire must be able to prove, not who the hire is.

The AI SDR setup statement of work: eight deliverables and their acceptance tests

Whoever you hire, put these eight lines in the statement of work, and do not sign off the setup until each test passes. Each test is one you can run yourself, without trusting the hire’s dashboard.

#	Deliverable	What the hire must hand over	Acceptance test you run	Rule behind it
1	Sending domains and mailboxes	Domains registered in your company’s account, separate from the domain your staff and customers use	Log in to the registrar yourself; confirm the domains are in your name	Yahoo: “Don’t send bulk/marketing email from the same IPs you use to send user mail, transactional mail, alerts, etc.”
2	Authentication and alignment	SPF, DKIM and DMARC records; From: domain aligned with the SPF or DKIM domain	Run dig +short TXT _dmarc.yourdomain.com and confirm a v=DMARC1 record; open a test email in Gmail, choose Show original, and confirm SPF, DKIM and DMARC all say PASS	Google: all senders need SPF or DKIM; above 5,000 a day, SPF and DKIM plus DMARC (the policy “can be set to none”)
3	Warm-up and volume ramp	A written ramp schedule and Google Postmaster Tools access in your own account	See your domain in Postmaster Tools; spam rate below 0.10% and never at 0.30%	Google: “Keep spam rates reported in Postmaster Tools below 0.10% and avoid ever reaching a spam rate of 0.30% or higher”
4	Unsubscribe	One-click unsubscribe headers plus a visible link; opt-outs synced to every sending tool and the CRM	Save a test email as a file and run grep -iEo '^List-Unsubscribe(-Post)?:.*|(spf|dkim|dmarc)=[a-z]+' message.eml; unsubscribe, then confirm the address is suppressed the same day	Yahoo: “Honor unsubscribes within 2 days”; ACMA: within 5 working days; FTC: within 10 business days
5	CRM integration	Field mapping, owner assignment and duplicate rules for HubSpot, Salesforce or your CRM	Create three test leads; confirm each appears once, with source, activity and any booked meeting written back	Your own reporting: an AI SDR whose meetings are not in the CRM cannot be priced per meeting
6	ICP and list provenance	A written ICP, the source of every list, and the consent basis for each country you will contact	Pick ten records at random and ask where each came from and on what basis it may be contacted	ACMA: “it’s up to you to prove that you have a person’s consent”
7	Compliance pack	Sender identity and postal address in every email; a processor contract if EU personal data is involved; Do Not Call washing and consent records if the agent makes calls	Read a live email for name, address and opt-out; read the contract for the processor and Do Not Call clauses	CAN-SPAM, Spam Act 2003, GDPR Art 28, Do Not Call Register Act 2006, 47 CFR 64.1200
8	Handover and exit	Admin logins, a data export, written runbooks, and what happens to domains and mailboxes if the engagement ends	Log in as admin without the hire present; export the contact and activity data	Ownership: the domains’ sending reputation is an asset you paid to build

We ran both commands before publishing: dig against gmail.com’s own DMARC record (it returned v=DMARC1; p=none; sp=quarantine and a reporting address), and the grep against two sample message files we built. The failing sample printed dmarc=fail and no List-Unsubscribe lines, which is what a failed row 4 looks like.

If a campaign is already landing in spam, our 24-hour triage for AI outbound emails going to spam walks through the checks in order.

The compliance rows, stated at the scope the law actually has

Hiring someone does not move the legal risk off you. Here is what each regime covers, at the scope the instrument itself states.

• CAN-SPAM (United States). The FTC’s compliance guide says the Act “covers all commercial messages” and “makes no exception for business-to-business email”. Among the requirements the guide lists, each message must not use false or misleading header information or deceptive subject lines, must identify itself as an ad, and must include your valid physical postal address and a clear opt-out, honoured within 10 business days. On outsourcing it is blunt: “you can’t contract away your legal responsibility to comply with the law”, and both the company promoted and the company that sends may be held responsible. Penalties are up to $53,088 per email.
• Spam Act 2003 (Australia). Section 16 prohibits sending a commercial electronic message that has an Australian link and is not a designated commercial electronic message, unless the account-holder consented; sections 16(3) and 16(4) add narrow exceptions where the sender could not, with reasonable diligence, have known the message had an Australian link, or sent it by mistake. Section 7 defines an Australian link broadly: it includes a message sent from Australia, a message accessed on a device located in Australia, and a message to an organisation that carries on business or activities in Australia when it is accessed, among other limbs. The ACMA adds: “Even if someone else is sending out your marketing messages for you, you must still have consent from each person who will receive your messages.”
• GDPR (European Union). Article 3(2) reaches a business outside the EU when it processes personal data of people in the Union in connection with offering them goods or services, or monitoring their behaviour there; Article 3(1) covers processing in the context of an establishment in the EU. If your hire processes that data for you, Article 28(3) requires a contract (or other legal act) setting out the subject-matter, duration, nature and purpose of the processing, among other terms. Under Article 21(2) and (3), a person may object to direct marketing at any time, and their data must then stop being used for it. The GDPR also names the separate ePrivacy Directive (2002/58/EC), so ask your hire which country’s e-marketing rule they are relying on for each market.
• Calls in the United States. If the AI agent places calls, 47 CFR 64.1200(a)(2) requires the called party’s prior express written consent for a call that “includes or introduces an advertisement or constitutes telemarketing, using an automatic telephone dialing system or an artificial or prerecorded voice” to a mobile number (one of the line types listed in (a)(1)), with narrow exceptions listed there for tax-exempt nonprofits and HIPAA health-care messages; (a)(3) sets a similar consent rule for residential lines, subject to the exemptions it lists. The rule attaches to the number type, so a business prospect’s mobile is still a mobile.
• Calls in Australia. Section 11 of the Do Not Call Register Act 2006 bars telemarketing calls to Australian numbers on the Register, other than designated telemarketing calls, with exceptions including consent, numbers washed against the Register within the previous 30 days, mistake, and reasonable precautions. Section 12(1) goes further for anyone hiring: you must not enter an arrangement that is reasonably likely to involve telemarketing calls to numbers eligible for the Register unless it contains an express provision that the other party will comply with the Act and, where its employees or agents make the calls, take all reasonable steps to make sure they comply. Under section 14, a number is eligible for the Register if it is used or maintained primarily for private or domestic purposes, exclusively for faxes, exclusively by a government body, or is an emergency service number, so a business-only line is not eligible but a prospect’s personal mobile may be.

Section 12 is the easiest item in this list to check: if the proposal is reasonably likely to involve calls to Australian numbers eligible for the Register and the contract has no Do Not Call clause, entering that contract is itself a contravention (section 12(4) says the contract stays valid; the breach is yours). Our guide to AI outreach compliance under the Spam Act, TCPA and GDPR covers the consent rules in more depth.

Red flags in an AI SDR setup proposal

• Sending from your main domain. A proposal that warms up your primary company domain puts your staff and customer email at risk if the campaign goes badly.
• Domains and mailboxes in the agency’s name, with no clause transferring them to you when the engagement ends.
• No answer on DMARC. If the hire cannot tell you what DMARC policy you will run and how you will see Postmaster Tools data, rows 2 and 3 will not pass.
• “Guaranteed meetings” with no written definition of a meeting, a qualified meeting or a show. A guarantee without a definition is a dispute you have pre-booked.
• A bought list with no consent basis for recipients the Spam Act or GDPR reaches. The ACMA says you remain responsible for consent on any list you buy or use.
• “Compliance is our problem.” The FTC says you cannot contract it away, and the Do Not Call Register Act requires the clause in writing.
• No processor contract where EU personal data will be processed on your behalf.
• No admin access or export until the end of a minimum term.
• A monthly fee with no setup scope. If the proposal prices the retainer but never lists the eight deliverables above, you are paying for activity with no finish line.

How to price an AI SDR setup engagement

The setup help we found is sold in the six units below. We give no market rate for any of them; the examples are each one organisation’s own published price, as at 16 October 2026 unless dated otherwise.

Pricing unit	What you are buying	Published example	Where it goes wrong
Fixed setup fee, per project	A build with a handover	Upwork: $2,500–$10,000 for a standard AI agent implementation (13 July 2026 capture); Fiverr: $250–$1500 as a general guide for AI projects (10 October 2026 capture)	Scope creep, and no acceptance tests unless you write them
Per campaign	One campaign built, launched and improved end to end	AiSDR: $149/campaign	Every new segment is a new campaign and a new fee
Hourly	Time	Upwork: $30–$150 an hour for AI developers (13 July 2026 capture)	No finish line
Monthly retainer or managed service	Someone running it	AiSDR fully managed service: $2,500/mo; Outreach, Instantly and Smartlead publish managed services without a price on those pages	You pay whether or not the calendar fills
Bundled into the software plan	Vendor onboarding	11x Growth: from $3,750 a month, billed annually, with onboarding and managed mailboxes included	The onboarding is tied to an annual commitment to one tool
Pay-per-result	Outcomes, such as booked appointments	LeadsNow.ai is pay-per-result (we quote no price)	Everything depends on the written definition of a result

To compare quotes in different units, convert each to cost per qualified meeting over the first 90 days: setup fee plus three months of retainer or software, divided by the meetings you expect at your own measured rate. Then tie the final payment to the acceptance tests, not to a date: the one pricing rule that protects you in every unit is that the last invoice of a setup engagement is paid when row 8 of the statement of work passes, and not before.

Ready to set up on a platform that answers inbound calls 24/7 and follows up by voice, SMS, email, WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook Messenger? Apply For Partnership.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best place to hire someone to set up an AI SDR?

It depends on who will run it after launch. If nobody on your team will, a managed, done-for-you service is the best place; our pick is LeadsNow.ai, which is pay-per-result and has set 50,769+ appointments. If you will run it yourself, use the AI SDR vendor’s own onboarding when it is your only sending tool, or a partner from the directory of your CRM or data tool when your stack spans several vendors. Freelance marketplaces suit a bounded build you can test yourself, and an in-house hire suits a sales operations role you need anyway.

How much does it cost to hire someone to set up an AI SDR?

There is no single market rate, so compare published units. As at 16 October 2026, AiSDR lists a per-campaign managed service at $149 per campaign and a fully managed service at $2,500 a month on its pricing page; 11x bundles onboarding into a Growth plan starting at $3,750 a month, billed annually; and Upwork’s AI agent developer page (13 July 2026 capture) gave $30–$150 an hour and $2,500–$10,000 for a standard implementation. Convert every quote to cost per qualified meeting before comparing.

Do I need DMARC before my AI SDR starts sending?

Google requires every sender to Gmail accounts to set up SPF or DKIM, and requires DMARC once you send more than 5,000 messages a day, with a policy that can be set to none. Its email sender guidelines also require one-click unsubscribe for marketing messages at that volume. Set DMARC up anyway: it is a single DNS record, and Google recommends DMARC reports so you can monitor email sent from your domain.

If I hire an agency, is compliance their problem or mine?

Both, and you cannot hand it off. The FTC’s CAN-SPAM compliance guide says you can’t contract away your legal responsibility, and that both the promoted company and the sender may be held responsible. In Australia, the ACMA says you must still have consent when someone else sends for you, and section 12 of the Do Not Call Register Act 2006 requires an express compliance clause in any arrangement likely to involve telemarketing calls to numbers eligible for the Register.

What should an AI SDR setup statement of work include?

Eight deliverables, each with a test you can run yourself: sending domains in your name, SPF, DKIM and DMARC that pass, a ramp schedule with Postmaster Tools access, one-click unsubscribe synced everywhere, CRM integration proven with test leads, a written ICP with list provenance, a compliance pack, and admin access with a data export at handover. Pay the final invoice when the handover test passes.

How long does AI SDR setup take?

Vendors publish different answers. AiSDR says setup takes less than 1 business day, or about 3 days when more domains and mailboxes are needed; 11x lists onboarding of 2 weeks or 4 weeks depending on tier; and Smartlead’s managed service builds the ICP, domains, mailboxes, warmup, lists and first campaigns in week 1. Add your own team’s time to approve messaging and confirm consent records on top of any vendor figure.

Where every figure on this page comes from

Figure	Who published it	Link	Date read
50,769+ qualified sales appointments set; AI books 40+ meetings/week for many teams; Discover-step onboarding wording	Zian AI (first party)	zian.ai	16 Oct 2026
LeadsNow.ai: pay-per-result; 50,769+ appointments; leads answered in under 60 seconds, 24/7	LeadsNow.ai (sister brand, first party)	leadsnow.ai	16 Oct 2026
11x Growth from $3,750/mo billed annually; onboarding 2 weeks (Standard, Dedicated) or 4 weeks (White-glove)	11x	www.11x.ai	16 Oct 2026
Artisan onboarding, CSM and forward-deployed strategist by plan	Artisan	www.artisan.co	16 Oct 2026
AiSDR $1.50 per person prospected; $149/campaign; $2,500/mo fully managed; $33 mailbox add-on; team plans for 1,000+ people a month; setup under 1 business day, about 3 days for larger infrastructure	AiSDR	aisdr.com	16 Oct 2026
AiSDR Live Onboarding: set up in one session	AiSDR	aisdr.com	16 Oct 2026
RegieGO Enterprise dedicated account manager; Team per seat	Regie.ai	regie.ai	16 Oct 2026
Outreach Professional Services scope incl. managed services	Outreach	www.outreach.ai	16 Oct 2026
Outreach Service Partners directory	Outreach	www.outreach.ai	16 Oct 2026
Salesloft Consulting Services scope	Salesloft	www.salesloft.com	16 Oct 2026
Salesloft Solutions Partners; 180+ partners	Salesloft	www.salesloft.com	16 Oct 2026
Apollo onboarding: Essential for teams of 1-20, Professional for 20+, paid plans only	Apollo	www.apollo.io	16 Oct 2026
Apollo Certified Partners directory and filters	Apollo	www.apollo.io	16 Oct 2026
HubSpot Solutions Partner directory link and partner tiers	HubSpot	www.hubspot.com	16 Oct 2026
HubSpot onboarding services; Hire a Solutions Partner	HubSpot	www.hubspot.com	16 Oct 2026
Clay Solutions Partner Directory filters, tiers and matchmaking	Clay	www.clay.com	16 Oct 2026
Instantly Certified Experts: vetted but operating independently	Instantly	instantly.ai	16 Oct 2026
Instantly agency onboarding of domains, mailboxes and warmups	Instantly	instantly.ai	16 Oct 2026
Instantly VIP managed service scope	Instantly	instantly.ai	16 Oct 2026
Smartlead Certified Partners: “100+ Experts” per niche tile; “20+ Experts available”; specialities incl. Email Infrastructure and Deliverability (all-expert page, read 16 Oct 2026)	Smartlead	www.smartlead.ai	16 Oct 2026
Smartlead SmartServices: week 1 build; 30 mins of your time a month	Smartlead	www.smartlead.ai	16 Oct 2026
Upwork: $30–$150 an hour for AI developers; $2,500–$10,000 standard implementation; $2,000–$8,000 a month maintenance	Upwork (Internet Archive capture, 13 Jul 2026)	web.archive.org	16 Oct 2026
Upwork freelancer service fee 0% to 15% per contract	Upwork (Internet Archive capture, 19 Aug 2026)	web.archive.org	16 Oct 2026
Fiverr AI Development: 27,000+ results; $250–$1500 general guide	Fiverr (Internet Archive capture, 10 Oct 2026)	web.archive.org	16 Oct 2026
Contra: freelancers manage projects commission-free	Contra	contra.com	16 Oct 2026
Gmail: SPF or DKIM for all senders; DMARC, alignment and one-click unsubscribe above 5,000 a day; spam rate below 0.10%, never 0.30%	Google	support.google.com	16 Oct 2026
Yahoo: bulk-sender DMARC at least p=none; unsubscribes honoured within 2 days; spam rate below 0.3%; separate bulk from user mail	Yahoo Sender Hub	senders.yahooinc.com	16 Oct 2026
CAN-SPAM: no B2B exception; opt-out within 10 business days; up to $53,088 per email; cannot contract away responsibility	US Federal Trade Commission (Internet Archive capture, 11 Oct 2026)	www.ftc.gov	16 Oct 2026
Spam Act 2003 ss 7 and 16	Federal Register of Legislation (Australia)	www.legislation.gov.au	16 Oct 2026
Unsubscribe within 5 working days; consent duties when others send for you; burden of proving consent	Australian Communications and Media Authority	www.acma.gov.au	16 Oct 2026
Do Not Call Register Act 2006 ss 11 and 12, incl. the 30-day washing window	Federal Register of Legislation (Australia)	www.legislation.gov.au	16 Oct 2026
GDPR Articles 3, 21 and 28	EUR-Lex (Internet Archive capture, 10 Oct 2026)	eur-lex.europa.eu	16 Oct 2026
47 CFR 64.1200(a)(2) and (a)(3)	eCFR (US Government Publishing Office)	www.ecfr.gov	16 Oct 2026
gmail.com DMARC record v=DMARC1; p=none; sp=quarantine	Our own dig query	support.google.com	16 Oct 2026