Meetings booked
Qualified meetings scheduled in a period.
Benchmark~15 / month per SDR, roughly $3M sourced pipeline / year (gradient.works 2025)
The primary output metric; ties directly to pipeline creation.
BDR / SDR metrics
I judge a development team on what the AE actually accepts, not on dial counts. The failure mode is comping activity (dials, sends) while pipeline quality quietly rots at the handoff.
Shape of it
7 metrics
Connect rate
Share of dials that reach a live right-party contact.
connects / dialsBenchmark~3–10% in 2025 (down from 15–20%); ~18+ dials per connect
Falling connect rates are why teams moved from dial-only to multi-channel sequencing.
Meeting-held rate
Share of booked meetings that actually happen.
meetings held / meetings bookedBenchmark~80% (roughly 12 held per 15 booked)
A low rate signals poor qualification or scheduling friction, and inflates SDR credit if comp pays on booked.
SAL → SQL acceptance
Share of SDR-sourced accepted leads the AE qualifies as real opportunities.
accepted SQLs / SDR-sourced SALsBenchmark~52.7% of SALs convert to SQLs (gradient.works 2025); SQL to opp runs 30–59%
The handoff quality gate; a low rate means the two teams disagree on "qualified."
Speed-to-lead
Time from inbound lead creation to first outreach.
Benchmark65% of buyers expect a response under 1 hour; older MIT/HBR studies show a ~21x qualify lift under 5 min (treat as a heuristic, not a measured 2025 median)
The highest-ROI inbound ops lever; justifies routing automation and round-robin SLAs.
Pipeline sourced
Opportunity value attributable to BDR-created meetings.
sum of opp value where source = BDRThe dollar figure that justifies the team.
Cost per meeting / per SQL
Fully-loaded cost to produce one meeting or SQL.
team cost / meetings (or SQLs)The efficiency lens for comparing outbound to other channels.