AI agents for GTM and RevOps · Part 3 of 13
Build or buy an AI SDR
Three ways to get one, what each bills by at list price, who holds your mailboxes, data, messages and rules in each, and what to ask before you sign.
The short version
You can buy an AI SDR product, switch on the AI in the CRM or sequencer you already pay for, or build your own on Clay with a model and a sending tool. Each bills by a different unit, so price them all on one count: the contacts you’d actually write to in a month. Then map who holds the mailboxes, the contact data, the messages and the rules in each route, and ask what you keep if you leave.
Three ways, and what each bills by
An AI SDR product does the whole job in one place. The AI in your CRM or sequencer works where your contacts and sequences already are. Your own build uses Clay to find and enrich contacts, a model to write, and a sending tool to send. Each bills by a different unit.
An AI SDR product
Artisan
- Bills by
- a plan sized to leads contacted (about 2,500 or 6,000 a month), mailboxes and dialer seats
- List price
- not published: on request
11x
- Bills by
- not stated: no pricing page
- List price
- not published: a demo instead
The AI in your CRM or sequencer
HubSpot’s Prospecting agent
- Bills by
- credits: 100 per lead it puts forward, plus the seats you pay for
- List price
- $0.010 a credit, so $1.00 a lead (our arithmetic)
Instantly
- Bills by
- a monthly plan sized by contacts, emails and credits
- List price
- $94 a month for the bundle that lists an AI Sales Agent
Your own build
Clay
- Bills by
- actions and data credits; the model runs on your own key
- List price
- from $167 a month billed yearly, for 15,000 actions a month
Smartlead
- Bills by
- contacts and sends a month
- List price
- from $39 a month: 2,000 contacts and 6,000 sends
Take HubSpot’s Prospecting agent. HubSpot’s rate sheet charges 100 credits for each lead the agent puts forward for outreach, and extra credits cost $0.010 each, so that is $1.00 a lead. The unit is a lead put forward, not a lead written to, and one user reports what the difference costs:
“Even with ’Review before sending’ turned on, HubSpot Credits are consumed as soon as non-US contacts are surfaced, even if we never contact them.”
A user in the HubSpot Community, 5 October 2026So price it on the leads you keep. If you write to half the leads it puts forward, each one costs $2.00 in credits, as an example. In HubSpot, set a credit limit for the agent before you switch it on, and plan by the month: Sales Hub includes 500 to 5,000 credits a month by edition, and unused ones don’t roll over.
Artisan and 11x publish no prices, so ask each for a quote at your volume, in leads contacted a month. To price your own build, run a sample of contacts through Clay’s Free plan, which includes 500 actions a month and takes your own model key, and count the actions one contact uses. Then add your sending tool’s plan and your model provider’s bill.
Who holds what
The price is one bill. The other is what stays behind if you switch. So for each route, find out where four things live: the domains and mailboxes it sends from, the contact data, the prompts and messages, and the rules.
An AI SDR product
Such as Artisan.
- Domains and mailboxes
- Your own domains; mailboxes in the plan. Ask who keeps them.
- Contact data
- The vendor’s database, synced with your CRM. Ask what you keep.
- Prompts and messages
- In the vendor’s product. Ask what you can export.
- The rules
- Settings in the vendor’s product.
AI in your CRM or sequencer
Such as HubSpot or Instantly.
- Domains and mailboxes
- Yours, or bought through the tool itself. Ask who keeps those.
- Contact data
- Records in your CRM or sequencer.
- Prompts and messages
- In your CRM or sequencer.
- The rules
- Settings in your CRM or sequencer.
Your own build
Clay, a model, a sending tool.
- Domains and mailboxes
- Yours, or bought through Clay or your sending tool. Ask who keeps those.
- Contact data
- Your Clay tables and your CRM.
- Prompts and messages
- Yours, in Clay and your sending tool.
- The rules
- Yours to write, and to apply in every tool.
Start with the mailboxes. Artisan sends “in your reps’ names, from your own sending domains”, and sizes its plans to mailboxes too. Apollo’s credits give access to “domains & mailboxes”, on Clay’s Growth plan you can buy domains and emails for its sequencer, and Smartlead sells Google and Outlook mailboxes at $4.50 a month each. Wherever a tool bought them, ask whether they leave with you. In your own build every piece is yours, and so is the work of making Clay, the model and the sending tool apply the same rules.
What to ask before you sign
Ask the general questions in support part 3 too. These five are outbound’s own.
Whose domains and mailboxes does it send from?
Yours, in your reps’ names, or ones the vendor runs for you. Ask for the list, and whether those mailboxes move with you if you leave.
Does it read your CRM’s unsubscribes at the moment it sends?
If a contact unsubscribes in HubSpot at 9:00, a message due at 9:05 should not go. Ask how soon a new unsubscribe reaches it, then test it (part 6).
Can you cap messages per contact across your whole team?
Example Software, an invented company, allows a contact three messages in any 14 days, counted across its two SDRs and its AI SDR. A cap that counts only the AI SDR’s messages misses the rest (part 8).
Do leads you turn down still cost?
Ask what one unit is: a lead found, a lead put forward, or a contact written to. Then price it at the share of leads you would keep.
What else do you keep if you leave?
The contacts and enrichment you paid for, the sequences, and the history of who got which message, by date. Ask for the answer in writing.
Next in this series
Part 4: contact data an AI SDR can trust. See all 13 parts.
Sources
- HubSpot, “HubSpot Product & Services Catalog”: seats, included credits, the credit price and the credits rate sheet, read on 21 October 2026.
- HubSpot Community, “Restrict automatically sourced contacts by geography in Prospecting Agent”, 5 October 2026, read on 21 October 2026.
- Artisan, “Artisan Plans & Pricing”, read on 21 October 2026.
- 11x: 11x, home page (no pricing page: its pricing address answers 404), which returns a page titled Not Found, and its homepage, read on 21 October 2026.
- Instantly, pricing, read on 21 October 2026.
- Clay, “Compare plans, features & costs”, read on 21 October 2026.
- Smartlead, pricing, read on 21 October 2026.
- Apollo, pricing, read on 21 October 2026.