Smirnov Consulting Group is a Prague-based B2B outbound lead generation agency that runs cold email and LinkedIn campaigns for founder-led B2B companies and books qualified sales calls. This page sets us next to the three other ways founders fill a calendar: an in-house SDR (sales development rep), a pay-per-meeting agency, or tools you run yourself.
Hire an SDR when you already have a working outbound playbook and someone to manage it. Use a pay-per-meeting agency when you can write down exactly what counts as a meeting and want a small test. Use DIY tools when a founder has hours every week and one clear buyer. Use us when your offer already sells, one new client is worth a lot, and you want LinkedIn and cold email run for you, replies included.
We compared four options using vendors' own pages and our own campaigns
- What we compared: who runs the work, channels, launch time, cost model, what you own, who handles replies, the risk if it stops, and fit.
- Sources: other vendors' own public pages as of September 2026 (read on 24 September 2026), plus our own campaign data and Journal. Vendor prices are their own US dollar figures and may have changed. We did not test any vendor named here. In-house SDR costs come from independent sources, not vendors: RepVue and Glassdoor pay data, Bridge Group's 2025 SDR report and official employer contribution rates (read on 25 September 2026).
- Who wrote it: Smirnov Consulting Group. We are one of the four options, so we have an interest. We say plainly where each option beats us.
Four options side by side, as of September 2026
| Smirnov Consulting Group | In-house SDR | Pay-per-meeting agency | DIY tools | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Who runs the work | Our senior team, no interns or juniors, with a direct line to the founder. Or your team, coached by us. | Your hire, managed by you. | The vendor's team. | You or your team. |
| Who does the work, and who can you reach? | Senior lead generation experts, GTM architects, GTM engineers and AI specialists, people you can look up by name, plus a direct line to Artem Smirnov, the founder. | Your own hire, often a junior rep, who reaches you when stuck. You are the senior person. | Usually SDRs you never meet. Ask for names before you sign. | You. There is nobody else to reach. |
| Channels | LinkedIn with warm email follow-ups, plus cold email. No cold calling. | Whatever you set up. | Depends on the vendor. | Whatever your tools cover. |
| Time to first campaign | About 15 days from signed contract. First replies and booked calls often come inside the first 30 days after launch. | Hiring, then about 3.2 months of ramp (5.7 in SaaS), per Bridge Group 2025. | Varies by vendor. | Fast, but new sending domains need 10 to 14 days of warm-up. |
| Cost model | A monthly fee from USD 3,000 (about EUR 2,500), depending on scope. Tools, domains, mailboxes and data paid by you directly. No minimum contract, 1 month's notice, at least 3 months recommended. No pay-per-meeting pricing. | Salary, commission, employer contributions, pension, tools and management time. Roughly GBP 5,050 to 6,960 a month fully loaded in the UK. | A fee per meeting, on the vendor's definition. DemandZen's "Demand Held" plan charges only for meetings that are held. | Software subscriptions plus your hours. |
| Results guarantee | Yes, on a 12-month engagement: we agree leads, pipeline and revenue targets with you up front, and if we miss them we refund the full fee you paid us. It works when both sides do their part: you answer call-ready leads within 24 hours, take the calls, let the campaigns run and stay in touch. | None. The salary is paid whether or not calls come. | You pay per meeting on the vendor's definition. The price is tied to bookings, not to pipeline or revenue. | None. |
| What you own at the end | A record of which segments, messages and titles produced calls. The tools, domains, mailboxes and data are paid for by you directly, not bundled into our fee. | What the rep wrote down before leaving. | The meetings. Ask whether the list is yours. | Everything you built. |
| Who handles replies | On bigger builds, a human inbox manager books qualified replies into your calendar. Your team takes the call. | The SDR. | The vendor, up to the booking. | You. |
| Risk if it stops | Sequences stop mid-flight, warm conversations cool, and a restart begins colder. | A leaver takes the ramp with them. Median SDR tenure is 1.9 years, per Bridge Group's 2025 report. | Meetings stop. Ask what stays with you. | Nothing contractual. The pipeline stops. |
| Best for | Founder-led B2B companies with a proven offer and high-value deals. | Companies with a working playbook and a manager. | Market tests with a written meeting definition. | Founders with time and one clear buyer. |
An in-house SDR builds skill inside the company, and you carry the ramp
An in-house SDR is the right call once you know what works and someone can manage the hire. Without that, a new SDR learns by trial and error on your budget, often for months.
What one SDR costs in the UK, Germany and the Netherlands, as of September 2026. Salary is only the start. Add employer National Insurance or social contributions, pension and core sales tools, and a rep who earns full on-target pay costs roughly this:
| Market | Fully loaded, per month | Fully loaded, per year |
|---|---|---|
| UK | GBP 5,050 to 6,960 | GBP 60,600 to 83,600 |
| Germany | EUR 6,480 to 8,300 | EUR 77,800 to 99,600 |
| Netherlands | EUR 7,280 to 9,680 | EUR 87,300 to 116,200 |
Pay data comes from RepVue, Glassdoor and Payscale. Employer rates come from GOV.UK, Germany Trade & Invest and the Dutch Tax Administration. A rep on base pay alone costs less, from about GBP 42,900 a year in the UK.
Three caveats. The Dutch employer on-cost of 30 to 40% is an estimate from an employer-of-record provider. The tools figure is our own estimate. Recruiting fees are left out: we found no independent figure.
Ramp comes on top. Bridge Group's 2025 SDR report, a survey of 351 B2B companies, puts average ramp to full quota at about 3.2 months (5.7 months in SaaS) and median SDR tenure at 1.9 years. So you pay the full monthly cost for several months before you get full output.
A German IT company came to us after one of its SDRs had booked 2 calls in 3 months. With our campaign, it booked 34 calls and signed 5 contracts worth about EUR 1,250,000 in 35 days. Its average project was around EUR 250,000, so a few contracts carried that number.
Outsourced SDR teams sit in between. As of September 2026, SalesRoads' pricing page gives a base price of "$11,950 per 4-week period" and "$16,750 / 4 wks" for two SDRs, and says "Calling begins on the 16th business day." SalesHive's pricing page says "No setup fees. No long-term contracts" and lists channels as "Phone only or phone plus email." If phone is your main channel, they fit better than we do.
Pay-per-meeting only works when the meeting is defined in writing
With pay-per-meeting, the written definition of a meeting decides what you buy. As of September 2026, some vendors offer it. DemandZen's pricing page says "With our Demand Held plan, you pay only for meetings that are held." Cleverly's FAQ says it offers a "Pay Per Meeting-Ready Lead" model for cold email campaigns, "with no contracts, operating on a month-to-month basis." Other agencies warn against it. CIENCE describes the cost shape as "A price per meeting delivered, whether or not the meeting converts or even holds." Martal writes that the model "sounds appealing on paper but often produces calendar stuffing." We do not sell meetings by the piece. We charge a monthly fee for the work, and we put the results behind it: on a 12-month engagement we guarantee the leads, pipeline and revenue targets we agree with you up front, and if we miss them we refund the full fee you paid us. It works when both sides do their part: you reply to call-ready leads within 24 hours and take the calls, let the campaigns run without needless pauses, and stay in touch with us. Full terms are in the contract.
If you choose it, get four things in writing: the titles and company profile that count, whether you pay for booked or held meetings, what happens with no-shows, and whether the list and messages become yours.
DIY tools are cheapest in cash and most expensive in founder hours
DIY works when a founder has hours every week and one buyer type. You buy the software and do the rest: list rules, verification, separate sending domains with SPF, DKIM and DMARC, warm-up, copy, follow-ups and the inbox.
Volume surprises most founders. For 30 to 35 calls a month, we contact at least 10,000 people, at about 25 emails per mailbox per day. In our campaigns the 3rd follow-up is usually what works best, and most teams never get that far. By message three the lead is marked cold.
It is perfectly doable in-house, as long as somebody owns message three and is allowed to keep sending it. If your team has never built it, our 1-on-1 consulting or group coaching shows them how.
Smirnov Consulting Group runs LinkedIn and cold email for you, with the replies handled
We work from one office in Prague. 12 years in outbound, hundreds of B2B companies, 24 countries.
- Lists: built with 16+ data tools, including Sales Navigator, Apollo, ZoomInfo and Clay. Every address is verified, and bounces stay below 0.5%.
- Channels: we usually open on LinkedIn with a 7-step LinkedIn and warm email sequence, then add 4-step cold email campaigns from separate sending domains.
- Replies: a human inbox manager on bigger builds. Qualified calls go into your calendar on Zoom, Microsoft Teams or phone. The qualification rule, the company and title profile a prospect must match, is agreed with you before launch.
- Reporting: contacted, replied, calls booked, calls that happened and deals signed, as separate numbers, including the unflattering ones. A weekly report, a monthly report and live notifications every day, plus a client portal with live campaign data if you want one.
- Who does the work: senior experts only: lead generation experts, GTM architects, GTM engineers and AI specialists. No interns, no students, no juniors. A senior team member runs your account day to day, and every client has a direct line to Artem Smirnov, the founder. We keep the number of clients small on purpose, so each one gets full attention and we carry full responsibility for results..
What we need from you: case studies, LinkedIn profiles rebuilt before anything sends, and someone free to take calls within about a week of a booking. Details are on the cold email agency, LinkedIn outreach agency and appointment setting pages, results in case studies, and terms on pricing.
Who actually does the work
The name on the contract matters less than the people who write to your buyers. What follows is not about any one company, and it is not about the vendors named on this page. It is what we have seen in 12 years of outbound, and what clients tell us about the agencies they worked with before us.
Many agencies are faceless: a brand name and a website, with nothing and no one visible behind them. Usually, in agencies like that, the work goes to students, interns, junior SDRs or offshore teams writing to your buyers in their second language. These are people who have never built a pipeline, or even grown their own careers. You hand them your market, your reputation and your pipeline, and when something goes wrong there is nobody senior you can reach.
The tell is simple: the people who would run your campaign are not even on LinkedIn. So before you sign with anyone, us included, ask who exactly will write and send your messages. Get names, then look those people up. If nobody can give you names, you have your answer.
Our team is senior by design. You work with senior lead generation experts with a proven track record, GTM architects who design your go-to-market strategy, GTM engineers who build the lists, data and sending infrastructure, and AI specialists who implement AI where the campaign needs it, such as research and personalization at scale. Every client also has a direct line to Artem Smirnov, the founder. We keep the number of clients small, so each one gets full attention and we carry full responsibility for results. Our people are visible: you can look up who will work on your campaign before you sign.
This also explains most price gaps. Compare retainers back to back and a cheaper one usually buys a junior or offshore team. Ours buys senior people, the strategy and responsibility for the result. More on pricing.
Who should choose what: each option wins somewhere
- Choose an in-house SDR if you have a proven playbook, a manager with outbound experience, and want the skill in-house for years.
- Choose an outsourced SDR team if phone is your main channel. We do not cold call.
- Choose pay-per-meeting for a short market test, if you can define a qualified meeting in writing first.
- Choose DIY tools if a founder has the hours and wants to learn first-hand.
- Choose Smirnov Consulting Group if your offer already sells, one new client is worth a lot, and you want LinkedIn and cold email run end to end.
Who we are not for
- Companies with no proven offer yet. Lead generation and building a business from zero are different jobs.
- Teams with nobody free to take the calls we book.
- Companies that pause campaigns when they get busy.
- Buyers who want a price per meeting, or cold calling. We tie our guarantee to results agreed over 12 months, not to a count of bookings.
- Companies with no credible proof for a stranger to find.
We turn down work fairly often. Usually the company is fine and the timing is wrong.
Questions buyers ask when comparing options
Should we hire an in-house SDR or outsource outbound to an agency?
Outsource first if nobody in the company has built outbound before. A new SDR needs a list, an offer, sending setup, a manager and months of ramp. Hire in-house once you know which segment and message produce calls. The German IT company above went from 2 calls in 3 months with its own SDR to 34 booked calls in 35 days.
Is it cheaper to hire an SDR or to pay an outbound agency?
Count the full cost, not the salary. As of September 2026, one SDR on full on-target pay costs roughly GBP 5,050 to 6,960 a month fully loaded in the UK, EUR 6,480 to 8,300 in Germany and EUR 7,280 to 9,680 in the Netherlands (sources above). Add months of ramp and management time. Our fee starts from USD 3,000 (about EUR 2,500) per month, with no minimum contract and 1 month's notice. Compare cost per signed deal, not cost per month, and give it time: B2B sales cycles often run 6, 9 or 12 months, so calls booked in month one may turn into deals 4 months later or more. That is why we recommend at least 3 months, and why about 6 months is the industry average to get outbound fully working.
Pay per meeting or monthly retainer: which is better?
Per-meeting pricing suits a short test, when you can define a qualified meeting in writing. A monthly fee suits a longer build, where signed deals matter more than bookings. With per-meeting pricing, the definition and the no-show rule decide what you buy. Our pricing is a monthly fee, not per meeting, and on a 12-month engagement it comes with a results guarantee: if we miss the leads, pipeline and revenue targets we agree with you up front, we refund the full fee you paid us, as long as both sides do their part.
Is it worth trying outbound ourselves before hiring an agency?
Yes, if a founder has the hours and one clear buyer type. Keep the test honest: separate sending domains, verified addresses, 10 to 14 days of warm-up and at least four steps per sequence. Meetings usually come from a later follow-up, so a two-message test proves very little.
What should I ask an outbound agency before signing?
Ask for fifty rows of the actual list before you see any copy. Then ask what bounce rate they accept, who answers the replies, and whether the report shows calls that actually happened. The best signal is whether they will tell you that you are a bad fit. Our full list: questions to ask before you hire a lead gen agency.
What are the red flags when hiring a lead generation agency?
Pay per lead with no definition of a lead: you receive exactly what you paid for, which is rows in a spreadsheet. Lists reused across clients. No case study with a real number and a timeframe in it. And nothing on the line if the results do not come. We stand behind ours: on a 12-month engagement we guarantee the results we agree with you up front and refund the full fee you paid us if we miss them, as long as both sides do their part.
Two more pages compare us with named agencies
Weighing specific vendors? Read Martal Group alternatives and Belkins alternatives for small B2B companies, built the same way.
More answers on picking between these options are in our choosing an agency FAQ.