What outsourced cold calling costs in 2026

Many cold calling agencies ask you to book a call before they show a number. This page puts the published numbers in one place: ours, and every competitor price we could read on their own website on the day we checked.

Last reviewed 4 October 2026.

The short answer

One managed Alba caller with a parallel dialer and data is $2,006 a month equivalent on quarterly prepay, or $2,367.08 on monthly billing, plus $1,500 setup. Among agencies that publish prices, US-based calling starts at $1,998 a month for a calls-only plan, and a multi-channel SDR pod is quoted at $16,000 to $32,000 a month. Several large agencies publish no price at all.

The three ways cold calling agencies charge

Almost every quote you will get falls into one of three shapes. The first is a seat: you pay for a caller's time, usually by the month, and the agency supplies the person, the dialer and often the data. The second is a retainer: a monthly fee for a campaign, priced by the volume of outreach or the target number of appointments, with the staffing hidden inside it. The third is pay per appointment, where you pay a fee for each meeting that lands on your calendar.

None of these is wrong. They put risk in different places. A seat makes the cost predictable and puts the outcome risk on you. A retainer usually bundles several channels, which is useful if you want email and LinkedIn as well, and harder to compare line by line. Pay per appointment looks safe until you have to argue about what counts as a qualified meeting.

Alba sells seats. We do it because a seat is the only shape where you can see every line: the caller's hours, the dialer and the data are separate prices on our pricing page, and the caller line is billed at what we pay on quarterly prepay.

Published prices, side by side

The table below lists only figures each company publishes on its own website, read on 4 October 2026. Where a company shows no price, we say so instead of repeating a number from a review site. Prices change, so check the source before you rely on one.

Sources: [1] , [2] , [4] , [6] , [7]

What sits inside the number

A cold calling price is a bundle of five costs, and quotes differ mainly in which of the five they include. When you compare two numbers, line them up against this list first.

Here is how Alba's seat breaks down, using the prices on our own pricing page. The caller line is fixed at 176 hours a month.

• The caller's time. A standard Alba caller is $1,408 a month ($8 an hour); an experienced caller is $2,112 ($12 an hour), on quarterly prepay.
• The dialer. Ours is $299 per caller a month: a parallel dialer a human starts, on private local US numbers. No AI voice.
• The data. Budget data is $299 per caller a month from one provider; Premium is $600 and runs four providers in a waterfall. Some agencies require you to supply the list.
• Management and scripting: who writes the call card, who listens to calls, who changes the script when it stops working.
• Setup: a one-time fee for the build. Ours is $1,500 for the Growth plan.

Sources: [1]

Why the published prices sit so far apart

The first driver is what the price includes. Superhuman Prospecting's calls-only plan says the contact list "must be provided or purchased separately", while Alba's seat includes data. The second is where the caller sits: Superhuman Prospecting and SalesHive both say their SDRs are US-based, and Alba's callers work from Cairo on US hours. Neither model is better in the abstract: a US caller may suit a buyer who expects a local accent, and a lower seat price buys more hours of conversation for the same budget.

The third driver is channels. Callbox and Belkins sell multi-channel programmes that include email, LinkedIn and other outreach, so their numbers cover more than the phone. Comparing a calling seat with a multi-channel retainer is comparing two different purchases.

The fourth is the dialer. Superhuman Prospecting says it uses "a manually dialing system as predictive/parallel dialers are not allowed in certain states." Alba uses a human-initiated parallel dialer, which connects the caller only when a person answers. Ask any vendor which dialer they use and how many dials a caller makes in an hour, because that number decides how many conversations your money buys.

Sources: [3] , [5] , [6] , [8]

A first-year budget for one seat

On quarterly prepay, one Growth seat for a year is four payments of $6,018 plus $1,500 setup: $25,572. On monthly billing the same year is $29,904.96, because monthly caller hours carry a flexibility premium.

That is a full year of one caller, dialer and data. It is not a forecast of meetings or revenue. What a seat produces depends on your offer, your list and how fast your team follows up, which is why we publish our dial data rather than a cost per meeting.

If you are weighing a seat against hiring, our breakdown of what an in-house SDR costs uses the same method: sourced inputs, shown arithmetic, nothing assumed about output.

Sources: [1]

How to compare quotes without fooling yourself

Ask every vendor the same six questions and write the answers in one table before you look at the totals.

• How many hours of calling does the monthly price buy, and is that per caller or shared?
• Who supplies the data, and is it scrubbed against the National Do Not Call Registry before dialling?
• Which dialer, and does a human start every call?
• What is the minimum term and the notice period?
• Is there a setup fee, and what does it build?
• What will the weekly report show: dials, conversations, meetings, or all three?

Questions buyers ask

How much does outsourced cold calling cost per hour?

An Alba standard caller is $8 an hour on quarterly prepay, billed as a fixed 176-hour monthly seat, with the dialer and data priced separately. Agencies that sell monthly packages rarely publish an hourly rate, so divide the monthly price by the calling hours they commit to.

Is pay per appointment cheaper?

Sometimes, for a narrow offer with an easy yes. The catch is the definition of a qualified appointment and what happens to the cost when the list gets harder. Alba does not sell per appointment.

Why do some agencies hide their prices?

Usually because the price depends on channels, volume and term, and a consultation lets them shape the package. It is a legitimate choice, but it means you should collect at least two written quotes before deciding.

See your own numbers on a call

Twenty minutes with Scott on your buyer, your list and the exact price. No meeting or revenue guarantee: results depend on your offer, your market and your follow-up.

Related

• What an in-house SDR costs
• In-house SDR vs Alba calculator
• Every Alba price
• Compare cold calling agencies
• Outsourced cold calling
• Outsourced cold calling agencies, prices compared

Sources

1. Alba Talent, published pricing. https://albatalent.io/pricing, accessed 2026-10-04.
2. Superhuman Prospecting, pricing page. https://superhumanprospecting.com/pricing/, accessed 2026-10-04.
3. Superhuman Prospecting, home page and FAQ. https://superhumanprospecting.com/, accessed 2026-10-04.
4. Callbox, lead generation pricing page. https://www.callboxinc.com/lead-generation-pricing/, accessed 2026-10-04.
5. Callbox, home page. https://www.callboxinc.com/, accessed 2026-10-04.
6. Belkins, pricing page. https://belkins.io/pricing, accessed 2026-10-04.
7. SalesHive, pricing page. https://saleshive.com/pricing/, accessed 2026-10-04.
8. SalesHive, about page. https://saleshive.com/about/, accessed 2026-10-04.