How to Hire an Appointment Setter or SDR
A hiring guide for sales teams, agencies, and local businesses that need a calendar full of qualified meetings. What setters and SDRs cost in the US and offshore, a job description to copy, the questions that predict phone performance, and a screening process that hears the pitch before anyone books a live call.
Benefits of Hiring an Appointment Setter
An appointment setter turns a list into a calendar full of qualified meetings, so your closers only talk to people who might buy.
Closers close instead of dialing
An account executive making 60 cold calls a day is your most expensive person doing your cheapest task. A setter takes the dialing and the AE takes the demos.
A predictable top of funnel
Ten booked meetings a week, every week, is a number you can plan revenue around. Founder-led prospecting is a number you hope for.
Every lead gets touched
Inbound form fills answered in five minutes, webinar attendees called the same day, trial signups followed up. Speed to lead is where most small teams leak pipeline.
Objections you can hear
Setters hear 'we already use X' fifty times a week. That is positioning feedback your marketing team cannot buy.
A bench for future AEs
Setters who hit quota for a year know your product, your buyer, and your CRM. Promoting them is cheaper and safer than hiring closers cold.
Cheap to test a new market
One offshore setter at $1,500 a month tells you in six weeks whether a new vertical picks up the phone. Hiring an AE for the same experiment costs five times as much.
How to Hire an Appointment Setter: Step by Step
Two to three weeks from posting to a setter on the phones. Voice and energy are the job, so the process is built to hear them early.
- 1
Define the meeting before the role
Day 1Write down the exact meeting you want booked: who the buyer is, what qualifies them, what a no-show costs you. A setter booking 15-minute discovery calls with plumbing companies needs a different profile than one booking enterprise demos.
- 2
Pick the market and the comp model
Day 1–2US-based setters at $18 to $25 an hour plus $25 to $75 per held meeting, or offshore setters at $5 to $12 an hour plus a per-meeting bonus. Decide before posting; it changes the applicant pool entirely.
- 3
Post and expect volume
Day 2Setter and SDR postings on Indeed, LinkedIn, and OnlineJobs.ph pull 300+ applications in a week. Use the template below and say that shortlisted applicants record a short pitch.
- 4
Ask for a 60-second pitch on video
Week 1Give every applicant your one-paragraph product blurb and ask them to record a cold-call opener as if you had just picked up. This is a literal work sample. Cut 300 to 25 in one evening.
- 5
Run a live mock call
Week 2Fifteen minutes on the phone with the top 10. You play a busy, mildly hostile prospect. Score the open, the objection handling, and whether they asked for the meeting.
- 6
Paid two-week ramp with a real list
Week 2–3Give the final 3 a list, a script, and a CRM login. Track dials per day, conversations per dial, and meetings held. Hire the one whose meetings show up.
Cost of Hiring an Appointment Setter
Setter pay splits into base and per-meeting incentive, and the base swings 4x between US and offshore markets.
| Cost component | Typical range | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| US-based SDR (full-time) | $45K – $65K base | OTE $70K to $90K; higher in SaaS and major metros |
| US hourly appointment setter | $18 – $25 /hr | Plus $25 to $75 per held meeting; common for local services and agencies |
| Offshore setter (Philippines, LatAm, South Africa) | $5 – $12 /hr | Neutral accent and US-hours overlap at the top end |
| Per-meeting only (freelance) | $50 – $200 /meeting | No base; quality control is the hard part |
| Outsourced SDR agency | $3,000 – $8,000 /mo | Per seat, includes tooling and management; less control over messaging |
| Tools per seat | $150 – $400 /mo | Dialer, contact data, sequencing, and CRM. Budget it, or the setter spends the day copying numbers |
Job Description for an Appointment Setter
A posting you can copy. Name the buyer, the daily activity target, and the comp split, because setters read the pay structure before they read about the company.
About the Role We're hiring an Appointment Setter to book qualified meetings for our sales team. You'll work a list of [industry] businesses by phone and email, qualify interest, and book discovery calls for our account executives. You are the first voice most of our customers hear. What You'll Do - Make [60–100] outbound dials a day to [buyer title] at [company type] - Follow up on inbound leads within 5 minutes during working hours - Qualify prospects against [2–3 criteria] and book meetings on the AE's calendar - Send calendar invites and reminders so meetings actually happen - Log every call outcome in [CRM] with a short note - Share objections and patterns with the team every Friday What We're Looking For - 1+ year in phone sales, appointment setting, SDR work, or a call center - Clear spoken English and energy that lasts through dial 80 - Comfortable being told no 70 times a day - Experience with a dialer and a CRM ([tools]) - Reliable internet, quiet workspace, and availability [hours] [time zone] Compensation - [Base: $X/hour or $X/year] - [$X] bonus per meeting held (paid on show, not on booking) - [Kicker of $X when a booked meeting becomes a customer] - Realistic target: [X] held meetings per week; our current setters average [X] How to Apply Apply with a short note on the product you sold last and your daily dial and meeting numbers. Shortlisted applicants record a 60-second cold-call opener for our product on video (on your own time, from your phone). That recording is the first interview.
Questions to Ask an Appointment Setter
A setter resume says nothing about how they sound on the phone. Every question below should be answered out loud, ideally recorded.
Here's our product in one paragraph. Give me your cold-call opener, as if I just picked up.
A clear name, a reason for the call in one sentence, and a question that gets a response. Reading the paragraph back to you is a fail.
I say 'we already have a vendor for that.' Go.
An acknowledgement, one curious question, and a soft ask for 15 minutes. Arguing with the prospect and giving up in one line are both wrong.
How many dials, conversations, and meetings did you average per day in your last role?
Specific numbers with a ratio they understand. 80 dials, 8 conversations, 1 meeting is a normal cold day. Someone who cannot quote their own ratios was not tracking them.
Tell me about a meeting you booked that didn't show. What did you change?
A confirmation habit: invite within five minutes, a reminder the day before, a text an hour out. Blaming the prospect is the wrong answer.
What did you do at 3pm on a day when nobody was picking up?
Switched channels, cleaned the list, worked a different time zone, or listened back to their own calls. Sitting out the afternoon is common and disqualifying.
Which CRM and dialer have you used, and what did you log after every call?
Named tools and a disposition habit. Setters who log outcomes are the ones whose pipeline numbers you can trust.
What to Look For in Appointment Setter Candidates
You are hiring a voice and a work ethic. Both are audible in the first thirty seconds of a recorded answer and almost invisible on a resume.
Green flags
Energy that survives a bad take
On video they sound like someone you would stay on the phone with. The best setters sound the same at dial 80 as at dial 1.
They ask for the meeting
In the mock call they close: a specific day, a specific time. Setters who chat well but never ask book nothing.
Numbers on the tip of their tongue
Dials, connects, meetings, show rate. Setters who know their ratios manage themselves.
Comfortable with rejection
They describe being hung up on the way other people describe weather. It happens 70 times a day and should not register.
Coachable on the spot
Give one note in the mock call and see if the next attempt changes. That is your whole first month in miniature.
Red flags
A great resume and a flat recording
The role happens out loud. If the recorded pitch is monotone, the phone calls will be too.
Scripted to the word
Reading a script well is fine on day one. Needing it on day 30 is the ceiling.
Vague about why they left
Setter roles churn, but 'it wasn't a fit' three times in a row usually means quota.
Wants to skip the mock call
Anyone who resists demonstrating the job for fifteen minutes will resist doing it for eight hours.
What Appointment Setters Look For in Companies
Good setters have quit bad setter jobs. They are filtering for the things that made the last one bad.
A list worth calling
Verified numbers and a real ideal customer profile. Setters know a bad list wastes their day and their commission.
Comp that pays when they perform
A per-meeting bonus that actually pays out and a quota they have seen someone hit.
A script they can adapt
A framework plus permission to sound like a person. Word-for-word scripts drive good setters out within a month.
Feedback from someone who has done it
Weekly call reviews with a manager or AE. Nobody gets better alone.
A path to AE
The reason most people take setter jobs. Show them the last person who got promoted and when.
Remote Hiring for Appointment Setters
Appointment setting was one of the first fully remote sales roles because the entire job happens over a dialer and a CRM. Your setter can be in Cebu or Cape Town if the accent fits your market and the hours overlap with your buyers' working day.
Overlap with the buyer, not the office
A setter calling US East Coast businesses needs to be live 8am to 1pm Eastern. Where they sleep does not matter.
Accent is a market question
Neutral English works for most B2B software. Local-services buyers in the US often respond better to a US-based voice. Test it against your own list before deciding.
Tooling replaces supervision
A cloud dialer with call recording, a CRM with activity reporting, and a daily 10-minute standup give you more visibility than sitting behind them.
Video screening hears them first
The recorded pitch is the same thing your prospects will hear. Review it before spending a minute on a live call.
Screening Tools for Hiring an Appointment Setter
The typical stack for getting from 300 applicants to one setter who books meetings that show up.
Indeed / LinkedIn / OnlineJobs.ph
SourcingIndeed and LinkedIn for US-based setters and SDRs, OnlineJobs.ph and Upwork for offshore. Expect 300+ applications within a week.
Recorded pitch
Work sampleA 60-second cold-call opener on your real product. The single best predictor of phone performance.
Live mock call
Skill signalFifteen minutes with you as a difficult prospect. Scores the open, the objection, and the ask.
CRM logging check
BaselineA quick screen-share logging a call outcome in your CRM. Setters who cannot log cleanly cost you data.
Hirevire
Async video screeningFor most roles a video answer stands in for the work. For a setter it is the work: a 60-second recorded pitch is exactly what your prospects will hear. Send the same prompt to all 300 applicants, listen at 1.5x, and shortlist the 25 voices you would keep on the phone. Applicants record on their own time, from any time zone, before anyone books a live call.
Try Hirevire freePaid two-week ramp
Final roundReal list, real dialer, real meetings. The only test that measures show rate.
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about hiring an Appointment Setter.
Further Resources
Free Hirevire resources to go deeper on hiring an Appointment Setter.