Sales rep turnover: SDRs stay 1.9 years in the role

Sales rep turnover has a recent reference number: the SDR, the sales development rep who generates opportunities for account executives, stays an average of 1.9 years in the role, about 23 months, and takes 3.0 months to reach expected productivity, according to the tenth edition of The Bridge Group’s SDR report, published in 2025. The Bridge Group is an American B2B sales consultancy that has run this survey every two years since 2007, and the current edition surveyed 351 companies online in 2024 and 2025, 78% of them in North America and 83% selling subscription software. Median annual attrition from the role in 2024 was 40%, made up of 13% involuntary exits, 11% voluntary exits and 16% promotions. I read these numbers as a capacity equation: the company pays for three months of ramp to get a little under two years of work, and each departure takes with it part of the revenue from the accounts the rep handled.

At Iasbeck&Co we implement CRM and AI agents in B2B operations and train sales teams, and in our assessments turnover shows up in the CRM before it shows up in HR, in accounts owned by deactivated users and deals with no history after the owner changed. This text is for the board, sales and CS leaders and HR.

How long does a salesperson stay with a company?

The Bridge Group measures time in the SDR and account executive roles at B2B companies, most of them software, and DIEESE measures formal job tenure for store salespeople in Brazil. Neither measures the Brazilian B2B seller with a long sales cycle, which describes most of the companies I work with.

SDRs: 1.9 years in the role and three months of ramp

The average of 1.9 years is the highest in the series since the early 2010s, and the consultancy attributes the rise to the 2022 and 2023 layoffs and to competition for account executive jobs in 2024, which reduced voluntary exits. Of the companies surveyed, 58% report average tenure of 12 to 23 months. The 3.0-month ramp is the shortest since 2010, and the report suggests AI-supported onboarding or more demanding managers as an explanation, without testing the hypothesis.

The breakdown of the 40% matters to leadership. A promotion to account executive counts as an exit from the role and accounted for 16 of the 40 points in 2024, against 34% in 2020. A company that promotes SDRs gains account executives who already know the product and the CRM, and the raw rate treats that exit as if it were a loss.

Account executives: a 6.2-month ramp

For account executives, the 2026 edition of The Bridge Group’s AE report, with 158 B2B companies surveyed in the first half of 2026, records an average ramp of 6.2 months to full productivity, the longest in the series. Companies now require 3.7 years of prior experience at hire, against 2.7 years in 2022, and only 48% of account executives hit quota, against 51% in 2024. The public page of the survey does not report account executive tenure.

Brazil: store salespeople stay 1.1 years before leaving

The most detailed official cut by occupation I found is in the book Rotatividade no mercado de trabalho brasileiro, published by DIEESE in 2016 with RAIS data for 2014. DIEESE is the research department of Brazil’s labor unions, and RAIS is the government’s annual registry of formal employment. The occupational family “salespeople and demonstrators in stores or markets” leads the ranking of formal-sector separations, with 10.4% of the national total. Salespeople who left that year had stayed an average of 1.1 years in the job, and those still employed on December 31 had 2.4 years, against 1.4 and 3.6 years for the formal labor market as a whole. In retail and wholesale trade, the overall turnover rate reached 63.3%, and the adjusted rate, which excludes resignations, retirements, deaths and transfers, reached 41.9%.

Source	Year	Sample and method	Main finding
The Bridge Group, SDR report, 10th edition (consultancy)	2025	351 B2B companies, 78% in North America, 83% software; online survey, 2024 and 2025	SDRs stay 1.9 years in the role, 3.0-month ramp, median attrition of 40% a year with 16 points from promotions
The Bridge Group, AE report, 10th edition (consultancy)	2026	158 B2B companies; online survey, first half of 2026	Account executive ramp of 6.2 months; 48% hit quota
DIEESE, Rotatividade no mercado de trabalho brasileiro	2016	RAIS records for 2014, formal-sector jobs	Store salespeople lead separations; those who left had stayed 1.1 years
Shi, Sridhar, Grewal and Lilien, Journal of Marketing	2017	Data from a Fortune 500 firm, difference-in-differences with selection bias correction	A rep’s departure cuts annual sales in that rep’s accounts by 13.2% to 17.6%
Sunder, Kumar, Goreczny and Maurer, Journal of Marketing Research	2017	6,727 salespeople followed for two years, proportional hazard model	Peer departures raise a rep’s chance of leaving, and peer effects outweigh individual factors
Gartner, survey of B2B sellers	2022	908 B2B sellers, December 2021 and January 2022	89% report burnout and 54% say they are looking for another job
Kuhn and Yu, NBER working paper	2019	Daily sales from 118 menswear stores of a single company, 2015 and 2016	With policies that cover the vacancy, turnover costs stay moderate

What does it cost to lose a salesperson?

The cost of a departure has more parts than the HR spreadsheet usually records. René Darmon proposed in the Journal of Marketing in 1990 a method to calculate sales force turnover costs by segment of salespeople, separating promotions, voluntary exits, dismissals and uncontrollable turnover. The calculation covers separation, recruiting and selection, training, vacant territory, the skill gap between the rep who leaves and the one who arrives, and operating costs. Because the cost varies with the age, tenure and education of the person leaving, the company gains more when it focuses retention on the group whose departure costs the most.

Cost component	What it includes	Where the operation measures it
Separation	Severance, manager and HR time	Payroll and HR system
Recruiting and selection	Job ads, recruiters, interviews, leadership hours	HR, with estimated manager hours
Training and ramp	Onboarding track and months below productivity	CRM, from start date and time to first close
Vacant territory	Accounts with no owner and prospecting on hold	CRM, from accounts with inactive owners and activity in the period
Skill gap	Lower conversion and deal size from the replacement	CRM, comparing the book before and after the change
Book of business	Revenue lost in the departing rep’s accounts	CRM integrated with billing, per account, twelve months before and after

The book loses 13.2% to 17.6% of sales

The most useful data point for the board comes from Shi, Sridhar, Grewal and Lilien, who published in the Journal of Marketing in 2017 an analysis using data from a Fortune 500 firm. With a difference-in-differences design and a correction for selection bias, the authors estimated that a rep transition cuts annual sales in the affected accounts by 13.2% to 17.6%. New hires recovered less of that loss than existing reps, and among existing reps, those with industry experience similar to the departing rep did better. Reps with a stronger past performance record did not recover more than average or low performers.

Leaders often hand the book to the best rep available, and the study indicates that knowing the customer’s industry weighs more than a quota track record. The account handover protocol is in account portfolio management, and Shi and colleagues give the board the economic case for applying it.

The cost depends on what the company does with the vacancy

Kuhn and Yu, in a 2019 NBER working paper revised in 2020 and not peer reviewed in that version, measured turnover costs in the sales teams of 118 menswear stores of a single company, using daily sales data for 2015 and 2016. Beyond short-staffing and onboarding, they found the time coworkers spend recruiting the replacement and the drop in team morale after a departure is announced. Total cost was moderate, with 10% higher turnover costing about the same as a 0.6% wage increase, because the company’s policies meant only 25% of departures left the team short-staffed. A store fills the vacancy in a few days, while in B2B sales the account loses the history of the relationship.

The famous number without a primary source

Blogs and vendor materials repeat that replacing a sales rep costs about US$ 115,000, a figure attributed to a study by DePaul University’s sales leadership center. I looked for the report on the university’s site and did not find the original publication, with sample and method, and the texts that repeat the number disagree on what it includes. I do not use that figure, and I prefer that the company calculate its own cost with the components in the table above.

An illustrative example, with made-up numbers: a company with ten account executives and three departures a year leaves each seat empty for two months, and the replacement spends six months producing half of what is expected. Each departure equals five months of a fully ramped rep producing nothing, and the three add up to fifteen months, more than one full rep per year, before counting the revenue the book loses.

Why do salespeople quit?

Gartner surveyed 908 B2B sellers between December 2021 and January 2022 and found 89% reporting burnout from work and 54% saying they were looking for another job. The firm separated two factors in a seller’s energy, drive and drag, the latter showing up as procrastination, boredom and difficulty focusing. Among sellers with high drag, 70% were looking for another job, against 7% among those with low drag, and mean quota attainment for low-drag sellers was 1.7 times higher. Gartner named four key sources of drag: lack of development opportunities, feeling like a cog in a machine, lack of clear manager feedback and a high burden of non-value-added administrative tasks, such as seeking multiple approvals for deals.

All four causes depend on how the sales organization is managed, and none of them is pay. In the same survey, 59% of sellers said their leadership does not understand how to motivate them.

One colleague’s exit pulls the next

Sunder, Kumar, Goreczny and Maurer followed 6,727 salespeople for two years and tested the weight of individual factors, such as relative performance, customer satisfaction and goal attainment, against peer factors, such as performance variance in the group and coworker departures. Peer turnover, voluntary or involuntary, raised a rep’s probability of leaving considerably, and peer effects outweighed individual ones. Each departure opens a risk window for the team, and the manager who treats an exit as an isolated event misses the conversation with those who stayed.

What reduces sales rep turnover?

The table organizes the levers sales leadership controls by the signal that shows up in the routine before a resignation.

Cause the research points to	Signal in the routine or the CRM	What leadership does
Long ramp and onboarding without milestones (The Bridge Group)	New rep with no first proposal after 60 days	Track with observable milestones and a book only after certification
Lack of manager feedback (Gartner)	1:1 canceled or reduced to a forecast review	1:1 with a call recording and one behavior at a time
Lack of development and a path (Gartner)	Nobody knows the criteria to become an AE or key account manager	Written career track, with criteria and timeline
Administrative overload (Gartner)	Quotes in spreadsheets and discount approvals by email	Cut steps and fields nobody uses
Peer departures (Sunder and colleagues)	Two exits in the same quarter on the same team	One-on-one conversations with those who stayed and a workload review
Book loss in the handover (Shi and colleagues)	Accounts with inactive owners and lower purchases after the change	Handover protocol and a replacement with industry experience

Onboarding that shortens the ramp

The ramp defines how much the company pays for each hire and weighs on the decision to stay, because a rep who goes months without closing and without knowing what is expected carries the drag Gartner describes. In a hypothetical two-year tenure, the 6.2-month account executive ramp in the 2026 survey takes up a quarter of the time with the company. I detail the 30, 60 and 90-day track with certification by stage in sales onboarding.

Manager coaching and feedback

Of Gartner’s four sources of drag, the lack of manager feedback is the cheapest to address. A 1:1 that turns into a forecast review leaves the rep without knowing what to change in the next customer meeting, and the one that works takes a recording or a CRM deal and works on one behavior, such as the impact question in discovery. The Bridge Group records 6.4 SDRs per manager, a reference for sizing that agenda.

A career plan with criteria

Promoting an SDR to account executive reduces the company’s turnover, even if it raises the role’s, and the drop from 34% to 16% between 2020 and 2024 shows that this path narrowed in the sample. Without written promotion criteria, the rep looks outside for the next step.

Quota, variable pay and tools

The Bridge Group recorded only 60% of SDRs hitting quota, the lowest in the series, and 48% of account executives. The survey does not test the link between quota and exits, but a plan in which half the team falls short calls for review, the subject of sales commission. Administrative tasks show up in the selling time measurements, in which quotes and data entry take up a good part of the week.

What these data do not say

The Bridge Group survey comes from a consultancy that sells strategy and enablement to sales teams, with a sample concentrated in North America and in subscription software. The report itself warns that the sample skews toward companies with engaged sales development leadership, and the numbers are reported by leaders, without audited HR records.

The DIEESE data are twelve years old and cover store salespeople with formal contracts, with short cycles and lower pay than B2B sellers. Novo CAGED microdata allow a cut by occupation, but I did not find a more recent official study with salesperson tenure, and people working as contractors or independent sales agents fall outside RAIS.

Shi and colleagues use data from a single company, and the loss varies with the industry and each customer’s relationship with the rep. In the study by Sunder and colleagues, the peer effect may also reflect a bad manager affecting everyone at the same time.

The Gartner survey is self-reported and was run at the height of the wave of resignations that followed the pandemic. Saying you are looking for a job and resigning are different things, and the association between drag and quota does not prove that one causes the other: a rep who sells little may feel more drag because of selling little.

What leadership does with these numbers

The plan below fits in a quarter and starts from your team’s numbers.

1. Calculate turnover by reason. Promotion, voluntary exit and dismissal, by role and team, over the last 24 months.
2. Record each rep’s start date in the CRM. Measure tenure and ramp by hiring cohort and compare cohorts with each other.
3. Measure the cost to the book. Compare, with finance, revenue from each departing rep’s accounts in the twelve months before and after the change.
4. Diagnose drag. Use 1:1s and a short survey with Gartner’s four sources.
5. Write the career track. Criteria for each step, expected timeline and who decides, reviewed with HR.
6. Set up the exit protocol. Interim owner on the day notice is given, a handover note per account and a replacement chosen for experience in the customer’s industry.
7. Talk to the team after each departure. In the following two weeks, the manager has a one-on-one conversation with each person on the team.

What HR and L&D need to consider

HR usually tracks turnover for the company as a whole, and the cost concentrates in segments, as Darmon proposed in 1990. Break the indicator down by role, team and manager, cross it with start dates and book revenue in the CRM, and use Gartner’s categories in exit interviews. In training, the investment with the greatest effect on retention is usually in first-line managers, who run the 1:1s and hold the team together after a departure.

Part of the cost of turnover comes from a sales process that lives in the head of the person who leaves, and with discovery, questions and stage criteria in writing, the replacement ramps faster. That is the work of the in-company consultative selling training, run on the team’s real deals, which leaves the company with the consultative selling playbook and the needs discovery framework, the foundation the new rep and the manager use from day one.

Frequently asked questions

What is the sales rep turnover rate?

In The Bridge Group’s 2025 survey of 351 B2B companies, median attrition from the SDR role in 2024 was 40% a year, with 16 points from promotions. In Brazil, DIEESE recorded an overall turnover rate of 63.3% in trade in 2014, with RAIS data for store salespeople. Calculate your team’s rate separating promotions, voluntary exits and dismissals.

How long does a salesperson stay with a company?

SDRs stay an average of 1.9 years in the role, about 23 months, according to The Bridge Group. In Brazil, store salespeople who left in 2014 had stayed an average of 1.1 years in the job, according to DIEESE. I did not find a recent primary source for Brazilian B2B sellers.

What does it cost to lose a salesperson?

The cost adds up separation, recruiting, training, ramp, vacant territory, skill gap and revenue lost in the book. A study using data from a Fortune 500 firm estimated a 13.2% to 17.6% drop in annual sales in the departing rep’s accounts. The figure of about US$ 115,000 that circulates online has no accessible primary source.

Why do salespeople quit?

In Gartner’s survey of 908 B2B sellers, the main sources of drag were lack of development, feeling like a cog, lack of manager feedback and administrative overload. Coworker departures also raise the chance of a rep leaving, according to a study of 6,727 salespeople.

How do you reduce turnover in sales?

Shorten the ramp with milestone-based onboarding, run 1:1s with feedback on real deals, write the career criteria and cut administrative tasks nobody uses. After each departure, talk to those who stayed and hand over the book with a protocol, choosing the replacement for experience in the customer’s industry.

How do you prepare managers and the team to reduce turnover?

Start with first-line managers, practicing 1:1s on recordings and CRM deals and the book handover protocol. For the team, a written playbook and an onboarding track shorten the time to first results, and career criteria show the next step inside the company.