Hunter priced four AI SDRs from public pages. Do the cost-per-reply math before you take the sales call

Most AI SDR vendors will not let you try the product before you buy it. On October 6, Hunter published a review of four of them, Artisan, 11x, Salesforge and AiSDR, and said up front that it did not test any of them because it could not: most offer no free trial, and some will not sell without a sales call. What Hunter did instead is useful for a revenue leader. It put the public prices, the vendors’ own reply rates and the vendors’ own fit rules on one page.

Hunter sells outreach software itself, so read this as a competitor’s reading of public material. It is not a product test. It is still a useful price sheet for a category whose public prices are sparse.

What the public pages say

Hunter dates its price band to September 2026. As of then:

• Artisan (Ava): the price list came off the site between May 12 and July 22, 2026. An archived page showed $600 a month. Every pricing call to action is “Talk to sales.”
• 11x (Alice): one Growth tier at $3,750 a month, billed annually, which is $36,000 a year. Everything else is quote-only, and access is demo-gated.
• Salesforge (Agent Frank): $499 a month, billed quarterly, with email infrastructure extra. Access sits behind a qualification call.
• AiSDR: $250, $900 and $2,500 a month. The $250 Solo tier is the only one of the four you can buy without a sales call.

On results, Hunter writes that the vendors’ own averages sit around a 2 to 3% reply rate. That is a vendor-stated figure, not a measured one. Hunter also presents an analysis of 18 Reddit discussions about these tools that coded them 22% positive, 46% conditional and 32% negative.

What the vendors say about fit

The most useful lines come from the vendors themselves. Hunter reports that Salesforge’s CEO says on camera that six-figure deals are “not a very good fit at all,” that a market under about 6,000 accounts is “high risk,” and that Agent Frank needs at least 1,000 active contacts at all times.

The inputs are the same as for any outbound: in Hunter’s FAQ, a defined ICP, a proven offer you can write down, proof points, and enough market to keep about 1,000 contacts active. The tools call that “training.” They cannot supply it for you.

A worked example: cost per reply

The sticker price tells you little. Divide the price for that stretch by the replies it could produce. Here is the arithmetic with one illustrative assumption: the tool works through 1,000 new contacts a month, or 12,000 a year. That volume is an assumption for this example, not a vendor figure; swap in your own.

	11x Growth	Salesforge
Price for that stretch	$36,000 (one year)	$1,497 (one quarter of billing at $499 a month, before email infrastructure)
Contacts in that stretch	12,000	3,000
Replies at 2% / 3%	240 / 360	60 / 90
Cost per reply at 2% / 3%	$150 / $100	about $25 / about $17

Three things this table does not include, and you should add them before you compare:

1. What Hunter did not price: Salesforge’s email infrastructure is extra. Also add the hours your team spends writing the ICP and reviewing sends.
2. Reply quality. A reply is not a meeting. An Artisan best-practices video, quoted by Hunter, says some customers get close to a 2% positive response rate, while others get none.
3. The commitment. A bad first month on an annual contract still costs the year. Compare the full term, not the monthly figure.

Then put the same number next to what a reply costs you today from a human SDR or your current sequence tool. If you do not know that number, that is the first thing to find out.

A three-gate fit test

Before any vendor call, answer three questions. If any answer is no, keep that motion with a person for now.

1. Is the market big enough? Count the accounts in your ICP. Under about 6,000 is the range Salesforge’s CEO calls high risk. Hunter adds that a narrow market, where one sequence going wrong for a couple of hours can do noticeable damage to your brand, is a poor fit for these tools.
2. Is the deal the right size? Salesforge’s CEO calls six-figure deals a poor fit. Keep those accounts with a person.
3. Can you write the inputs down today? One paragraph for the ICP, one for the offer, and three proof points you are allowed to use. If you cannot write them, the tool cannot either.

Passing all three does not mean the tool will work. It means the vendor’s own conditions are met, so a pilot result will tell you something.

What to do this week

• Count the accounts in your ICP and write the number down.
• Pull your current cost per reply from your sequence tool or SDR team.
• Fill in the table above with your own monthly volume and each vendor’s contract term.
• Write the ICP, offer and proof points in one page, before anyone books a demo.
• Mark every account with a six-figure deal size as human-only.

If the question is whether an AI SDR belongs in your motion, CRO of One sells a five-hour consult block at $400 an hour for that decision.