If you have spent any time researching outbound sales recently, you have likely come across two phrases that sound almost identical but describe completely different realities: done for you and done with you.
The distinction matters more than most people realize. Choose the wrong model for your business, and you will either overpay for a service you did not need, or spend months trying to run a system that was never built properly for you.
This guide breaks down both models clearly: what they include, what they cost, who they are built for, and how to decide which one fits. It applies to established B2B businesses where one new customer, or a few repeat orders, pays for the service, from consultants and agencies to software and education companies. Outbound is one of three lanes at Deligatr, alongside Inbound (AEO, GEO and SEO) and Full Hybrid, which joins both in one CRM record. If you have already decided to run it yourself, here is exactly how to do that as a consultant.
What Is Done For You Outbound?
Done for you outbound means exactly what it says. A third party handles every element of your outbound sales operation: targeting, infrastructure, copywriting, outreach, response handling, and meeting booking. You do not touch the campaigns. You attend the meetings.
This is the model Deligatr offers as its Outbound package, $2,500 a month on monthly billing. The client's involvement is minimal by design: one ICP workshop at the beginning, a weekly check-in call, and showing up to the qualified meetings that land in their calendar.
What a fully managed done-for-you service typically includes:
- ICP targeting strategy built from a discovery session
- Cold email infrastructure: dedicated domains, multi-inbox setup, full SPF/DKIM/DMARC authentication
- LinkedIn account management and outreach across multiple profiles
- Human-reviewed copywriting for every sequence
- AI-assisted research and personalization, with every message human-reviewed
- Response handling: every reply read, qualified, and acted on
- Meeting booking directly to your calendar with a pre-call brief
- Weekly performance reporting
The key characteristic is complete delegation. The client is not involved in execution at any point after the initial setup. This is genuinely done for them.
What Is Done With You Outbound?
Done with you outbound is a different arrangement. The infrastructure, configuration, and system are built by the service provider, but execution is handed back to the client. You run the campaigns yourself, with a properly built system behind you and support available when you need it.
This is what DeliSolo is designed to deliver. Deligatr sets up the entire outbound stack (DeliHub CRM, DeliMail cold email infrastructure, DeliReach LinkedIn automation) with pre-built sequences for your vertical, a full handover training session, and ongoing concierge support. You run the campaigns. We make sure everything works.
What a done-with-you service typically includes:
- Full system configuration: CRM, cold email, LinkedIn, AI chat
- Pre-built sequences written for your specific industry
- ICP definition session to shape targeting
- Handover training before you go live
- Ongoing support access: not a tool and a tutorial, an actual support team
- Campaign performance visibility through a single dashboard
The key characteristic is shared responsibility. The setup is professional. The execution is yours.
The Third Option: DIY Tools
Before comparing the two managed models, it is worth naming the third option clearly, because most people underestimate how much work it involves.
DIY outbound means buying tools like Instantly, Smartlead, HeyReach or Expandi and building the system yourself. There is no shortage of YouTube tutorials and Reddit threads explaining how to do this.
What those tutorials rarely mention is the time cost, and all of it lands on you:
- The initial setup before a single email sends
- Domain purchasing, DNS configuration, SPF/DKIM/DMARC on every domain
- Mailbox warm-up over four to six weeks before approaching full volume
- LinkedIn account preparation to avoid triggering restrictions
- Sequence writing, A/B testing, deliverability monitoring
- Every month after that: managing campaigns, qualifying responses, updating copy
For a founder or solo professional, this is not a realistic option unless outbound is your full-time job. The tools are cheap. The time is not.
Done For You vs Done With You: A Direct Comparison
Factor | Done For You (Fully Managed) | Done With You (DeliSolo) | DIY Tools |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who runs campaigns | Service provider | You | You |
| Setup handled by | Service provider | Service provider | You |
| Your setup time | About one hour (ICP workshop) | An onboarding call, then you run it | All of it is yours |
| Your monthly management | A weekly check-in | You run campaigns and replies | All of it is yours |
| Copywriting | Written and managed for you | Pre-built, you adapt | You write everything |
| Response handling | Handled for you | You manage replies | You qualify every reply |
| Meeting booking | Booked to your calendar | You schedule | Manual coordination |
| Infrastructure | Built and maintained for you | Built by provider, you run it | You build and maintain |
| Support | Dedicated account manager | Concierge support access | Community forums, docs |
| Starting price | $2,500/month (Outbound), less on quarterly or annual billing | $197/month (DeliHub only), $396 with one channel, $499 full DeliSuite | Tool subscriptions (AI SDR plans publish $250 to $2,500/month) plus your time |
| Best for | Founders who want to delegate everything | Operators who want control without complexity | Those with time and technical appetite |
Who Uses Done For You Outbound? (ICP Examples)
The done-for-you model fits established B2B businesses where time is scarce and what a customer is worth justifies delegation. Typical examples:
Marketing and digital agencies that are too busy delivering client work to do their own new business development consistently. See the marketing agencies page.
Recruiting and staffing firms where business development is a full-time job that consultants cannot absorb alongside candidate delivery. See the recruiting agencies page.
Consultants and advisory firms where the founder is the entire sales team and has no time for systematic prospecting. See the consultants page.
Regulated financial services firms where client lifetime value is high and referral dependency is a known risk. See the financial advisors page and our guide to how financial advisors get new clients without relying on referrals.
In every case the pattern is the same: a high-ticket service, a time-poor operator, and a referral-dependent pipeline that is not reliable enough to plan around.
When Done For You Makes More Sense
The fully managed model is the right choice when time is genuinely scarce and the cost of your own time exceeds the cost of the service.
It makes sense if:
- You are a founder doing everything yourself and outbound keeps getting deprioritized
- You have tried building outbound internally and it has not gained traction
- You have high-ticket deals where one or two new clients per month justifies the investment
- You want meetings in your calendar without touching a single campaign, sequence or response ever again
- You are between SDR hires and need pipeline immediately without a 3-month ramp cycle
Webtec is instructive here, with an important disclosure: Webtec is Deligatr's sister company, the agency Deligatr was built inside, so this is one case from our own business, not a typical result. Before moving to outbound, Webtec was spending £400 per attended meeting through Meta advertising with a 50% no-show rate. In the first quarter after the switch, cost per meeting fell to about £160, a 60% reduction, and meeting volume doubled. Results depend on your market, your offer and what a customer is worth to you, and one case does not predict yours.
The done-for-you model works best when the value of your time spent on closing and delivery is higher than the cost of delegating pipeline generation entirely.
When Done With You Makes More Sense
The done-with-you model makes sense when you want control, when you have the time to run campaigns yourself, and when the price point of a fully managed service does not yet make sense for your stage.
It makes sense if:
- You understand your market well and want to be involved in how prospects are being approached
- You are an independent professional (a consultant, accountant, broker or solo agency owner) running lean
- You want to build outbound capability internally rather than permanently outsourcing it
- You want the infrastructure built properly without paying for an agency to run it indefinitely
- You are comfortable running campaigns and replies yourself once the system is set up
DeliSolo was built specifically for this profile. The professional who asks: "Can you just set it all up for me so I can run it myself?" gets a full system (CRM, cold email, LinkedIn) configured for their vertical, pre-built sequences ready to go, and a training handover before launch.
The done-with-you model is also an excellent entry point. DeliSolo clients can upgrade to the fully managed service at any time. Because the infrastructure is already built and configured, the transition is straightforward: Deligatr takes over running campaigns rather than the client managing them.
The Cost Reality
One of the most common objections to both managed models is cost. Here is what the actual numbers look like.
The cost of an in-house SDR
The most useful published numbers come from The Bridge Group's 2025 survey of 351 B2B companies (mostly North American software firms, so treat them as a guide to the shape of the cost, not a quote for your market):
- Median on-target earnings: $80,000 a year, split $55,000 base and $25,000 variable
- Average ramp time: 3.0 months before a new SDR is fully productive
- Median annual attrition: 40%, with an average tenure of 1.9 years
- Only 60% of SDRs hit quota, the lowest in the study's history
That is before benefits, payroll costs, tools, data, management time and recruiting, none of which are in the on-target earnings figure. No public benchmark gives a reliable fully loaded number, so build your own from your salary band, your tools and the hours your manager spends.
And that is before accounting for the months where the SDR is ramping and producing no pipeline.
The cost of DIY tools
Tools alone are the cheap part: published AI SDR plans range from $250 to $2,500 a month. The real cost is your time, including setup, warm-up, copy, monitoring and reply handling. Price that at your own hourly rate and the number changes quickly.
The cost of done-for-you outbound
Deligatr's Outbound package is $2,500 a month on monthly billing, or $6,000 per quarter and $18,000 per year paid up front. Setup takes about a week, domains warm for four to six weeks, and first meetings typically arrive in weeks four to six. There is no hiring ramp, and the Bridge Group figures above show what a hire costs before benefits, tools and management.
The cost of done-with-you outbound
DeliSolo is $197 a month with DeliHub only, $396 a month with DeliHub and one channel tool, or $499 a month for the full DeliSuite (DeliHub, DeliChat, DeliMail and DeliReach), on monthly billing with no long-term commitment. The system is built professionally, and your ongoing time commitment is running the campaigns and replies rather than building and maintaining the infrastructure.
The right question is not which option is cheapest. It is which option produces the best return on what you are actually spending, including your time.
Not Sure Which Model Fits Your Business Right Now?
Before choosing between done-for-you and done-with-you, it helps to understand where your business actually stands. If client acquisition is genuinely your biggest constraint, the fully managed model will move the needle fastest. If your operations or strategy have bigger gaps, those might be worth addressing first.
The free QualiPi business health assessment scores your business across five areas: revenue predictability, client acquisition, cash flow, operations, and strategy, and shows which area is holding you back.
Starting With One Model and Moving to Another
Some businesses start with the done-with-you model and graduate to done-for-you as they scale. Others run done-for-you outbound for new business acquisition while managing existing account outreach themselves using DeliHub as their CRM backbone. (Deligatr's Full Hybrid package is something different: Inbound and Outbound together, joined in one CRM record.)
The Deli Suite was designed to support both approaches. Every tool (DeliMail, DeliReach, DeliHub, DeliChat) works as a standalone product and as part of a connected stack. Whether Deligatr is running your campaigns or you are running them yourself, the infrastructure and CRM are the same.
This matters because it means switching between models does not require rebuilding anything. The system is already in place. The question is simply who is operating it.
Five Questions to Help You Decide
If you are still unsure which model fits your situation, work through these:
1. How much is an hour of your time worth?
Multiply the hours you would spend each month on campaigns, replies and deliverability by your hourly rate. That is your opportunity cost, and a fully managed service starts to look very different once you write the number down.
2. Do you have the technical appetite to run campaigns yourself?
This is not about capability. Most professionals could learn to run outbound. It is about whether that is a good use of your expertise. A management consultant who spends their evenings managing cold email campaigns is not doing management consulting during those hours.
3. What is your deal value?
The higher your average deal value, the fewer meetings you need per month to justify either model. An accountant whose average client is worth $6,000 a year would need to keep one new client from outbound for most of a year to cover DeliSolo with DeliHub and one channel at $396 a month ($4,752 a year). Run your own numbers with your own deal value.
4. How fast do you need results?
Every model faces the same four to six week warm-up, so first meetings typically arrive in weeks four to six whichever you choose. The done-for-you model is live in about a week because the setup, copy and infrastructure are built for you. The done-with-you model is also live within about a week but needs your time to run. DIY adds your own setup time on top of the same warm-up.
5. Is outbound a core competency you want to build internally?
If the answer is yes, if you want to build the muscle of running your own outreach, the done-with-you model makes sense. If outbound is purely a means to an end and you want to close deals, not manage campaigns, full delegation is the right answer.
The Bottom Line
Done for you and done with you are not better or worse than each other. They are different products for different buyers at different stages.
Done for you is for professionals who want pipeline without touching the operation. Every meeting that appears in their calendar is the result of an outbound system running entirely on their behalf.
Done with you is for operators who want a system built properly, not cobbled together from tutorials, but who want to remain in control of how their prospects are being approached.
Both models beat DIY outbound on time efficiency, and both avoid the fixed cost and ramp of an in-house hire. The question is where you sit on the control vs. delegation spectrum.
Book a consultation and we will walk through your ICP, your deal value and your goals, and give you a clear recommendation on which model fits before you commit to anything.
Book a ConsultationDetails: how DeliSolo works, the Outbound package, and the Deli Suite. Pricing for every package is on the pricing page.
Still deciding which channel to run at all? Our B2B lead generation guide compares seven channels on what each one takes to produce a meeting.
