A person can do things software cannot. Research is not one of them.
The comparison is not people versus software. It is which half of the job each is better at.
What a person is genuinely better at
Everything that requires judgement about a human being. Reading a lukewarm reply and knowing whether to push. Working a referral. Sitting in a call and hearing the objection behind the objection. Deciding a market is not worth the quarter. None of that is a research task, and none of it is something Huntloop attempts.
Where they differ
| The question | Hiring an SDR | Huntloop |
|---|---|---|
| Who builds the list? | Often the SDR — commonly a third to a half of the week, which is an expensive researcher who also does outreach. | Huntloop, continuously, from a profile the team can read and argue with. |
| What happens to what they learned when they leave? | Most of it leaves too. | It is in the profile, the rules and the recorded overrides — versioned, so a score from March is still comparable. |
| How long until it is producing? | Ramp. Usually measured in months. | A first scored list on the day you set it up. |
| Can it hold a conversation? | Yes, and this is the reason to hire one. | No. Huntloop drafts an opener and stops. Everything after the reply is a person's job. |
When to choose hiring an SDR instead
If what you are short of is *conversations* rather than *candidates* — you already know who to talk to and nobody has time to talk to them — hire the person. Huntloop makes a good SDR faster; it does not replace one.
Judge it on your own market
Put in your domain and read what it produces. That is worth more than any table.