Ramp Benchmarks: Provenance and How the Skill Uses Them

Externally sourced

• SDR ramp ~3.1 months average: The Bridge Group SDR Metrics report (2023). The most methodologically solid number in this space (surveyed SDR organizations, published methodology). Their reports also document the structured-vs-unstructured onboarding gap.
• AE ramp averages stretching toward 5-6 months blended, 3-4 months SMB, 4-6 mid-market, 9-15 enterprise, with the average lengthening since 2020: industry aggregations published 2025-2026. Blog-tier compilations without unified methodology; the skill uses the segmentation shape and the lengthening direction, not the precise figures.

Deliberately excluded

Precise claims like "structured onboarding makes reps productive 37% faster" or "cuts ramp by 3.4 months" circulate in 2025-2026 vendor content without a citable primary study and were excluded under this library's benchmark standard. The skill keeps the direction (structured, milestone-based onboarding ramps materially faster), which every source including The Bridge Group supports, and leaves the multiplier to your own cohort data.

Practice-based rules (validate against your own cohorts)

• Ramped-equivalent capacity accounting and the ramp-cost formula.
• The evidence-gated 30-60-90 arc, the three-outcome gate rule, and moving the wrong-hire discovery from month nine to month two.
• Stepped ramp quota with matched draw.
• The manager cadence minimums (weekly evidence 1:1, two call reviews per week through day 60, written monthly verdict).
• Cohort leading indicators: time to first meeting, first qualified opportunity, first win.

Two cohorts of instrumented ramps produce better numbers than any external benchmark; the skill's defaults exist to get you to that point.