Research · January–June 2026
Cold calling benchmarks 2026: what 809,463 B2B calls show
We analyzed every cold call A-Sales SDRs logged for 61 B2B clients from 5 January to 26 June 2026: how often a person picks up in Europe, the UK and the US, and how often a live conversation becomes a booked meeting.
Key findings
Four numbers worth quoting
Each line below stands on its own. Quote it with a link to this page.
7.8%of live conversations became a booked meeting
In April and May 2026, A-Sales SDRs turned 7.8% of live cold call conversations into booked meetings, against 4.6% for the average rep in Gong's study of 300M+ cold calls.
14.0%of cold calls answered on European campaigns
A person answered 14.0% of B2B cold calls on European multi-country campaigns in the first half of 2026, 2.2 times the US rate.
11.4%of cold calls answered in the UK
In the UK, a person answered 11.4% of B2B cold calls in the first half of 2026.
6.4%of cold calls answered in the US
In the US, a person answered 6.4% of B2B cold calls in the first half of 2026, the lowest of the three regions.
Sample: 809,463 B2B cold calls for 61 clients over 25 weeks, 5 January to 26 June 2026.
01 · Pickup
How often a person answers a cold call, by region
Share of B2B cold calls a person picked up, January–June 2026.
| Region | Answered by a person | Calls | Client campaigns |
|---|---|---|---|
| Europe (multi-country campaigns) | 14.0% | 85,189 | 9 |
| United Kingdom | 11.4% | 48,541 | 3 |
| United States | 6.4% | 222,079 | 17 |
A person picked up 14.0% of calls on European multi-country campaigns, 11.4% in the UK and 6.4% in the US. Reaching the same number of people in the US takes about 2.2 times as many dials as in Europe.
An answered call is any call a person picked up. Most published connect rates count only calls that reached the prospect or became a conversation, so they measure something narrower. Compare these figures with each other, not with connect rates elsewhere.
02 · Conversion
How often a conversation becomes a meeting
Share of live cold call conversations that ended in a booked meeting.
In April and May 2026, A-Sales SDRs held about 6,900 live conversations and booked 539 meetings from them: 7.8%. Gong Labs’s analysis of 300M+ cold calls puts the average rep at 4.6% and its top-quartile reps at 16.7%.
Both figures measure the same step: a real conversation turning into a meeting. Meetings are counted when booked, before no-shows and qualification checks.
A meeting rate is where a calling team’s part of the return stops. What the meetings are worth depends on how many are held, your close rate and your deal size: how to calculate outsourced SDR ROI.
Source: Gong Labs, “The hidden power of cold calling: Insights from 300M calls” (July 18, 2024).
Methodology
Where the numbers come from
- Calls and answered calls come from A-Sales’s weekly cold calling log: one row per client campaign per week, 25 working weeks from 5 January to 26 June 2026, 809,463 calls for 61 B2B clients.
- Conversations and meetings come from the month-end SDR dashboards for April and May 2026. The weekly log is within 2.3% (April) and 4.2% (May) of their call counts.
- The log names the countries dialed in some weeks only. Other weeks use each client’s usual market. About 43% of all calls can be tied to one named country; multi-country and unrecorded campaigns count in the total but in no regional rate.
- “Europe” is campaigns that dialed several European countries in the same week. A regional rate also reflects the lists and offers of the campaigns behind it, so the number of client campaigns is shown next to each one.
- Rates are rounded to one decimal place. No prospect, client or call-level data is published.
Not included yet
- July 2026 onwards. A-Sales changed dialers in July; this page will be updated once the second half of the year is complete.
- Show rate, and results by industry or job title. Not yet recorded consistently enough to publish.
Definitions
What we counted
- Call
- One outbound dial to a B2B prospect, as logged by the SDR team.
- Answered call
- A call a person picked up, whether or not it reached the intended prospect or turned into a conversation.
- Live conversation
- An answered call that became a real conversation with a prospect, as counted in the month-end SDR dashboards.
- Booked meeting
- A meeting put in the calendar, counted when booked: before no-shows and before the client’s qualification check.
Cite this research
A-Sales (2026). Cold calling benchmarks 2026: January–June 2026. https://www.a-sales.co/cold-calling-benchmarks
You may reuse the figures and charts with a link to this page (CC BY 4.0). Published 2026-10-06. For the calling behind them, see A-Sales cold calling.
FAQ
Cold calling benchmark questions
In A-Sales’s data from 809,463 B2B cold calls made between January and June 2026, a person answered 14.0% of calls on European multi-country campaigns, 11.4% in the UK and 6.4% in the US. These rates count any call a person picked up, not only conversations with the intended prospect.
A-Sales SDRs booked a meeting from 7.8% of live conversations in April and May 2026 (539 meetings from about 6,900 conversations). Gong Labs’s analysis of 300M+ cold calls puts the average rep at 4.6% and top-quartile reps at 16.7%.
Europe, by a wide margin. On European multi-country campaigns a person answered 14.0% of calls, 2.2 times the US rate of 6.4%. Plan for more dials per conversation when calling into the US.
No. Most published connect rates count calls that reached the intended prospect or became a conversation. The answered-call rate here counts any pickup, so it is higher by construction and should not be compared with published connect rates.
No. The benchmark covers 5 January to 26 June 2026. A-Sales changed dialers in July, and the page will be updated once the rest of 2026 can be measured the same way.
A-Sales SDRs, on outbound campaigns for 61 B2B clients. A-Sales is a calling-first B2B lead generation agency with teams in the US and Europe; its campaigns have influenced $5B in pipeline.
Want these conversations on your calendar?
Tell us who you sell to and where. We'll tell you how many meetings we can book, and what it costs.
- Pay-per-appointment available
- First meetings in 2–4 weeks
- We say no if the fit is wrong