Outsource when monthly installs sit under the breakeven line below, or for a launch window; build in-house when a ramped team will knock the same footprint for 24 months or more above that line [field experience]. A 10-rep W-2 team costs $567,200 to $988,900 a year before commission; per-activation outsourcing stops being cheaper between 95 and 412 installs a month, depending on the gap between vendor fee and your commission.
What a 10-rep in-house team costs for 12 months
Assumptions: 10 W-2 seats, one field manager, base pay plus a per-install commission. [estimate] marks cells with no public source.
| Line item | Basis | Low | High |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rep base pay, 10 seats | $30,000 to $40,000 base per seat [estimate]; BLS median for door-to-door sales workers (41-9091), $41,380 including commission, 2025 | $300,000 | $400,000 |
| Employer payroll taxes on base | 7.65% FICA (IRS) plus $42 FUTA per head, 16 to 20 heads through 10 seats; state unemployment excluded | $23,600 | $31,400 |
| Health, paid leave, retirement | 10% [estimate] to 30% of base (upper bound: BLS ECEC, benefits 30.1% of private-industry compensation, March 2026) | $30,000 | $120,000 |
| Workers comp and general liability | Insureon small-business averages, $540 a year general liability plus $643 workers comp, times 3 to 10 for a 16 to 20 head field team [estimate] | $4,000 | $12,000 |
| Recruiting | 16 to 20 hires in year one at 60% to 100% attrition (Sequifi), at $1,633 median to $4,700 average per hire (Zippia) | $26,100 | $94,000 |
| Training and onboarding | $1,105 (Zippia small-company training cost) to $3,000 [estimate] per hire | $17,700 | $60,000 |
| Field sales manager, loaded | $80,000 to $110,000 salary times 1.25 to 1.35 loading [estimate]; BLS median for all sales managers, $148,270 | $100,000 | $148,500 |
| Software and devices | 11 seats at $59 to $75 per user per month (SalesRabbit) plus $500 to $900 per seat for devices [estimate] | $13,300 | $19,800 |
| Mileage | 30 to 50 miles per rep per selling day, 230 to 240 days [estimate], at 72.5 to 76 cents per mile (2026 IRS rates) | $50,000 | $91,200 |
| Permits and background checks | Varies by city and vendor [estimate]; see solicitation permits, CPNI, and badges | $2,500 | $12,000 |
| Fixed total, 12 months | Before any commission | $567,200 | $988,900 |
That is $47,300 to $82,400 a month, or $56,700 to $98,900 per seat per year. Variable cost sits on top: residential per-install commissions of $100 to $300 (Sequifi, August 2026), or $108 to $323 after 7.65% employer payroll tax.
60% to 100%
Annual attrition in door-to-door sales, industry estimate. Holding 10 seats takes 16 to 20 hires in year one.
Source: Sequifi, July 2026What outsourcing costs
A fiber dealer or contracted crew charges one fee per activated subscriber, charged back if the customer cancels inside a window; windows run 60 to 180 days (Sequifi). Knoqly's fee is agreed in writing per market and this page prints no rate; Sales Focus and Chipr publish the model with no fee stated. The fee replaces every row above, ramp months included; classification exposure moves only as far as the indemnity clause says.
The fixed column is $0, the whole trade: more per install than a ramped in-house rep, nothing in months when nobody knocks. Sales Focus, a generalist outsourcer with W-2 reps, claims 45 days or less to a trained team; Chipr claims a few weeks.
The breakeven
In-house cost per month is fixed cost plus commission times installs; outsourced cost is fee times installs. Set them equal: breakeven installs per month = fixed cost per month ÷ (vendor fee minus your loaded commission per install). Fill in the fee from any quote.
| Fee minus your commission | Breakeven at $47,300 fixed per month | At $82,400 fixed per month |
|---|---|---|
| $200 per install | 237 installs a month (24 per rep) | 412 (41 per rep) |
| $300 per install | 158 (16 per rep) | 275 (27 per rep) |
| $400 per install | 118 (12 per rep) | 206 (21 per rep) |
| $500 per install | 95 (9 per rep) | 165 (16 per rep) |
At a $300 gap and the high fixed column, the team needs 275 installs a month, 27 per rep. A rep at full productivity can do that: one vendor reports 3.3 orders per rep per selling day in 2026 blitz deployments (Velocity One vendor claim; orders rather than installs). The catch is full productivity. Sales Focus puts a new rep at 3 to 6 months; Chipr puts a new sales organization at 10 to 12 months. If each seat is productive for 7 of 12 months [estimate], divide the per-rep column by 0.58: 27 becomes 47. Outsourcing wins under that line; in-house wins above it once the team is stable.
The fiber take rate calculator charts four years of penetration, revenue, and cumulative acquisition spend for door-to-door and your other channels side by side. The service page covers what a contracted crew does.
The hybrid: in-house core, contracted launch crews
Ziply Fiber's residential direct sales includes door-to-door account executives and third-party contract sales (Ziply Fiber, May 2025). In August 2026 Ziply solicited master agent partners for door-to-door in newly launched areas (TipRanks). That is the hybrid: an in-house core that owns the mature footprint and the standard at the door, contracted crews for each launch. Sales Focus's option to convert the team to your employees after 12 months is the same idea in sequence.
- Fits when you open two or more markets a year, or when a mature market's take rate stalls and a blitz crew can re-knock it.
- Costs one thing: matching. Require a daily sales file from both channels that you can check against your install report.
1099 vs W-2 for door-to-door reps
Two federal tests apply. The IRS weighs behavioral control, financial control, and the type of relationship; an employer that misclassifies without a reasonable basis can be held liable for the worker's employment taxes under Internal Revenue Code section 3509. Under the FLSA, the Department of Labor's 2024 rule (29 CFR Part 795, effective March 11, 2024) weighs six economic reality factors: opportunity for profit or loss, investment, permanence, control, whether the work is integral to the business, and skill and initiative. DOL's fact sheet notes the rule is in litigation and points to Field Assistance Bulletin 2025-1 for its enforcement position.
For the table: a W-2 team carries the payroll tax, benefits, workers comp, and mileage rows and no misclassification exposure. A 1099 team drops those rows and picks up exposure that grows with control; mandated hours, assigned turf, GPS tracking, docked pay, and quit penalties are the pattern regulators look for. With a dealer, the exposure moves into the agreement: read the indemnity clause before the fee.
Eight questions before you decide
- How many installs a month will your footprint support over 24 months, and is that above the breakeven for the quoted fee?
- How many months a year will reps knock new addresses rather than re-knock a mature footprint?
- Who recruits the 16 to 20 hires that hold 10 seats in year one, and at what cost per hire?
- Do you have a manager who has run door-to-door, or are you hiring one at $100,000 to $148,500 loaded?
- Which classification will you use, which state tests apply, and who has signed off?
- What is your chargeback window, and do both commission plans trigger at activation?
- Can your systems confirm every sale from either channel against your own install report?
- When the build fills, does the team redeploy, get laid off, or convert to employees?
Turn these into an RFP with the door-to-door sales RFP template.
Should an ISP outsource door-to-door sales?
Outsource when monthly installs sit below the breakeven for the quoted fee, or for a launch window. Build in-house when a stable team will knock the same footprint for 24 months or more above that volume. Ziply Fiber does both (Ziply Fiber, May 2025).
How much does a door-to-door sales team cost?
A 10-seat W-2 team costs $567,200 to $988,900 a year in fixed cost plus $108 to $323 per install in loaded commission. A contracted crew costs one fee per activated subscriber and nothing fixed.
How long does it take to build an in-house door-to-door team?
One outsourcer states 45 days to a trained team and 3 to 6 months to a fully productive rep (Sales Focus); another cites 10 to 12 months for a new sales organization (Chipr). At 60% to 100% annual attrition, you replace 6 to 10 of 10 seats every year.
Should fiber sales reps be 1099 or W-2?
A legal determination, and this page is not legal advice. The IRS weighs behavioral control, financial control, and the type of relationship; the Department of Labor weighs six economic reality factors under its 2024 rule, which is in litigation. More control over hours, turf, and methods points toward employee status.
What is the difference between a fiber dealer and an in-house sales team?
A dealer is a contracted sales organization paid per activated subscriber; it employs or contracts the reps, runs recruiting and management, and carries the fixed cost. An in-house team sits on your payroll.
Sources
- Zippia, cost of hiring statistics (updated January 26, 2026) $4,700 average and $1,633 median cost per hire; $1,105 annual training cost per employee at small companies.
- Sales Focus Inc, door-to-door sales outsourcing Vendor claims: 45 days or less to a trained team, 3 to 6 months to a fully productive rep, 50% or more annual turnover, W-2 reps.
- Sales Focus Inc, telecommunications sales outsourcing Option to bring the outsourced team in-house after 12 months.
- Chipr, D2D sales outsourcing vs in-house sales teams (July 6, 2026) 10 to 12 months to full productivity for a new sales organization, citing Sales Management Association research; vendor claim: a managed team in the field within a few weeks.
- Sequifi, what gives companies a recruiting edge in D2D sales (July 27, 2026) 60% to 100% annual attrition, an industry estimate for high-volume organizations; 70% first-year attrition is the post's worked-example assumption. Software vendor figures.
- Sequifi, how fiber internet companies pay their sales reps (August 18, 2026) $100 to $300 residential per-install commission; 60 to 180 day chargeback windows.
- BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, sales managers Median annual wage $148,270, May 2025, all sales managers.
- BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, March 2026 Benefits 30.1% and wages 69.9% of private-industry total compensation.
- O*NET OnLine, door-to-door sales workers, news and street vendors, and related workers (41-9091) Median annual wage $41,380 and median hourly $19.89, 2025 BLS wage data as republished by O*NET; the BLS OEWS page for this occupation no longer resolves (checked 2026-09-07).
- BLS OEWS frequently asked questions, wage definition OEWS wages are straight-time gross pay; base rates, commissions, incentive pay, and production bonuses are included.
- IRS Topic 751, Social Security and Medicare withholding rates Employer share 6.2% plus 1.45%; 2026 wage base $184,500.
- IRS Topic 759, Form 940 and FUTA 6.0% on the first $7,000 of wages, credit up to 5.4%, so $42 per employee after the credit.
- IRS standard mileage rates 2026 business rate 72.5 cents through June 30, 76 cents from July 1.
- IRS, independent contractor or employee Three common-law categories; IRC section 3509; Form SS-8; Section 530 relief.
- US Department of Labor, misclassification of employees as independent contractors under the FLSA 2024 rule, 29 CFR Part 795, effective March 11, 2024.
- US Department of Labor, Fact Sheet 13 (March 2024) Six economic reality factors; litigation note; Field Assistance Bulletin 2025-1.
- California Labor and Workforce Development Agency, ABC test A worker is an employee unless the hiring entity satisfies all three conditions.
- Massachusetts General Laws c. 149, s. 148B An individual performing any service is an employee unless all three prongs are met.
- New Jersey Department of Labor, independent contractors and misclassification ABC test under N.J.S.A. 43:21-19(i)(6); the employer carries the burden on all three parts.
- SalesRabbit pricing $59 to $75 per user per month list price.
- Insureon, general liability insurance cost (updated March 30, 2026) $45 a month average for small businesses.
- Insureon, workers compensation insurance cost $54 a month, $643 a year average for small businesses.
- Ziply Fiber, meet the team: residential direct sales (May 8, 2025) Five divisions including door-to-door account executives and third-party contract sales.
- TipRanks, Ziply Fiber targets partner-led expansion of door-to-door fiber sales (August 22, 2026) Ziply seeking master agent partners for door-to-door in newly launched areas.
- Velocity One, live operating figures (snapshot August 14, 2026) Vendor claim: 3.3 orders per rep per selling day across 2026 blitz deployments.